A U of T-led project that will help universities internationally provide more consistent and accessible web services to all users, including those with special needs, was recently chosen by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (based in the U.S.) for $2.5 million in support.
The collaborative project, called FLUID, is being led by Jutta Treviranus, director of the Adaptive Technology Resource Centre (ATRC), housed at U of T's Faculty of Information Studies. Her group will help develop and distribute modular, re-useable, swappable interface components for web applications and build the software architecture to support their implementation. FLUID will also raise awareness in academic web culture about the importance of good graphic design.
One example of a component that a university might want to use consistently across applications would be a date-picker, Treviranus explains. Presently one institution might ask for date input via a variety of pop-up calendars, pull-down menus and manual-entry date fields. FLUID would guide an organization's site builders to a standard date-picker easily adapted to users of different ability, language, or access preference.
"The architecture and tools we provide will help ensure that people building various web applications within a large institution use similar components and make it easier for builders to adapt those components for the individual needs of students and educators," says Treviranus. "The end result will be a library of high quality, accessible, usable user-interface components that universities internationally and any number of large organizations around the world can use, and ultimately a better web experience for users."
The project's core partners are the University of California at Berkeley, University of Cambridge, University of British Columbia, and York University (in addition to many other participating universities world-wide). Corporate partners include IBM, Sun Microsystems and Yahoo, and participating community source software projects include Sakai, uPortal, Moodle and Kuali Student. The overall project budget for this phase of FLUID is well over $8 million dollars with more than $3.5 million to be spent at the University of Toronto. Please visit fluidproject.org or atrc.utoronto.ca for more information.
About the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is a private philanthropic institution, with assets of approximately $5.5 billion, that makes grants on a selective basis to institutions of higher education, independent libraries, centers for advanced study, museums, art conservation, and performing arts organizations. For more information, please visit http://www.mellon.org.
CONTACT:
Jutta Treviranus
Director, ARTC
Faculty of Information Studies
Phone: 416-978-5240
jutta.treviranus@utoronto.ca
Kathleen O'Brien
Communications and Development Officer
Faculty of Information Studies
Phone: 416-978-7184
kathleen.obrien@utoronto.ca