Improving Accessibility of Astronomical Publications

Will you be at the 231st AAS meeting near Washington, DC, in January? The AAS Journals and the AAS Working Group on Accessibility and Disability (WGAD) invite you to a special session to train the general astronomy community about accessibility issues in the published literature. This session will review the WGAD’s 2016 recommendations, “Improving Accessibility of Astronomical Publications,” and will provide a current status update of authoring and access tools for the astronomical literature. Recent initiatives by the AAS and and IOP Publishing during the past year to address the recommendations will be highlighted.

Session attendees will be asked to engage in forward thinking about changes we might make to how we author and publish papers. These changes would be based on universal design principles, anticipating the access needs of astronomers with disabilities. This session will include planning activities to develop a user-centric approach to identifying and addressing barriers for equal participation by astronomers with disabilities presently and as future projects and tools are developed.

This special session will take place on Tuesday, 9 January, from 5:30 to 7:00 pm in National Harbor 6.