Documentation

Manage metadata when producing e-books in the Digital Hub.

References/Prerequisites

• Digital Hub Documentation
• Book Industry Study Group
• EPUB Accessibility 1.1 Specification
• Accessible Publishing Knowledge Base
• Ace by DAISY
• Short Description Text (Alt Text)
• Long Descriptions

BISAC Codes

BISAC (Book Industry Standards and Communications) codes are the US standard of topical categorization, used to guide how books are shelved and for searches in databases.

Scribe updates the BISAC codes used in the Digital Hub as updates become available using the list from the Book Industry Study Group.

ISBNs

There is no single standard for how to present ISBNs.

Scribe recommends presenting ISBNs without hyphens and including the complete ISBN for each version of the book.

If there is no e-ISBN, add the print ISBN in the Project Information tab in the Digital Hub.

Note: The key aspect of choosing the print ISBN for inclusion is the pagination. The print ISBN is used to make a connection between pagination in the e-book and print versions, so the print ISBN should match the pagination of the version from which the ScML/e-book is derived.

If there are multiple print versions that use the same pagination, enter the ISBN for the hardcover into the Digital Hub rather than the paperback or other editions.

Accessibility Options

In the Accessibility tab of the Digital Hub, select the appropriate options.

Accessibility Features

Listing the accessibility features is a requirement for creating discoverable ePub publications.

The features to select are determined by the contents of the book.

For a typical academic monograph, these are Scribe’s recommendations:

• Alternative Text: Select if the book includes alt text. Note: The Digital Hub automatically adds alt text to the cover image, even if there are no other images in the publication.
• Index: Select this if the book includes an index.
• Structural Navigation: Select if there are no heading hierarchy issues. (Use Ace by DAISY to identify any.)
• Display Transformability: Select this if the CSS includes a value that indicates that users can change the way content is displayed, such as the font size, font family, and line height. This accessibility feature allows users to modify the display of textual content and is part of Scribe’s default CSS. (Do not select this option if the e-book has extensive text content captured as images or if font sizes have been hard-coded using pixels or points. Note: Both of these practices go against industry accessibility standards.)
• Long Description: Select if the book includes one or more long descriptions.

Definitions of Textual, Visual, Auditory

For Access Modes and Sufficient Access Modes, options include Textual, Visual, and Auditory.

• “Textual” implies that there is text and that understanding the text is critical for full comprehension of the book. All Hub-produced books have this.

• “Visual” implies that there are images and that seeing the images is critical for full comprehension of the book. All Hub-produced books with a cover have at least this one image.

• “Auditory” implies that there is embedded audio. No Hub-produced book has this, but it is possible to embed audio locally, so this option is included to help populate the OPF.

Access Modes

Access modes are the human sensory perceptual systems used to process or perceive the content (what senses someone can use to read the book, like sight or hearing).

Listing the access modes in a publication is a requirement for discoverable, fully accessible ePub publications.

For all e-books, select both

• Textual
• Visual

Sufficient Access Modes

Sufficient access modes are the minimum human sensory-perceptual systems used to process or perceive the content (what sense or senses someone needs at a bare minimum to read the book).

Listing the sufficient access modes in a publication is a requirement for discoverable, fully accessible ePub publications.

If the e-book includes alt text, select only

• Textual

If the e-book does not include alt text, select both

• Textual
• Visual

The indication of “Visual” in an e-book without alt text means that vision is required, as alt text has not been included to assist in comprehension for low-vision users.

Note: It is never appropriate for “Visual” to be the only selection.

Accessibility Summary

The accessibility summary is a brief, human-readable description of how accessible a publication is, if at all.

An accessibility summary is a requirement for discoverable, fully accessible ePub publications.

Users may add any desired descriptive summary.

If a file is compliant with all WFDW standards and includes full alt text for every image, Scribe recommends the following summary:

• This publication conforms to the EPUB Accessibility specification at WCAG Level A.

Note: All publications should include full alt text in order to meet current and future accessibility standards.

This applies to decorative images as well as covers and figures/illustrations. See the Short Description Text (Alt Text) for information about how to apply alt text to each type of image.

Note: For more information on WCAG compliance, see Understanding Levels of Conformance. Many web pages about WCAG compliance are highly technical and are aimed at describing compliance for web pages. The key point is that Level A should be indicated for e-books that use full alt text. In addition to meeting the level A requirements, level AA must also include the use of MathML for equations and specific language tagging applied to all words that are not part of the main language of the book (e.g., French language text used within an English book).

Conformance

In the Accessibility tab of the Digital Hub, select the appropriate option to indicate through the “Conforms To” property that an ePub conforms to a published accessibility specification.

Projects can have multiple statements that either describe or link to established accessibility specifications.

Users can

• enter a URL in the description field or
• enter a text description and certifying organization.

Certifying organizations are not included in an ePub when a conformance line references a URL. See examples under conformance reporting in the EPUB Accessibility 1.1 Specification.

Scribe does not certify e-books against accessibility requirements. It is the publisher’s responsibility to gain the certification of the listed organization or individual before making the ePub available for users. Publishers can list their own organization name if they are self-certifying the conformance level.

If all of the steps have been done to produce a valid file in the WFDW, including the use of alt text and making the proper accessibility selections, the e-book can be listed as meeting this specification: https://www.w3.org/submissions/epub-a11y/.

Page-Related Metadata

Page-related metadata indications are added to the ePub automatically if page numbers are present.

<meta property="schema:accessibilityFeature">pageBreakMarkers</meta>
<meta property="schema:accessibilityFeature">pageNavigation</meta>

Example of Metadata

Use the Ace by DAISY app to review e-books. The app will indicate if any accessibility metadata is missing.

Note: As long as any accessibility selection is made in the Digital Hub, these fields are included automatically:

    <meta property="schema:accessibilityFeature">tableOfContents</meta>
    <meta property="schema:accessibilityFeature">readingOrder</meta>
    <meta property="schema:accessibilityFeature">ARIA</meta>
    <meta property="schema:accessibilityFeature">pageBreakMarkers</meta>
    <meta property="schema:accessibilityFeature">pageNavigation</meta>

Full accessibility metadata with alternate text in the OPF file in an ePub:

    <meta property="schema:accessMode">textual</meta>
    <meta property="schema:accessMode">visual</meta>
    <meta property="schema:accessModeSufficient">textual,visual</meta>
    <meta property="schema:accessModeSufficient">textual</meta>
    <meta property="schema:accessibilityFeature">tableOfContents</meta>
    <meta property="schema:accessibilityFeature">readingOrder</meta>
    <meta property="schema:accessibilityFeature">ARIA</meta>
    <meta property="schema:accessibilityFeature">pageBreakMarkers</meta>
    <meta property="schema:accessibilityFeature">pageNavigation</meta>
    <meta property="schema:accessibilityFeature">alternativeText</meta>
    <meta property="schema:accessibilityFeature">structuralNavigation</meta>
    <meta property="schema:accessibilityFeature">displayTransformability</meta>
    <meta property="schema:accessibilityHazard">none</meta>
    <meta property="schema:accessibilitySummary">This publication conforms to the EPUB Accessibility specification at WCAG Level A.</meta>
    <link rel="dcterms:conformsTo" href="https://www.w3.org/submissions/epub-a11y/" />