Introductions: Greg Gay

[Greg Gay]

Hello All

I'd like to introduce myself to the list. I am Greg Gay, a project
coordinator of 10 years at the ATRC. My office is right around the
corner from Colin's, The two main projects I currently run are the
ATutor project, and the ATRC web accessibility evaluation and design
services, both of which I think can bring much knowledge to this group.

ATutor is an open source Learning [Content] Management System (an LMS,
but with content authoring and management capabilities). One of its key
strengths is accessibility, having been built from the ground up with
accessibility in mind. A big reason why it was created comes from a
couple studies I lead back in 99/00 which looked at the accessibility of
popular online learning systems. The first was a technical review with
WCAG 1 as the standard, and the second was a user study in which users
from various disability groups participated in a 6 week online course,
each week presented in a different LMS. All the systems at the time
failed dismally. So, my pet project I'd started back in grad school
(where I studied cognitive science), for delivering my own online
course, ended up at the ATRC, and now it's used all over the world, and
available in 30 or so languages. I could talk for hours about the design
and intricacies of the system, but you can find out about all that
yourself on the ATutor Web site.

ATutor (http://www.atutor.ca <http://www.atutor.ca/>)

Before ATutor (and still) I began running the “WebSavvy: Inclusive Web
Design” services at the ATRC. Most of my background in Web accessibility
has come through leading this group: designing accessible Web sites;
performing accessibility conformance evaluations; as well as
participation in the development of WCAG 1, and now WCAG 2. I'd be
willing to make this expertise available to the group when accessibility
of Fluid features is being considered.

Which brings me to the main reason for joining the group. Mellon has
requested that ATutor participate in Fluid to expose the Fluid community
to ATutor, and to offer it as a model of accessible development
practices in action. In particular Mellon has asked that we get involved
with the User Experience research currently underway. We can help with
the accessibility piece of these reviews, plus we'd like to throw ATutor
into the mix of systems being reviewed. So, we're looking for a group to
put ATutor through the “UX Walkthrough” process.

I'll do my best to make myself available for accessiblity or LMS related
dicussions, and follow the developing threads as time permits. As you
might imagine, ATutor, not to mention Websavvy, is already a full time
job. I am though, looking forward to becoming an active member of the
Fuild community.

greg