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How to textually describe images in medical academic publications

Published: 10 September 2014 Publication History

Abstract

Figures in medicine publications are an essential source of information, but people with visual impairments cannot access them. The publishing workflow adopted by biomedical publishers does not include acceptable accessibility recommendations. A main solution to image accessibility is the inclusion of an alternative text. The article presents a proposal of supporting authors in the creation of appropriate textual alternatives by means of a decision tree, which would guide authors through the process of selecting where and how to include a text alternative, and a checklist of items for a comprehensive description of the figure content in the caption.

References

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Apostolova, E., You, D., Xue, Z., Antani, S., Demner-Fushman, D.; Thoma, G. R. 2013. Image retrieval from scientific publications: Text and image content processing to separate multipanel figures. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, vol. 64 (5), 893--908.
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Splendiani, B.; Ribera, M.; Garcia, R.; Térmens, M. 2014. Do Physicians Make Their Articles Readable for Their Blind or Low-Vision Patients? An Analysis of Current Image Processing Practices in Biomedical Journals from the Point of View of Accessibility. Journal of Digital Imaging (7 February 2014).
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National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM). Effective Practices for Description of Science Content within Digital Talking Books. (2009). Available at: http://ncam.wgbh.org/experience_learn/educational_media/stemdx/intro. (Accessed April 14, 2014).
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DIAGRAM Center. 2012. Digital Image and Graphic Resources for Accessible Materials. Available at: http://diagramcenter.org/ (Accessed April 14, 2014).
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Ortiz Hojas, A. 2008. Instrucciones y criterios para la producción de libros DAISY. Organización Nacional de Ciegos Españoles.
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Splendiani, B. and Ribera, M. 2014. Hábitos de los investigadores en Medicina y Biología en el uso y descripción de imágenes en artículos científicos: un enfoque desde la perspectiva de la accesibilidad. Revista Española de Documentación Científica. (on review).
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DIAGRAM Center. 2013. Image Guidelines for EPUB 3. Available at:. http://diagramcenter.org/standards-and-practices/59-image-guidelines-for-epub-3.html (Accessed April 14, 2014).
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World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) 2014. Techniques for WCAG 2.0. G74: Providing a long description in text near the non-text content, with a reference to the location of the long description in the short description. Available at: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/G74. (Accessed April 14, 2014).
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DIAGRAM Center. 2013. Decision Tree -- Image sorting tool. Available at: http://diagramcenter.org/decision-tree.html (Accessed April 14, 2014).
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Splendiani, B.; Ribera, M. 2014. Accessible Images in Computer Science Journals. Procedia Computer Science, vol. 27, 9--18.
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Cited By

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  • (2015)A Proposal for the Inclusion of Accessibility Criteria in the Publishing Workflow of Images in Biomedical Academic ArticlesProcedia Computer Science10.1016/j.procs.2015.09.25067(67-76)Online publication date: 2015

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  1. How to textually describe images in medical academic publications

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    cover image ACM Other conferences
    Interacción '14: Proceedings of the XV International Conference on Human Computer Interaction
    September 2014
    435 pages
    ISBN:9781450328807
    DOI:10.1145/2662253
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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    • Universidad de La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna

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    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 10 September 2014

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    Author Tags

    1. Accessibility
    2. alternative text
    3. electronic publishing

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    Interacción '14
    Interacción '14: XV International Conference on Human Computer Interaction
    September 10 - 12, 2014
    Tenerife, Puerto de la Cruz, Spain

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    Overall Acceptance Rate 109 of 163 submissions, 67%

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    • (2015)A Proposal for the Inclusion of Accessibility Criteria in the Publishing Workflow of Images in Biomedical Academic ArticlesProcedia Computer Science10.1016/j.procs.2015.09.25067(67-76)Online publication date: 2015

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