What goes unseen in accessible publishing: Good practice and remaining gaps

Abstract

Accessibility to content for all users, regardless of physical ability, is increasingly added to the agenda of priorities for academic publishers. Both anti-discrimination laws as well as the technological advances of this century have made processes around scholarly communication easier for blind and visually impaired (BVI) researchers. Information provider Elsevier recently received an international award for its advancements in accessible publishing. Honored that our progress in this area has been recognised, we also acknowledge that gaps remain in embedding accessible functionalities in the entire workflow of scholarly communication. We believe that accessibility is a convergence of quality and usability applicable to all editors and publishers, and, as such, progress in this area will benefit from an industry-wide awareness and approach to finding solutions for these gaps.