Digital Information Access in Cultural Institutions
Glossary
Keywords and Definitions in Alphabetical Order
Accessibility
“Accessibility is giving equitable access to everyone along the continuum of human ability and experience. Accessibility encompasses the broader meanings of compliance and refers to how organizations make space for the characteristics that each person brings” (American Alliance of Museums).
Alt-text
An HTML attribute that provides a short, visual description of an image for users who are not able to see the image for a variety of reasons. Short for “alternative text.”
(in film criticism) a theory that the director is the chief creator of a film and gives it an individual style that is evident in all aspects of the finished product.
Bounce Rate
the percentage of visitors to a particular website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page.
a comprehensive collection of related data organized for convenient access, generally in a computer.
Case Study 2
to convert (data) to digital form for use in a computer.
Disability
“The consequence of an impairment. This can be physical, sensory, cognitive, emotional, or a combination of these.” In the medical model of disability, “if one has an impairment, it is treated as something to be fixed or healed. When the impairment can’t be fixed, society treats the individual as being broken, as having the impairment, as different, ‘the other.’ This shifts the burden to the individual because the individual is viewed as disabled.” In contrast, the social model of disability “considers the environment as disabling, rather than the individual as being disabled. This means that when a wheelchair user can’t activate a door, it’s not the fault of the wheelchair user, but instead is the environment that is disabling and othering” (Bahram & Timpson).
Educational Attainment
Educational attainment refers to the highest level of education that an individual has completed. This is distinct from the level of schooling that an individual is attending.
Case Study 1
Inclusive Design
“A design process in which the fact that all individuals interact with the world differently is placed at the heart of the process. Individual people, with their own lived experience, a priori knowledge, and differences, will interact with what we make and put into the world, so we should relax our assumptions about the abilities of the user and instead design with compassion, flexibility, and inclusion at the heart of our practice” (Bahram & Timpson).
Jargon
the language, especially the vocabulary, peculiar to a particular trade, profession, or group.
Case Study 1
Library Science. a significant or memorable word or term in the title, abstract, or text of a document or other item being indexed, used as the index entry.
Digital Technology. a word used to classify or organize digital content, or to facilitate an online search for information
Case Study 2
Literacy
the quality or state of being literate, especially the ability to read and write; a person's knowledge of a particular subject or field.
Case Study 1
Long Description
Provides more detailed visual information than an alt-text description and comprehensively describes the most important aspects of the image.
higher-level data that describes or annotates a data set, as tags in a programming code that describe the hierarchical structure and the relationships among discrete pieces of data
Case Study 2
pertaining to or denoting a product or system whose origins, formula, design, etc., are freely accessible to the public.
Computers. a website that functions as an entry point to the internet, as by providing useful content and linking to various sites and features on the World Wide Web.
higher-level data that describes or annotates a data set, as tags in a programming code that describe the hierarchical structure and the relationships among discrete pieces of data
Case Study 2
higher-level data that describes or annotates a data set, as tags in a programming code that describe the hierarchical structure and the relationships among discrete pieces of data
Case Study 2
Socioeconomic Status (abbreviation SES)
the position or standing of a person or group in a society as determined by a combination of social and economic factors that affect access to education and other resources crucial to an individual’s upward mobility.
Case Study 1
Authors: Sean H. Gao, Elly Leonard, Jesse Ludington, and Tess Porter; Editor: Elly Leonard, 2021