Benetech’s GCA certification suite of services is the first-ever independent third-party digital accessibility certification and approval program. View a list of tools from around the globe that have been recognized as Benetech Approved Publishing Tool (BAPT).
Standards and Guidelines
The BAPT process follows these recognized standards and guidelines as appropriate:
- EPUB Accessibility 1.1 specification (the “Baseline”)
- World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA
- Accessibility metadata to promote conformance and discoverability of certified accessible publications
Global Certified Accessible (GCA) process:
Benetech’s GCA team reviews a few of the platform created files in depth, evaluating over one hundred accessibility features. We leverage tools like ACE by DAISY to check feature compliance and perform our own independent review of additional features. Each EPUB, or component, is given an overall accessibility score and receives a detailed summary of how it performed. If the file doesn’t meet BAPT approval criteria, you are asked to remediate the file and resubmit it for a second review. This process is repeated until a qualifying score is reached.
Once the title-by-title process is completed, the tool is granted approval and may auto-certify titles produced by that workflow for the next year. Benetech’s goal is to make accessibility certification a rich, collaborative experience so that publishers learn what steps must be taken either in practical techniques or workflow processes to make their files accessible.
Approval is granted annually and is renewable on an annual basis. It’s important that we maintain a high level of accessibility conformance for readers, so we may also conduct periodic quality spot checks on certified titles. Tools receive quarterly updates from GCA on accessibility standards to stay in compliance. BAPT awardees can use the BAPT seal in company accessibility statements or other related company-level spaces.