Global Certified Accessible™ (GCA) Certification

Benetech’s GCA certification is the first-ever third-party EPUB certification program to verify ebook accessibility. Our goal is to help publishers build “born accessible” content that meets the needs of all readers. The program accomplishes this by working with publishers to accredit workflows to ensure that content they produce is accessible from the start. Accredited publishers receive a license certifying accessibility of their content, eliminating the need for individual title VPATS or audits. With a trusted third-party validation of publisher content, everyone with a stake in providing accessible materials— procurement offices, textbook purchasing committees, students, professors, teachers, distributors, consumers, and retailers – can ensure all readers have access to the information they need to succeed.

An Affordable Two-Step Approach

The GCA certification program certifies publisher content through a two-step process that keeps costs manageable.

Accreditation

Our program reviews publisher-generated files and works with the publisher to enhance their workflow to produce accessible ebooks. The engagement assists the publisher in generating a revised workflow that ensures that all future products will be accessible.

Certification

A certification is granted for one year to certify publisher content and is renewable on an annual basis. Publishers receive consistent feedback on current accessibility standards to stay in compliance. Certified publishers can use the GCA certification “seal of approval” on all promotional materials and in its metadata that the title is “Certified by Benetech’s Global Certified Accessible.”

How does it work?

Our program provides an in-depth evaluation of a file and provides a detailed Accessibility Report that discusses over 100 accessibility features and recommends remediation strategies. We leverage DAISY’s Ace tool to reveal compliance with EPUB Accessibility 1.0 specifications, as well as using its own extensive set of custom tools. It scores conformance to these accessibility features using its proprietary Born Accessible Scoring System. We generate an in-depth Accessibility Report that contains overall observations, detailed examples on how to remediate identified issues, ACE and SMART reports which contain additional information on specific WCAG conformance guidelines, and links to various knowledge bases to help with general remediation. If the file did not meet GCA certification criteria, the publisher is asked to remediate the file and resubmit it for second-round evaluation. This review process is repeated until the publisher achieves a qualifying score. When a title scores high enough to pass without further review, we will evaluate two more titles coming from the workflow. When three consecutive titles pass, the publisher is granted Accreditation.

Service	Description	Fee (based off complexity)
Accreditation	One-time cost covering accreditation of workflow until it is approved	Low: $2,000 Moderate: $5,000 High: $8,000
Certification	Annual subscription to spot check workflow for conformance	Low: $1,500 Moderate: $4,000 High: $6,000

Book Complexity Levels

Low Complexity: EPUBS with text. No design elements such as figures, tables, list items, links, audio, video, and MathML
Moderate Complexity: EPUBs with small number of design elements per page. Simple JavaScript.
High Complexity (Extra Long): EPUBs with high number of design elements per page. Complex JavaScript. HOW