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Organization of Schemas

    Creator: Schema.org

    Date of Update: March 5, 2024

    Overview

    This uniquely developer-focused resource can help us create machine-readable metadata about almost anything! This includes if a book is accessible or not and in what way. Additionally, these schemas also allow us to specify how long until an invoice is due, hours businesses are open, and where events happen. Schema.org is a database of standardized data formats for representing our modern world.

    The information in the resource is summarized from the Organization of Schemas webpage.

    Quick Facts

    Although schema.org has a broad reach, we will be focusing on how it can help accessibility in EPUB documents. You can use these to specify:

    • Accessibility hazards: images without alternate text, flashing images and/or text, and lack of structured text (headings, sections, etc.)
    • Accessibility features: the opposite of hazards; this indicates that all images have alt text, there is properly structured text, or it may even have MathML support. This list can also get many more details: whether or not there is a table of contents, ruby annotations for CJK languages, and text-to-speech markup like SSML.
    • Accessibility controls: indicates the type of controls that are fully-supported: keyboard, mouse, voice, touch, etc.
    • Sufficient access modes: a list of reading methods that would allow full comprehension of the text: visual, tactile, auditory, textual.

    This is but a tiny sliver of what schema.org is meant to achieve. Its goal is not only to model book accessibility; it is meant to model most of the world! You can find more information about how to create standardized descriptions of products, people, and/or places on their website.

    You can take a look at the list of other schemas available at Schema.org.

    References

    eric-urban, v-dirichards, nitinme, mohitp930, prmerger-automator, & sally-baolian. (2024, January 22). SSML document structure and events. Microsoft Learn. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-services/speech-service/speech-synthesis-markup-structure

    MozDevNet. (2024, February 22). <ruby>: The Ruby Annotation element</ruby>. MDN Web Docs. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/ruby

    Schema.org. (2024a). accessibilityFeature: A Schema.org Property. Schema.org Property. https://schema.org/accessibilityFeature

    Schema.org. (2014, November 7). Integration Guide for EPUB 3. Schema.org Metadata. https://idpf.github.io/epub-guides/schema-org-integration/#h.vs2haoeb3kz1

    Schema.org. (2024b). Person: A Schema.org Type. Schema.org Type. https://schema.org/Person

    Schema.org. (2024c). Place: A Schema.org Type. Schema.org Type. https://schema.org/Place

    Schema.org. (2024b). Product: A Schema.org Type. Schema.org Type. https://schema.org/Product

    Schema.org. (2024, February 12). Organization of Schemas. https://schema.org/docs/schemas.html