eBOUND is recruiting Canadian ebook developers to participate in a pilot project from March 22 until December 15, 2021. If you are passionate about accessible content production and are available to work for approximately 100 hours over the next nine months, we’d like to hear from you! Please see below for all the details:

The Benetech Certification pilot project will be structured as follows:

1. Benetech will provide a series of online training sessions resulting in a team of trained certifiers
2. Certifiers will be paired with Canadian independent publishers who will submit two digital files for assessment.
3. Certifier will review files, and produce reports indicating tweaks required to their workflow that will result in further accessibility features. This step could require two or three exchanges between publishers and certifiers.
4. Publishers submit three digital files for formal certification.

The ideal candidate for this Benetech certifier contract position will have the following skills and experiences:

• Technical knowledge of EPUB production
• Understanding of accessibility guidelines and accessibility content requirements (as examples WCAG, ARIA, Accessible EPUB Specs)
• Ability to troubleshoot technical issues within a publishing workflow (knowledge of a variety of workflows would be ideal)
• Knowledge of HTML and XHTML
• Has excellent communication skills (written and oral) and the ability to communicate with various publisher stakeholders (I.e., production editors, ebook developers, etc.
• Attention to detail
• Qualification Bonus – Experience with EPUB reading systems and assistive technologies. Screen Readers such as JAWS, NVDA, or VoiceOver

eBOUND Canada, supported by the Canada Book Fund, is piloting Benetech’s Global Certified Accessible program to gain a better understanding of how this initiative will work support Canadian publishers as they move towards a born accessible workflow. Benetech’s GCA certification is the first-ever independent third-party EPUB certification program to verify ebook accessibility. The goal of this process is to help Canadian publishers build born accessible content that meets the needs of all readers. The program accomplishes this by working with publishers to certify workflows to ensure that the content they produce is accessible from the start.

eBOUND strives to be an inclusive and safe space for all and to accurately reflect the diversity of the various publisher clients we serve. We strongly encourage expressions of interest from people who are members of marginalized and/or underserved/underrepresented communities, especially individuals who identify with: First Nations, Metis, or Inuit, or people of colour; diverse gender and sexual identities (including LGBTQ2+); people living with dis/ability, etc. Please let us know if you need accommodation during the recruitment process. Preference will be given to those with post-secondary education.

Please submit your resume to Deborah_nelson@eboundcanada.org by Wednesday March 3, 2021

We appreciate the interest of all applicants; however, only those selected for an interview will be contacted.