Talking Hands Award Criteria

The process by which a nominated web site may receive our Talking Hands Award is four fold. Adopted and approved January 20, 2003. Scoring change to maximum of 120 points on June 1, 2003. Scoring change to a maximum of 45 points on January 1, 2004. A print friendly page of the criteria is here: [D.]

First Step

Two or more nominations must be received with a fifty word or less citation which details teaching excellence about what a visitor will learn and apply to their daily lives from the web site creation. The web site authors may make a nomination for their own site.  Chain of custody emails: sent to nominee and nominators. A nomination is considered to be from a unique person, rather than a different email address for the same person.

Second Step

A reviewer and the awards coordinator will visit the web site after two or more nominations have been received. The web site must have an average score of twenty-three (23) points or more based on the following three sections of review. Each detailed item under these sections will carry equal weight.

Footnotes and endnotes open onsite with a return to the reference and are designated [D] and contain additional information.

Scoring

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

There are 30 elements in our criteria worth a maximum of 30 points each (in effect a yes or no) and an additional 15 points which may be earned for a perfect score of 45. Elements which result in an automatic disqualification (DQ) are noted below.

• More than one percent of all links do not work.
• The web site is not "family safe."
• Presence of stereotyping, bias or social iniquity.
• No evidence of copyright and a clear indication of what is "borrowed with permission" and what is created by the author.
• Design elements do not reside on the authors web site.
• Specification of a particular browser (graphic or non graphic) thereby excluding any or all others.
• Teaching and learning is not presented in sufficient detail.  See subjective narrative.

Links, content and design elements if corrected will continue our review.

 For those who wish to take a self test, please use the score sheet.  Retain a copy for yourself and submit if you are making an application.  We are certain that your scoring will compare favorably with our review teams scoring.  

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Functionality

• Do pages and graphics (descriptive information for text browsers or readers) view correctly in Internet Explorer, Netscape, Opera and non graphic browsers? Most current browser version at the time of review, excluding pre releases and beta versions. [D1]
  

• Do Elements perform as expected - for example, textual, visual and audio, interactive features, pages that a user may wish to print? An example is  interactive features which accommodate low level perceptual, cognitive and motor operators.[D2.]
  

• Are most links working within a site, particularly internal links and are external links purposeful and supportive of the content of the site? [D3.]
  

• Is technology used as an effective means to an end and do interactive or multimedia features support the content of the site?  [D14]

• Does the site encourage classroom teachers, students and the  public to provide feed back on how they have used the sites information? An example is a forum.  Another would be a link with a citation. [D19]

• Has an apparent effort been made to aid visitors who are color blind or have a vision difficulty? An example would be the  ability of the viewer to use alternative fonts and font size.

• Can a visitor navigate the site without a mouse? An example would be to use the tab key, activate accessibility options for your operating system and follow the hyperlinks for navigation.  [D4.]

• Will the site be viewed and look  the same in 800x600 and 1024x768 resolutions? Graphic-[D5]

• Does the front page (index) loading encourage a visitor to venture beyond the introduction?-[D6]

• If there was no navigation scheme present could a visitor still find their way around the site? Example: links are clear as to what will be found next.

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Visitors Find Useful Information and Are Engaged

• Is information about a person, place or thing unique and does it provide a new or different perspective? [D13]

• Does the site appear to be maintained and updated periodically? An example would be a date stamp, an award or award recipient added, a site section revision or addition and referenced material is current, not stale. Updating should be within the past six months.[D18]

• Is the site family safe? An example would be "Safe Surf" or equivalent and correct coding in the heading portion of HTML. Graphic-[D7]
  

• Is there evidence of creativity and flair? Examples would be original poetry or short stories and graphic creations. Flair would include the authors approach to bridge the gap between normal viewing and those with disABILITIES. [D8]
  

• Is there interactiveness? Examples are a quiz about the site content, feed back about the sites purpose or similar and VRML. [D9].

• Are visitors encouraged to find answers for questions using the resources of the site? [D10].

• Are there demonstrations in the promotion of inclusive approaches, ensuring accessibility for all [D11]
  

• Does the web site demonstrate a partnership with parents, schools, children, other web masters and the  public? [D20]

• Would a teacher, student or lecturer want to use and adapt the web sites material in lessons?[D22]

• Is there sufficient material to make the visit rewarding? An example would be web masters resource which has tutorials, examples, links which support opinions and a forum to discuss accessibility considerations.

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Professionalization

• Are citations to referenced works and bibliographic or references for extended study included?

• Sites should not have stereotyping, bias, and social iniquity!

• Does slang or vulgarity used compliment or detract from the presentation?

• Evidence that all content is either original or used with permission.  A [D] link is permissible in the absence of being on the page where copyright material is used.

• Do most of the design elements reside on the authors web site? Example: all graphics would reside on the web site, but the guest book may not.

• Is there a mechanism to insure that interactive elements of the site are maintained and moderated? For example, is there a feedback process in place? Real-time chats or forums are moderated by a live person on a continual basis. [D23]

• Will the overall structure of the site aid user comprehension? For example, a table of contents or site map would be included; a glossary of terms or unfamiliar words would be provided.

• Does the author realize that frames are a barrier to accessibility and does he provide alternative viewing?

• Is there evidence that the author has attempted to stay up to date with changing trends in web design? An example would be to have evidence of completing a web building related course within six months of submitting an application for the award.

• Does the author support associations related to the stated purposes of the web site creation? An example would be a web master who provides web building information and serves in an active capacity as an evaluator for an award program other than his own.

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Additional Points - 15 maximum-Footnote 17

• AccVerify, Bobby, Cynthia Says, accessibility statement or any other genuine attempt (disABILITY compliance level A or greater)

• W3C and WDG validated for HTML compliance

• W3C validated CSS

• A-Prompt validation or Optimized for Lynx Viewing or simulation of screen readers.

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Third Step

Once two nominations have been received and the review process has been completed the application is forwarded to our international judges for their determination. All four judges must agree that the Talking Hands Award will be presented, prior to presentation.

Fourth Step

The nominated web site receives notification that the web site has been approved by our international judges and agrees to have the site included in the honoree's section. They may accept the award or provide a reciprocal link, neither of which is required to be honored and is then presented the award for which the site qualifies to display (if they so choose), which is either the standard or gold edition. See the award graphic section for a description and the graphic itself.

All applicants, whether successful or not are contacted. In the event that the review process takes over two weeks, all applicants are notified as to the probable completion date of the application. Exception dated 261011.

Disclaimer

All applicants who follow our submission policy will be given specific reasons for failure to obtain a minimum score of twenty-three (23) points upon written request.  However, upon correction and submission to our judges, this act will not constitute approval. All of our judges must be in agreement for the award to be presented and their decision is final and not subject to disclosure.

Privacy notification is a part of application forms.

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