Overview

The Evidence Based Guidelines (EBG) project provides a compendium of universal design guidelines for policy, design, and evaluation, supported by evidence from research and practice and validated by a consensus process and feedback from the public. It also provides documentation on related Best Practices. The site is intended to serve as a resource for professionals, educators, students. As it develops, we will add tools to help consumers make well informed choices about products and features for home and workplace.

The of the Evidence Based Guideline Site is to develop a foundation for universal design practice based on a body of verifiable evidence organized and evaluated using a systematic process. The guidelines are rated based on the strength of evidence available to support them using a set of rigorous evaluation criteria. The process of development is an ongoing effort that allows periodic revision and expansion as more information and resources become available. It is also an open process with opportunities for participation by the public at large. The EBG will help advance the field of universal design by providing accountability for information and criteria for identifying best practices.

The site is constructed utilizing a "wiki-engine" like the well-known Internet encyclopedia, Wikipedia. It provides all the resource needed for collaborative work, including online editing tools and means to upload images and insert links without having to know how to write complex code. We are recruiting qualified authors to join the development team. The IDEA Center staff will provide support by acting as consultants, writing periodic bulletins on new site features and use of wiki tools and addressing problems that emerge in the course of the work.

The contents of the site are maintained using a peer review process. Reviewers are highly qualified scholars, practitioners or user experts recruited by the Editors. We believe that this process will help the site become recognized as an authoritative source of information. While access to authoring tools is restricted, the public can read the published sections of the site and make comments.

To access content on the site, use the Guidelines and Best Practices Menu.To learn more about this site, please refer to the other entries in the Main Menu. To learn about how to develop entries for this site, refer to the Submissions Menu.