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Collaborating Toward Better
IT Accessibility
Kara Zirkle, IT Accessibility
CoordinatorAssistive Technology Initiative Office
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Roles and Responsibilities
Roles
• CIO
• Deans and Directors
•Managers
• Developers
• Content Managers
• Instructional Designers
•Library
• Admin Staff
• Teaching Faculty
Responsibilities
• What “tools” do you
have in your tool belt
that help buildaccessibility into
responsibilities you may
already have?
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Areas of Accessibility in Higher
Education
• Web Compliance – Ex: NC State Global Accessibility Awareness Day Website
Challenge
• Policy – Ex: Example policies in higher education
• Procurement – Ex: George Mason University Procurement – ASC Review
Board
• Training/Awareness – Ex: University of Wisconsin-Madison Web Accessibility 101
• Buy-In – Ex: Are you the next example?
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Web Compliance
• Accessibility of
websites
• Content
• Documents
• Videos
• Applications
• E-learning
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Policy
Do you sign off onpolicy?
Do you help writepolicy?
What current policiesapply to you?
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Training and Awareness
If you’d askcoworkers what
accessibilitymeant, how
many differentanswers would
you hear?
When we shareknowledge – we
can all have abetter
understanding
of accessibility.
What doesaccessibility
mean to
you?
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Buy-In
H
i g h L e v e l S u
p p o r t
Communication
ConsistentLanguage
AccessibilitySupport
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Scenario
• Allegations:
Inaccessibility of Web
content and services
(class assignments, livechat and discussion
board, videos without
captions, and an
inaccessible registrationsystem)
• Issues:Students were
frustrated by lack of
progress after 5 years,
the impact of these
accessibility barriers on
their learning &
resulting delays ingraduation.
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Lessons Learned?
• Identify barriers and prepare plans before
EIT adoption.
• Accessibility can’t be automated – effective
accessibility solutions require human judgment and involvement.
• Staff/faculty need training and services to
select, author, and deliver content.
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Is this something that could really
happen?
• In May 2012, theAlliance for Disabilityand Students at theUniversity of Montana
filed a complaint withthe U.S. Department ofEducation’s Office forCivil Rights, citingvarious problems of
accessibility oncampus for studentswith disabilities.
• The Universitysubmitted a resolutionagreement to the OCRin March 2014 which
confirms the problemsit needs to furtheraddress. Part of theUniversity’s resolutionagreement is a self-
study examining howaccessible onlinematerial is to studentswith disabilities.
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Any Volunteers?
• Name off 3
responsibilities you
have within yourrole.
• Identify where
accessibility might
fall into theseresponsibilities.
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Thank you for attending!
• Kara Zirkle, IT Accessibility Coordinator
Assistive Technology Initiative Office
George Mason University• Email: [email protected]
• Web: http://ati.gmu.edu
• Twitter: @AccessibleMason