Web Accessibility in Higher Education: Responding to the Needs

1. Web Accessibility: How is Higher Education Responding to the Need? Terry Thompson Saroj Primlani Terrill Thompson Technology Accessibility Specialist University of Washington tft@u.washington.edu

2. 600 Million People with disabilities (10% of world population) Source: World Health Organization

3. 52.2 Million People with disabilities in the United States Source: Your HighEdWeb Handouts booklet

4. 1 million College students with disabilities in the U.S. • Source: “Roadmaps & Rampways”. American Association for the Advancement of Science

5. 3,025 complaints of disability-related discrimination filed with U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights in 2006 • Source: OCR FY 2006 Report to Congress

6. Millions and Millions

16. Howare we respondingto the need?

17. How to Measure “How” • Measure outcomes (i.e., are higher education web pages accessible?) • Measure policies, procedures, and promising practices

18. How #1Measuring Outcomes: “Are our web pages accessible?”

19. W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0 • 14 guidelines • Priority 1, 2, and 3 checkpoints • Priority 1 = MUST do • Priority 2 = SHOULD do • Priority 3 = MAY do

20. Section 508 Standards • Section 508 is federal law that requires accessibility of federal agencies’ electronic and information technology (E&IT) • In 508 standards, web is one of six categories of E&IT • Based in part on WCAG Priority 1 • 16 standards • Provides a minimum standard for accessibility (WCAG 1.0 has 65 checkpoints)

21. Kay Lewis et al (2007)University of Texas at Austin • “Student Web Accessibility Project” • Manually evaluated 99 self-referred websites • 12 sites met all Section 508 standards • At least 25 of the sites were developed using Flash (suggests a need for Flash accessibility expertise, education, and outreach)

22. Sean Kane et al (2007) • Home Pages of 100 Top Universities • Assessed accessibility using: • Bobby (Watchfire) • CynthiaSays (HiSoftware) • Functional Accessibility Evaluator (FAE)(31 rules across five categories)

23. Kane Results: Home Page Accessibility • FAE % of Rules Passed • Navigation & Orientation 36.07% • Text Equivalents 51.24% • Scripting 54.00% • Styling 50.95% • HTML Standards 69.74% • 36 pages contained no Priority 1 WCAG errors in either Bobby or Cynthia • 2 pages contained no Priority 1, 2, or 3 WCAG errors

24. Terry Thompson et al (2007): A Global Benchmark • 7239 higher education home pages from 162 countries • 5281 national government pages from 181 countries • Evaluated all pages using FAE. Results showed lower accessibility than Kane’s results, but categories were proportional.

25. Thompson et al (2007)Web Accessibility over Time • Manual assessment of home pages from 127 higher education institutions in the Northwest (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska) • One benchmark assessment • Second assessment at 3 months • Third assessment at 6 months • Between assessments, provided varying levels of outreach and consultation to a sample of the institutions

26. Significant Overall Change in Six Months • Three checkpoints improved • Alt text for images • Accessible markup on forms • Skip navigation links • Three checkpoints worsened • All features accessible using keyboard • Content accessible without scripts • Content accessible without CSS • The effect was stronger for those who received accessibility training

27. How #2Measuring Policies, Procecures, and Promising Practices

28. Results of the 2008 ATHEN Survey on Accessible Technology in Higher Education ATHEN = Access Technology Higher Education Networkathenpro.org

29. Research Sample • 149 individuals • 106 higher education institutions • 52 from United States • 28 from United Kingdom • 12 from Canada • 9 from Ireland • 3 from South Africa • 1 each from Australia and New Zealand

30. U.S Participants • 44.2% from doctorate-granting universities • 32.7% from associate’s colleges • 21.2% from master’s colleges/universities • 51.9% from West • 25.0% from Midwest • 11.5% from South • 11.5% from Northeast

31. Q: Do you have a web accessibility policy?

32. Q: Is there a person or office specifically responsible for web accessibility consultation?

33. Q: Do you have policies or procedures that require consideration of accessibility when acquiring IT?

34. Q: Was accessibility a consideration when acquiring an LMS?

35. Q: Was accessibility a consideration when acquiring a Content Mgmt System?

36. Q: Do you have a project, system, or strategy in place to assess IT accessibility?

37. Q: Do you have centralize services for making multimedia accessible? (% “Yes” responses, U.S.)

38. Case Study: University of Washington

39. History of UW IT Accessibility 1984 Micro Support Group 1990 Adaptive Technology Lab 1992 ATL Lab Manager, DO-IT 2001 AccessIT 2003 AccessibleWeb user group 2006 AccessComputing

40. January 2007

41. 2007 • Created new 0.5 FTE position for IT accessibility support • Launched two new websites • UW Accessible IT site (public) http://www.washington.edu/accessibility • Special Interest Group on Accessibility in IT(internal wiki, strong emphasis on collaboration and community building)

42. March `08: UW Accessible IT CBI • IT administrators • Computer support staff • Web developers and managers • Librarians • Purchasing and contracts personnel • Faculty members • Accessibility professionals • Key vendors • Representatives from all 3 UW campuses

43. CBI Outcomes • Next steps for the university, Accessibility in IT SIG, vendors, and individuals • Follow-up meeting to identify working groups and begin work • Accessibility representation on Emerging Technologies Group(s) • November `08: Presentation to the UW Web Council

44. Questions?