(Excerpted from DAIS Newsletter, Volume II, No 4)
Alright, Class, is your homework finished? In the March newsletter, readers were challenged to make a list of all the webpages posted through and about your institution, along with a notation as to whether those pages were accessible to someone with a disability using adaptive equipment to access the internet. It is likely that for those few readers who actively attempted to meet that challenge, any list you made a month ago is already outdated -- both in terms of what pages are available and in terms of pages with accessibility problems. My best guess is that most readers have more of a problem with access to their online presence than they had 30 days ago. That's how fast the landscape (and the webpages) are changing.
I actually have visited with folks from two campuses in the last month who may NOT be in such dire straits... one that is far ahead of its counterparts in getting a handle on the problem and one that is so far behind that they don't yet have a problem. The first institution has people with both the understanding of the problem and the authority to order compliance who have placed some rigid guidelines on access and accessibility features; faculty cannot get a webpage posted on the institution's server without demonstrating that they have met those requirements. I am looking into the most expedient way of sharing their guidelines/requirements with others. The second institution is a small, private liberal arts institution that has not allowed faculty to establish any web-based coursework until their server is operating capably/efficiently on more primitive functions (such as email). As a result, they can honestly say that their situation is managed/manageable because they can do it right from the beginning. I have put Institution #2 in touch with Institution #1. The rest of you (I must presume) have problems!
In upcoming issues of the DAIS Newsletter, there will be specific direction provided as to how to assess web page accessibility, and some simple rules to promulgate and circulate that would go a long way toward minimizing the problems of internet access. While you are waiting, why not try choosing a page or two of your institution's internet presence and listening to it through a screen reader. Several years ago there was a popular book, and then movie, about a young blind man (Tom Sullivan?) entitled "If You Could See What I Hear..." There's no time like the present!
