Access Technology Center

ATC Milestones

 

1665 Event Attendees

Staff, faculty, and students across all three UW campuses, as well as across Washington State, attended ATC events to learn about accessible technology and equal access to education and careers. Attendees included disability student service leaders and administrators, postsecondary IT professionals, and faculty.

 

64 Events Hosted

The ATC offered multiple opportunities throughout the year to engage and learn more about accessible technology across University of Washington campuses. Events included 11 trainings, 16 workshops, 9 webinars, 12 presentations, 9 meetings,  and 7 conferences. Topics included universal design, PDF remediation, accessible website and software development, and more.

 

103 Liaisons Engaged

IT Accessibility Liaisons are people who represent their work unit, large or small, in a system-wide movement to promote the procurement, development, and use of IT that is accessible to everyone, including students, faculty, and staff with disabilities. IT Accessibility Liaisons communicate online and meet in-person three times per year, continue to learn about how IT can be made more accessible, collect information and spread the word about the UW’s IT Accessibility Policy.

 

100 Products Showcased

At the ATC, in libraries, and in computer labs across campus, over 100 assistive technology devices and software applications are deployed for on-demand use, demonstration, and trial purposes. Assistive technology showcased includes speech and Braille output for those who are blind; screen magnification for people with low vision; alternatives to the keyboard and mouse; speech recognition software; tools to make reading, writing, and computer use easier; and the capability to create documents in e-text and braille.

 

473 Videos Captioned

The ATC offers to freely caption UW videos that are highly-visible, high-impact, multiple use, and/or strategic. In 2018, the ATC captioned 473 videos—more than one video a day! Captioning helps people who are deaf or hard of hearing, as well as those who are learning English, watching in a noisy or quiet area, need to search through the content, and more. The ATC also offers resources and tools to teach others how to caption videos independently.

 

Collaborator Spotlights

Ana Thompson, Office of Digital Learning & Innovation

Ana Thompson is a leader in accessibility on the UW Bothell campus and beyond. She leads the Universal Design for Active Learning campus initiative and is a member of the New Faculty Orientation, Accessibility Plan Project committees, the Campus Access Guide work-group, the UW-IT Accessibility Task Force, and the UW-IT Accessibility Liaisons. As a learning and access designer at the Office of Digital Learning & Innovation, Ana enjoys working with faculty members and staff to streamline the use of technology and promote digital fluency. Ana has extensive experience with learning management systems, adult learning, WCAG 2.0, document accessibility, copyright and fair use, and universal design for learning.
 

Carrie Doring, Cultivate Learning

Carrie works on the Coaching Companion platform for Cultivate Learning. This platform is a learning environment used by early childhood development educators who want to grow their skills. Even before connecting with the ATC, Carrie took the initiative to look at web standards and ARIA to ensure the platform fully meets standards for accessibility—a feat no other developer has done! Carrie is open to new solutions and has queued up recommended changes in the development pipeline for accelerated release. Carrie is excited about joining the UW-IT Accessibility Liaisons team and continuing this important work.

 

ATC 2018 Highlights

Three IT accessibility full-day capacity building institutes, one for UW and two for Washington State			Three IT Accessibility Liaisons meetings
Captioning Project upgraded to a service, offering free captioning for high-impact videos			PDF and website accessibility trainings hosted across all campuses