Proceedings Now Available for UW Accessible IT Capacity Building Institute

March 16, 2008 - Proceedings are now available for the University of Washington (UW) Accessible Information Technology (IT) Capacity Building Institute (CBI), held March 3 on the UW Seattle campus. The CBI brought thirty-five people together from all three UW campuses to engage in a day of discussion that will lead to improved capacity within the university to carry out its educational mission in a way that is accessible to everyone, especially when IT is used to carry out that mission.

UW representatives included web managers and developers, IT administrators and service providers, librarians, purchasing and contract officers, disability services providers, and faculty members. Representatives from Microsoft and Adobe also participated in the event.

As evidence of positive outcomes of this event, one participant said this on their CBI evaluation form:

During one of the breaks, we went through one of our projects in development, and used some of the new tools from the cbi to evaluate it. As a result, we are going to make several changes to make some of the specific dynamic sections more accessible, as well as improving the application as a whole.

Participants adjourned at day's end having identified and documented potential next steps for the university, the Accessibility Working Group, vendors, and individuals. For additional details consult Proceedings: UW Accessible IT CBI.

The CBI was funded by UW Technology Services and the National Science Foundation (grant #CNS-0540615) through The Alliance for Access to Computing Careers (AccessComputing), which is directed by the Department of Computer Science and Engineering in partnership with DO-IT at the University of Washington (UW). The goal of AccessComputing is to increase the participation of people with disabilities in computing fields.