AccessComputing

Growing numbers of educational entities at all levels are embracing the web for delivery of curriculum, as well as for administrative functions, outreach, and communication. Delivering web-based content to a variety of audiences demands a respect for the varieties of technologies that people use to access the web. In addition to the standard combination of computer screen, keyboard, and mouse, many web users with and without disabilities use alternative devices both for providing input to the computer and for perceiving output from the computer.

There are many products available that allow web designers, developers, and content authors to evaluate the accessibility of their web pages and sites. Many tools also prompt users to make specific repairs. The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) maintains an extensive list of such tools in their document Evaluation, Repair, and Transformation Tools for Web Content Accessibility.

Computer-Using Educators, Inc. (CUE), formerly the Technology in Education International Conference and Exposition (TechEd), employs the promising practice of including a presentation strand dedicated to the topic of technology and people with disabilities. Titles of talks in the strand have included:

Yes. The Access Board's Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Standards, developed in accordance with Section 508, divides information technology into several categories and delineates accessibility standards for each category. For example, one category in Section 508 addresses software applications and operating systems, and another addresses web-based intranet and internet information and systems.

Many websites have redundant navigation systems across multiple pages. Usually these navigation systems include several links across the top and/or down the left side of the page. For screen reader users and users navigating by keyboard, these links can become burdensome if there is no way to efficiently skip past them. A sighted user can jump visually past these links and begin reading the main content of the page. A "skip navigation" link is a technique for facilitating similarly efficient access for users with certain disabilities.

Web accessibility is comprehensively covered by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in their Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which includes guidelines and checkpoints (called success criteria). There have been multiple revisions of WCAG. Most laws, policies, and legal settlements or resolutions identify either WCAG 2.1 or WCAG 2.0 Level AA as the standard by which accessibility is measured.

Captions provide equivalent text for individuals who are unable to hear the audio portion of a video presentation. Open captions are part of the video and can not be turned off. Closed captions, however, are contained with a separate text track and can typically be toggle on or off as needed.

Yes.

"Information technology" (IT) is "any equipment or interconnected system or subsystem of equipment, that is used in the automatic acquisition, storage, manipulation, management, movement, control, display, switching, interchange, transmission, or reception of data or information. Information technology includes computers, ancillary equipment, software, firmware and similar procedures, services (including support services), and related resources."

Many distance learning courseware packages include a whiteboard tool. The purpose of an electronic whiteboard is the same as that of a blackboard or whiteboard in a school. Instructors and students write or draw on the board in order to share their ideas and to deliver instruction. Electronic whiteboards work as graphical chat tools. They allow multiple users to draw, paint, and share existing graphical files in real time. Unfortunately, exclusively graphical workspace is not accessible to users of screen readers.

All web documents should be divided into short sections for readability, and should be organized using a clear hierarchy of headings and subheadings. This is true regardless of whether the document is delivered using HTML, Microsoft® Word, Adobe® PDF, or another document format.