World Wide Access: Accessible Web Design
People who design and support websites share how to make web pages accessible to people with disabilities.
AccessComputing
Returning from Service: College and IT Careers for Veterans
Veterans and postsecondary educators share strategies that create welcoming and accessible environments for wounded warriors.
Has the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) provided guidance in addition to the "effective communication" standard that is relevant to the obligation of postsecondary institutions to provide accessible websites?
Yes. In addition to the "effective communication" standard, OCR has, in at least one resolution letter, favorably cited a judicial decision (Tyler v. City of Manhattan, 857 F.Supp. 800 (D.Kan.1994)) in which the court ruled that a postsecondary institution violated its obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) when it only responded on a case-by-case or ad hoc basis to individual requests for accommodation.
What is the difference between SMIL and SAMI?
SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language, pronounced "smile") is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) specification markup language that enables simple authoring of multimedia presentations that integrate streaming audio and video with images, text, or any other media. It accomplishes this by dividing the different media components into separate files and streams and then displaying them together on the user's computer as if they were a single multimedia stream.
How can parents promote the use of accessible technology in schools?
The following publication content was developed through a joint project between AccessIT and the ADA and IT Technical Assistance Centers.
Blue Ridge Community College: A Promising Practice in Using Student Feedback to Improve Access to Information Technology
In 2002 Blue Ridge Community College, in Flat Rock, North Carolina received funding for a two-year initiative to improve access to information technology in community colleges. The project used student feedback to identify barriers; assess and upgrade existing information technology on campus; and implement faculty-wide trainings on overcoming barriers to information technology experienced by students with disabilities.
How accessible are Microsoft Word documents?
Microsoft® Word is the world's most popular word processing software application, and files created with Word (typically ending in .DOC or .DOCX) are common as a means of distributing materials over the web, including materials used in education.
How do I make websites accessible?
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.
How can I select an enterprise web accessibility checker?
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.
CUE: A Promising Practice in Including Disability Topics in a Mainstream IT Conference
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: