Session keynote for the 2015 speaksVOLumes conference by TxVSN. Why All the Attention to Accessibility?

1. Raymond M. Rose
Rose & Smith Associates
Port Aransas, TX
This work by Raymond Rose is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Why All the Attention to
Accessibility?
speaks VOLumes 2015

2. Ray’s Background
• K-12 teacher, curriculum coordinator, counselor, adminstrator
• Civil Rights Specialist with Mass Dept of Education
• Civil Rights Specialist/Manager New England equity assistance center
• Virtual High School designer/manager
• 1st virtual school special needs policy
• 2007 1st publication access and equity in online education
• Faculty, Instructional Technology and Distance Learning Coordinator,
Huston-Tillotson U.
• Technical Working Group, Center on Online Learning and Students with
Disabilities
• 2014 Access and Equity for All Learners in Blended and Online Education

3. First, a little history…
1973
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act
"No otherwise qualified individual with a disability in the United States
. . . shall, solely by reason of her or his disability, be excluded from the
participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to
discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial
assistance . . . ."

4. First, a little history…
July 26, 1990
The ADA was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush, to
“ensure that people with disabilities are given the basic guarantees for
which they have worked so long and so hard: independence, freedom of
choice, control of their lives, the opportunity to blend fully and equally
into the rich mosaic of the American mainstream.”

5. First, a little history…
1995/96
VHS and FLVS

6. First, a little history…
~1998
Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

7. First, a little history…
2007

8. First, a little history… 2009
Kindle and Arizona
State – June 2009

9. First, a little history… 2009
TxVSN
(Legislature established in 2007)

10. First, a little history… 2011
•Google Apps for Education
(NYU, NU) – March 2011
•Penn State – 2011 --suit

11. First, a little history… 2012
Florida State University – March 2012
-- suit
University of Montana – September
2012 -- review
Grand Rapids Community College –
November 2012 -- complaint

12. First, a little history… 2013
South Carolina Technical College System –
March 2013
Crowley ISD – March 2013 – complaint
Lockhart ISD – July 2013
Louisiana Tech University – July 2013 --
complaint
Virtual Community School of Ohio – November
2013

13. First, a little history… 2014
South Carolina Virtual Charter Schools –
March 2014
University of Montana-Missoula – March 2014
– complaint
H&R Block – March 2014 - suit
Manchester School District – April 2014
U. Cincinnati & Youngstown State U –
December 2014

14. 2014
http://www.inacol.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/iNACOL-
Access-and-Equity-for-All-Learners-in-Blended-and-Online-
Education-Oct2014.pdf

15. 2015
April 2nd.
http://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/united-states-reaches-settlement-provider-massive-open-online-courses-make-its-content

16. Quiz
• Identify your institution’s Section 504 Coordinator?
• Identify the person responsible for your online learning
program?
• Has your institution adopted quality standards for online
resources/courses?
• Does your institution include an accessibility check for all
technology purchases?
• When was the last accessibility audit of the institutional
website?

17. OCR’s Operational Definition
“those with a disability are able to acquire the
same information and engage in the same
interactions — and within the same time frame —
as those without disabilities.”
OCR Compliance Review 11-11-2128, 06121583,
paraphrased from 11-13-5001, 10122118, 11-11-6002

18. Access and Equity Checklist
•Policies
•Online Course Design
•Program and Course Monitoring
Rose & Smith Associates

19. Policy Recommendations:
Institution has adopted, as policy, a set of quality standards to
which all online learning courses adhere.
All of the institution’s online courses (including those from
outside profit and non-profit vendors) are reviewed to insure
they meet legal accessibility standards.
Institution has determined process, responsibility, and timeline
for retrofitting accessibility or replacing courses that are not
accessible.

20. Policy Recommendations:
Institution has a designated 504 Coordinator, Grievance
Policy, and conducts annual notifications. (Required)
Institution has policy and activities to ensure organizational
website meets accessibility requirements.
Institution has no gateway exam/test where a specific score
is required to participate in online learning activities.

21. Website & Online Course Design:
Color selection does not impede students with color blindness.
All graphics have meaningful, learning-related Alt Tags.
There is no use of graphical eye-candy.
All content in PDFs is searchable (if a graphic, follow
requirements for graphics).

22. Website & Online Course Design
All audio is accompanied by text transcripts.
All video includes synchronized captioning.
Course navigation is possible without the use of a mouse.
Courses are reviewed with access by a screen reader in
mind.
Content at all external links meets the same accessibility
standards.

23. Resources for
Accessible
Website
and
Course Design

24. Resources
1 of 14
Access and Equity for All Learners in Blended and Online Education
• http://www.inacol.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/iNACOL-Access-and-
Equity-for-All-Learners-in-Blended-and-Online-Education-Oct2014.pdf
Higher Ed Accessibility Lawsuits, Complaints, and Settlements
• http://www.d.umn.edu/~lcarlson/atteam/lawsuits.html

25. US DoE Office of Educational Technology
Ed Tech Developers Guide
A primer for software developers, startups, and entrepreneurs
• http://tech.ed.gov/files/2015/04/Developer-Toolkit.pdf
Resources
2 of 14

26. Resources
3 of 14
FREE Video Captioning Apps
•NCAM.wgbh.org
•MAGpie
•CC for FLASH
How to add closed captions to YouTube
•https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K4WJs94FfY

27. Resources
4 of 14
Adobe and Accessibility website (PDF info)
• www.adobe.com/accessibility.html
Creating Accessible Tables and Data Tables
• http://webaim.org/techniques/tables/
• http://webaim.org/techniques/tables/data
2014 Access and equity for all learners in blended and online
education
• http://inacol.org

28. Resource
5 of 14
Color Blindness Simulator
http://www.seewald.at/en/2012/01/color_blind
ness_correction_and_simulator
See through the eyes of your red, green or blue
colorblind student.
Android only

29. Resources
6 of 14
Color advice for cartography
• http://colorbrewer2.org/
Vischeck simulates colorblind vision.
• http://www.vischeck.com/
Daltonize corrects images for colorblind viewers.
• http://www.vischeck.com/daltonize/
More Color Blindness Tools

30. Resources
7 of 14
FREE website accessibility testers
•http://CynthiaSays.com
•http://WAVE.webaim.org

31. Browser Based Accessibility
Testers
Accessibility Evaluator for
Firefox 1.5.7.1*
WAVE Evaluation Tool for
Google Chrome
*2008 uses WCAG 1.0
Resource
8 of 14

32. Resources
9 of 14
More Browser Based Accessibility
Testers
HTML CodeSniffer
• http://squizlabs.github.io/HTML_CodeSniffer/
Tota11y
• http://khan.github.io/tota11y/

33. Resources
10 of 14
Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools List (48)
• http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/

34. Resource
11 of 14
NVDA http://www.nvaccess.org/
NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access) is a free “screen
reader” which enables blind and vision impaired people to
use computers. It reads the text on the screen in a
computerised voice. You can control what is read to you
by moving the cursor to the relevant area of text with a
mouse or the arrows on your keyboard.

35. Resources
12 of 14
10 Free Screen Readers
http://usabilitygeek.com/10-free-screen-reader-
blind-visually-impaired-users/

36. Upcoming Scheduled and Previously Recorded
Webinars
Accessibility Tips for Effective
Teaching and Learning
http://www.3playmedia.com/how-it-works/webinars/
Resource
13 of 14

37. Resources
14 of 14
SSB YouTube Video Series: Web Accessibility 101
Introductory level (short)
videos demonstrating
assistive technology and
common accessibility
challenges.
Search SSB Bart Group on YouTube

38. Contact Info
Raymond Rose
• ray@rose-smith.com
• 512.791.3100
Presentation slides on this topic are
available at SlideShare.net under
RaymondRose
And at my blog: rmrose.blogspot.com