Web Accessibility: How is Higher Education Responding to the Need?Terry Thompson Saroj Primlani

Terrill ThompsonTechnology Accessibility Specialist

University of Washingtontft@u.washington.edu

600 MillionPeople with disabilities

(10% of world population)

Source: World Health Organization

52.2 MillionPeople with disabilities

in the United States

Source: Your HighEdWeb Handouts booklet

1 millionCollege students with disabilities in the U.S.

Source: “Roadmaps & Rampways”. American Association for the Advancement of Science

3,025complaints of disability-related discrimination filed with U.S.

Department of Education Office for Civil Rights in 2006

Source: OCR FY 2006 Report to Congress

Millions and Millions

How are we responding

to the need?

How to Measure “How”

1. Measure outcomes (i.e., are higher education web pages accessible?)

2. Measure policies, procedures, and promising practices

How #1Measuring Outcomes:

“Are our web pages accessible?”

W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0

• 14 guidelines• Priority 1, 2, and 3 checkpoints• Priority 1 = MUST do• Priority 2 = SHOULD do• Priority 3 = MAY do

Section 508 Standards• Section 508 is federal law that requires

accessibility of federal agencies’ electronic and information technology (E&IT)

• In 508 standards, web is one of six categories of E&IT

• Based in part on WCAG Priority 1• 16 standards• Provides a minimum standard for

accessibility (WCAG 1.0 has 65 checkpoints)

Kay Lewis et al (2007)University of Texas at Austin

• “Student Web Accessibility Project”• Manually evaluated 99 self-referred

websites • 12 sites met all Section 508 standards • At least 25 of the sites were developed

using Flash (suggests a need for Flash accessibility expertise, education, and outreach)

Sean Kane et al (2007)

• Home Pages of 100 Top Universities• Assessed accessibility using:

–Bobby (Watchfire)–CynthiaSays (HiSoftware)–Functional Accessibility Evaluator (FAE)

(31 rules across five categories)

Kane Results: Home Page Accessibility

• FAE % of Rules Passed– Navigation & Orientation 36.07%– Text Equivalents 51.24%– Scripting 54.00%– Styling 50.95%– HTML Standards 69.74%

• 36 pages contained no Priority 1 WCAG errors in either Bobby or Cynthia

• 2 pages contained no Priority 1, 2, or 3 WCAG errors

Terry Thompson et al (2007): A Global Benchmark

• 7239 higher education home pages from 162 countries

• 5281 national government pages from 181 countries

• Evaluated all pages using FAE. Results showed lower accessibility than Kane’s results, but categories were proportional.

Thompson et al (2007)Web Accessibility over Time

• Manual assessment of home pages from 127 higher education institutions in the Northwest (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska)

• One benchmark assessment• Second assessment at 3 months• Third assessment at 6 months• Between assessments, provided varying

levels of outreach and consultation to a sample of the institutions

Significant Overall Change in Six Months

• Three checkpoints improved– Alt text for images – Accessible markup on forms– Skip navigation links

• Three checkpoints worsened– All features accessible using keyboard – Content accessible without scripts– Content accessible without CSS

• The effect was stronger for those who received accessibility training

How #2Measuring Policies,

Procecures, and Promising Practices

Results of the 2008 ATHEN Survey

on Accessible Technology in Higher EducationATHEN = Access Technology

Higher Education Networkathenpro.org

Research Sample

• 149 individuals• 106 higher education institutions

– 52 from United States– 28 from United Kingdom– 12 from Canada– 9 from Ireland– 3 from South Africa– 1 each from Australia and New Zealand

U.S Participants

• 44.2% from doctorate-granting universities• 32.7% from associate’s colleges• 21.2% from master’s colleges/universities• 51.9% from West • 25.0% from Midwest• 11.5% from South• 11.5% from Northeast

Q: Do you have a web accessibility policy?

All participants U.S. Participants

Yes 55% 55%

No 40% 45%

No response 5% 0%

Q: Is there a person or office specifically responsible for web accessibility consultation?

All participants U.S. Participants

Yes 59% 70%

No 40% 30%

No response 2% 0%

Q: Do you have policies or procedures that require consideration of accessibility when acquiring IT?

All participants U.S. Participants

Yes 46% 44%

No 39% 39%

No response 15% 17%

Q: Was accessibility a consideration when acquiring an LMS?

All participants U.S. Participants

Yes 51% 44%

No 41% 50%

No response 8% 6%

Q: Was accessibility a consideration when acquiring a Content Mgmt System?

All participants U.S. Participants

Yes 28% 25%

No 33% 33%

No response 39% 42%

Q: Do you have a project, system, or strategy in place to assess IT accessibility?

All participants U.S. Participants

Yes 34% 39%

No 49% 42%

No response 16% 19%

Q: Do you have centralize services for making multimedia accessible? (% “Yes” responses, U.S.)

Captioning Transcribing Audio description

29% 23% 19%

Case Study: University of Washington

History of UW IT Accessibility

1984 Micro Support Group1990 Adaptive Technology Lab1992 ATL Lab Manager, DO-IT2001 AccessIT2003 AccessibleWeb user group2006 AccessComputing

January 2007

2007

• Created new 0.5 FTE position for IT accessibility support

• Launched two new websites– UW Accessible IT site (public)

http://www.washington.edu/accessibility– Special Interest Group on Accessibility in IT

(internal wiki, strong emphasis on collaboration and community building)

March `08: UW Accessible IT CBI• IT administrators• Computer support staff• Web developers and managers• Librarians• Purchasing and contracts personnel• Faculty members• Accessibility professionals• Key vendors• Representatives from all 3 UW campuses

CBI Outcomes• Next steps for the university, Accessibility

in IT SIG, vendors, and individuals • Follow-up meeting to identify working

groups and begin work• Accessibility representation on Emerging

Technologies Group(s)• November `08: Presentation to the UW

Web Council

Questions?