Humboldt State University's Help Desk Frequently Asked Questions - Accessibility
- What are the timelines associated with making websites accessible?
Accessible Technology Initiative timelines set by the Chancellor's Office are as follows:
No later than September 1, 2007: New and updated
administrative websites, web applications, and web content produced by
the CSU or by third-party developers should, at a minimum, conform to
baseline accessibility standards as defined in Section 508, Subpart B,
and where appropriate, Subpart C (http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/standards.htm).
This timeline applies only to administrative sites. The deadlines
applied to instructional sites are provided in the Instructional
Materials section of this memo.
May 15, 2009: All administrative sites that are
critical to institutional access (as established in the Web
Accessibility Implementation Plan) should, at a minimum, conform to
baseline accessibility standards as defined in Section 508. If
remediation or replacement of the website is not possible or would
constitute an undue burden, then a plan to provide an equally effective
alternate form of access must be developed, documented, and
communicated.
May 15, 2012: All websites at the CSU should fully
conform to Section 508. Once again, undue burden plan requirements (as
described above) apply.
- What are the timelines associated with making instructional materials accessible?
Accessible Technology Initiative Timeline for Instructional Materials set by the Chancellor's Office are as follows:
Fall Term, 2008: New courses and new course content,
including instructional materials and instructional websites, will be
designed and authored in a manner that incorporates accessibility. If
incorporating accessibility is not possible or would constitute an
undue burden, then a plan to provide an equally effective alternate
form of access must be developed, documented, and communicated.
Existing course content will be made accessible at the point of course
redesign or when a student with a disability enrolls in the course.
Fall Term, 2012: Instructional materials and
instructional websites for all course offerings will be accessible.
Once again, undue burden plan requirements (as described above) apply.
HSU Accessible Technology Initiative Website: http://www.humboldt.edu/~ati/timelines.html
- What is Alternative Text?
Alternative Text:
Alternative text is a textual description of an image. It is used in web browsers in place of displaying an image. People with visual disabilities need assistance in understanding what message an image is trying to convey because they cannot see, or have difficulty seeing the image. In addition, some web browsers do not support images (i.e.: handheld devices).
For people with visual disabilities the Alternative Text is read by screen readers to describe an image. The purpose of Alternative Text is to provide an experience as close as possible to that of being able to actually see the image, even when the image is never actually "seen".
Types of Alternative Text
There are three basic types of Alternative Text:
Alt tag - an "Alt Tag" is a short description, usually 8-10 words, or less. The "Alt Tag" is embedded directly in the web page.
Long Description - a description that is usually longer than 8-10 words. It is accessed through a "d" link. A "d" link allows people to click on the small letter "d" next to the image to open up a new page containing the entire presentation.
Decorative Image - an image that is used purely for decoration and does not add or take away anything significant from the message of the page. An example would be a line which is used to visually separate two items on a screen , like a line separating the Title of a page from the content of a page. When an image is encoded as a a "Decorative Image" it is assigned a null tag which tells a screen reader to ignore it.
- What are instructional materials?
Any informational content that is required as a component for participation in curricular activities; the basis for most assigned readings, discussions, activities and examinations; effectively the raw material for curricular learning.
- Why does LecShare indicate my slide titles are missing?
In LecShare, slide titles serve two purposes. First, the title of the PowerPoint slide is used as the title of the web page. Web pages require a title for each page, and the title usually appears at the top of the web browser window.
The second purpose of slide titles is for navigation within the Table of Contents which aids in the navigation of the HTML file. It is important that each slide has a title and that slide titles are unique. Duplicate slide titles make navigation difficult.
LecShare may indicate that slide titles are missing though they are present on the PowerPoint slide. PowerPoint has a special type of text box that it uses for official slide titles. These text boxes can be easily erased and replaced with other text boxes that are not officially recognized as slide titles. If this has happened, simply add a title for the slide in LecShare. LecShare adds a hidden title, and the original PowerPoint file is not affected.
- How do I make a PowerPoint Presentation Accessible?
Currently, information on how to make PowerPoint Presentations accessible can be found at the Faculty Development Office website.
- How do I get started in making my instructional materials accessible?
As you improve existing courses or develop new courses, think about the small ways you can make a big difference. Get your text book orders in on time; order DVDs with captioning; turn captioning on when showing a video; review the ATI quick-start tools on the Faculty Development Web-page; consider attending a training session, or talk to a colleague who has attended training; talk to the Student Disability Resource Office for advice on reasonable accommodation for out-of-the-ordinary instructional materials; DON’T PANIC; keep in mind that in the end the small changes you make to accommodate students with disabilities will improve course delivery for all students. No one is asking you to completely revamp your course delivery to accommodate the possibility of a disabled student arriving in your class. We are asking you to think about small changes you can make so that all students, regardless of whether or not they self-identify as disabled, are most likely to be successful in your course.
- Is there going to be training and support resources available for faculty?
Absolutely. No one expects faculty to become experts on this issue, nor do we expect you to become entirely accessible overnight. There are tremendous resources already on campus to assist you. The Faculty Development Office, the Student Disability Resource Center and the Help Desk are pooling resources and will jointly develop a quick reference of "How To's" and develop trainings to support faculty.
- If I use Moodle, are my online resources accessible?
It depends. Moodle is generally accessible. The problem arises when items and documents are added to Moodle without consideration to accessibility. For example, if streaming videos are added to the online environment, they need to have captions or at least transcripts for students who are deaf. Also, documents need to be accessible for screen readers, etc. Some PDF documents are not automatically accessible.
- How does getting book orders in early help students with disabilities?
The ATI requires us to have alternative format materials available at the same time they are available for non-disabled students. The alternate format conversion process is complex and time consuming. On the average, the Student Disability Resource Center (SDRC) needs 4-6 weeks to produce a text in alternate format. Even if SDRC receives a book in electronic format from a publisher, it will likely need to be edited and converted to a format usable by a student. This is why timely adoption of text books is essential to the process. Most of these steps have to be followed for each book:
1. Books are de-bound
2. Pages are scanned into a high speed scanner
3. Text is converted using an optical character recognition system
4. Zone edited for formatting errors
5. Content edited (page by page) for content quality
6. Converted to requested format (E- text, MP3, Daisy)
7. Book is re-bound
- How do I know if I have a student with a disability?
You may not know. While students with disabilities generally register with the Student Disability Resource Center (SDRC), the SDRC does not necessarily inform all faculty of all reported disabilities. However, if a student has extraordinary needs, SDRC will work with the individual faculty to assure that reasonable accommodations are provided. For example, students with blindness or low vision, severe hearing impairments, or physical impairments requiring wheelchair access may need reasonable accommodations that will be arranged by SDRC in collaboration with the faculty member. But it’s important to stress that the ultimate goal of ATI is to effect small changes in our instructional materials so that students without an apparent disability need not self-identify in advance. For example, a student may have a hearing impairment and you may not know it. Turning on captioning for a video can be a very minor accommodation that all of us can easily do, automatically, with no formal request. And the added visual cue captioning provides sometimes helps those students who are not hearing impaired.
- Can you give some representative examples of instructional materials?
1. Paper based print materials (books, reader packets, reserve readings, lab manuals, handouts, syllabi, written exams)
2. Electronic print materials (web-based and Moodle-based content; electronic reserves, book bundled e-text, computerized exams)
3. Multimedia materials (web-based video/audio, commercial DVDs, materials bundled with books, photographic slides or lab samples)
- What does the Accessible Technology Initiative (ATI) require with regard to Instructional Materials?
Instructional Materials (IM) are considered to be forms of
communication and must therefore be delivered in a manner that is
equally effective for persons with disabilities. Communication is
considered to be equally effective when it is:
- comparable in quality to those received by students without disabilities
- comparable in timeliness of delivery and availability
- provided in a manner and medium appropriate to the significance of
the message and the abilities of the person receiving the material
- How do I check my website to see if it is accessible?
Keep your eyes open for an announcement regarding training opportunities for web accessibility. Part of those training materials includes training on a product called AccVerify. This is an automatic web accessibility checker program that can check the accessibility of web pages. Keep in mind though, that not everything on a web page can be checked automatically. There are some manual checks that the developer/user has to perform. The training will cover the use of the AccVerify software in addition to how to perform the manual checks to do a complete check of a website.
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