CHECK 2010 Technical Views
Online Accessibility:
It's not what you know, it's who you know!
Jason Maseberg-Tomlinson
Disability/ Technology Specialist
Kansas State University
Outline
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Accessibility Awareness
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Media / Content Awareness
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Who authored your content?
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Who do you know?
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Where do you look?
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Case Study
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The Easy Way Out
Jason Maseberg-Tomlinson 2010
Accessibility Awareness
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Who are your students? Be prepared for what is
most likely to be needed.
1 in 9 students has a disability.
How committed is your institution? What are your
policies.
It's the law.
Jason Maseberg-Tomlinson 2010
Media / Content Awareness
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Forms of Content:
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Text (.html versus .docx)
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Audio
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Visual / Psuedotext
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Timed
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Styles, Organization (pull down menu)
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Video length
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Chat boards
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White boards
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Video Conferencing
Jason Maseberg-Tomlinson 2010
Who authored your content?
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Faculty
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Designers
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Students
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Graduate Assistants
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Student Workers
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Classroom Students
PUBLISHERS!
Jason Maseberg-Tomlinson 2010
Who do you know?
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What offices on your campus should be involved in
making material accessible?
What are the politics of your campus?
Do you have loose connections or strong connections
between offices and IT departments?
Systems that work well often have a team: disability
specialist, instructional designer, webmaster, faculty,
and distance education coordinator.
Create a resource list; think outside the box...
Jason Maseberg-Tomlinson 2010
Who do you know?
Disability Support
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Make the first contact before something comes up.
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Contact them before they contact you.
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Pick a point person for accessibility and have them
meet with DS regularly. Perhaps DS has a point
person to work with technology!
Jason Maseberg-Tomlinson 2010
Who do you know?
Faculty
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Share ideas with faculty on creating content that is
more easily adaptable.
Make sure that you work with them on understanding
their goals for teaching.
Know how they feel about copyright. A fully locked
down PDF is not accessible, but you can meet them
half way with 40-bit encryption instead of 128.
Keep them in the loop; remember, it is their class.
Jason Maseberg-Tomlinson 2010
Who do you know?
Coordinators
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Does your campus have coordinators who work
with faculty to put content online?
Do the faculty members you work with have other
folks working on their courses?
Do you have a department who works with distance
education?
Is your school part of any consortiums?
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GP IDEA
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AG IDEA
Jason Maseberg-Tomlinson 2010
Who do you know?
Instructional Designers
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What office works most with your LMS?
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Who help faculty design their courses and content?
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These people often balance a wealth of information
on both technical aspects of your LMS and
educational pedagogy.
These professionals live between content ideation
and content application.
Jason Maseberg-Tomlinson 2010
Who do you know?
LMS contact
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Who knows most about your LMS?
Do they know the limits of accessibility? Has anyone
called IT at the LMS and talked with them?
Take NO simple answers from the LMS
representatives.
Jason Maseberg-Tomlinson 2010
Who do you know?
Testing Center
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Make sure you know how online students take their
tests.
Many online students are also local and they may look
to the university for a proctor.
If you have a testing center, learn about their
responsibilities and how students are served. What
technology will be available to students?
Jason Maseberg-Tomlinson 2010
Who do you know?
Printing Services!
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Course packs
Talk with them about capabilities of scanning and
running Optical Character Recognition. Can they
make a file that is:
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Searchable?
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With REAL text?
Jason Maseberg-Tomlinson 2010
Who do you know?
Advisors!
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Have you ever been overwhelmed with having to do
transcripts two weeks prior to the semester?
Learn about programs with the highest enrollment and
most complicated technology.
Create a plan of action that outlines the steps to take if
modifications are needed for an entire program.
Keep in mind: ALL STUDENTS CHANGE THEIR MINDS!
Jason Maseberg-Tomlinson 2010
Who do you know?
STUDENTS
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As professionals, we often think of other
professionals to help us problem solve. We
often think to ask the student last.
Find out what technology the student is using. Just
because something can be made accessible does not
mean that the student will be able to use it; they
may use a different system or technology.
Talk with Disability Support and work with them on
which questions they need to ask the student.
Jason Maseberg-Tomlinson 2010
Where do you look?
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Listservs
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ATHEN (Access Technology Higher Education Network)
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Professional Associations
RSS/ Blogs
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Eric Myer
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W3C
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WebAim
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456 Berea Street
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EASI (Equal Access to Software and Information)
Jason Maseberg-Tomlinson 2010
Where do you look? 2
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Podcasts
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EASI Conference Podcast
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It's about People, Not Technology
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Access Tech
Online Training
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EASI
DCCOL: Disability Compliance in Career and Online
Learning
Jason Maseberg-Tomlinson 2010
Case Study
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A college student with a two year associates
degree transfers to your school two weeks before
the fall semester. She signs up for college algebra
online. She is blind. Disability Support Services calls
you for help.
Who do you call?
Jason Maseberg-Tomlinson 2010
The Easy Way Out
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There is none.
Thinking about a text only site? Text a friend and
find some help.
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HTML 5 and CSS – like duct tape in a rainstorm.
Flash – It can be made accessible with keystrokes. But
it will take MUCH work.
Retrofitting requires the most work; make an
accessibility check part of your pre-design process.
Jason Maseberg-Tomlinson 2010
Online Accessibility:
It's not what you know, it's who you know!
K-State.edu/dss/check2010.rtf
Thank you.
Jason Maseberg-Tomlinson
Disability Support Services
Kansas State University
[email protected]