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Re: How to create a webaccessibility andADA compliance department for a Higher Edinstitution?

for

From: Hoffman, Allen
Date: Apr 18, 2011 1:54PM

Policies drive activities.
You need to develop policies to help in the start up of getting
cooperation.
You should include procedures also, e.g. who authorizes content, or
where students can go to request remediation of content, or etc...

Think about the various procedural things that might need to be
addressed, and build those in to policies also.
Think about authority, accountability, and responsibilities. For
example, who is responsible for ensuring videos are captioned, documents
are tagged if in PDF, and who provides the tools to do all this nifty
work.


If there are gatekeepers of content, define their role in reviewing
content for accessibility, and what their authority and responsibility
is. What accountability do site woners have for content?

I hope this helps.


-----Original Message-----
From: Giovanni Duarte [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2011 12:25 PM
To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] How to create a webaccessibility andADA compliance
department for a Higher Edinstitution?

Allen,
You bring an important point - policies. I agree that those are very
important but I am not sure how to start creating those. What is the
difference between those internal policies and following section 508?
Isn't
section 508 all the policies I need? Are the different levels (A,AA,AAA)
of
section 508 the type of policies I need to defined?

I also agree that educating the stakeholders is more feasible than
trying to
fix problems but I still need experts in the team who know how to
approach
the different technologies and systems.

Thanks,
Giovanni.

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Hoffman,
Allen
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2011 9:06 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] How to create a web accessibility andADA
compliance
department for a Higher Ed institution?

I'd suggest that for creation of an office for higher Ed setting that
you
focus on:
1. Setting organization policy;
2. Develop training plan to educate appropriate stakeholder about their
assigned responsibilities per policy, and the available resources; 3.
Metrics, develop a metrics system to determine effectiveness of training
and
delivery of accessible material 4. Help, develop a needs list of
resources
for materials authors/users, and then build plans to fill the needs


I understand that this is very high level, but the chances that a person
can
do the work of the organization as it relates to remediation of all
materials to be presented to students just isn't playing with reality.
You need to educate gatekeepers about materials expectations, authors
about
the same, and then develop eresources to get them to be able to do the
work.


-----Original Message-----
From: Giovanni Duarte [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
Sent: Friday, April 15, 2011 2:12 PM
To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] How to create a web accessibility andADA
compliance
department for a Higher Ed institution?

Bevi,
Those are very good points. Do you happen to know how those departments
or
offices are usually called? Do you have any type of job description that
could help?
Thanks,
Giovanni.

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Bevi Chagnon
|
PubCom
Sent: Friday, April 15, 2011 11:11 AM
To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] How to create a web accessibility and ADA
compliance
department for a Higher Ed institution?

My first thoughts...

Testing and reviewing media files is extremely time-consuming so as you
determine the number of people and skills required to get the job done,
allow for adequate time to do the work. It's always longer than we
think!

Automation of this process is tough: so many checkpoints and standards
must
be tested by a human being rather than computer software.

And then there's the education time: getting back to those who create
files
that fail, explaining what needs to be remediated, and often
hand-holding
them through the process.

Also define whether the office will check only website files at this
time,
or will it be tasked with reviewing all files, including Word, PDFs,
Excel,
PowerPoint, and all the other files used by your institution.

- Bevi Chagnon
___________________
Bevi Chagnon / PubCom
Government publishing specialists, trainers, consultants Print, press,
web,
Acrobat PDF and 508 April-May Classes: www.pubcom.com/classes Section
508
Accessibility for Word, InDesign, and Acrobat PDF