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Re: WCAG certifications, are there any official requirements to certify a website?

for

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Nov 10, 2011 2:21PM

Lucy

No, I bundled two questions together (which is a bad habit of mine
honestly), so I was asking both.
a. If there was a reliable international certification of
accessibility for websites and
b. if there were accessibility certification programs for individuals.
So, you were right. *smiles*


On 11/10/11, Lucy Greco < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Sorry I miss understood the question. I thought you wanted a web seal type
> of certification . I do think people should have some way of showing there
> ability to. if it's the people you want certified that is a good idea sorry
> for the miss understanding
>
> Lucy Greco
> Assistive Technology Specialist
> Disabled Student's Program UC Berkeley
> (510) 643-7591
> http://attlc.berkeley.edu
> http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Bevi Chagnon
> Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2011 6:35 PM
> To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] WCAG certifications, are there any official
> requirements to certify a website?
>
> Lucy, I understand your frustration with certifications, but following your
> logic gives us these situations:
>
> Medical diseases and their treatments are not static, yet certification as a
> doctor by a medical board is.
> Laws are not static, yet certification as a lawyer by a legal bar
> association is.
> Continue with this logic for many more professions, including Adobe's ACE
> certifications for its products.
>
> What's needed is a certification process that allows people interested in
> the field to acquire the subject knowledge and be tested. This helps
> prospective employers (or clients) evaluate whether the person has at least
> been exposed to the concepts. No certification program can guarantee that
> the person will perform perfectly for an indefinite time. Medical, legal,
> and other professions require recertification after x period of years.
>
> It's not a perfect system, but it does work for so many other professions.
> Our problem is that we don't have a certification system in place that's
> similar to those used by accountants, lawyers, doctors, engineers, financial
> experts, etc. Those professions have a nonprofit organization that creates
> and oversees a curriculum used by educational institutions. Ideally, the
> nonprofit should adjust the required curriculum as technology changes, and
> provide guidelines on additional learning to keep current with changing
> requirements.
>
> And certification renewal should be required every 2-3 years after attending
> additional courses to keep skills current.
>
> The original poster was asking if there was such a certification program
> available. To the best of my knowledge, no, there isn't. Maybe it's time for
> a nonprofit to step up and put an international certification program in
> place. My hope is that it would focus on accessibility not just for
> websites, but also for Office documents and Acrobat PDFs as well.
>
> --
> Bevi Chagnon | <EMAIL REMOVED>
> PubCom - Trainers, consultants, designers, and developers Print, Web,
> Acrobat, XML, eBooks, and Federal Section 508
> --
> * It's our 30th Year! *
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Lucy Greco
> Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2011 6:06 PM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] WCAG certifications, are there any official
> requirements to certify a website?
>
> As a screen reader user I don't thing surts are worth the bits they are
> written with. Because as we all know web sites are not static and a surt
> is. And what is a surt any way but a pat on the back of a person wanting a
> surt.
>
> Lucy Greco
> Assistive Technology Specialist
> Disabled Student's Program UC Berkeley
> (510) 643-7591
> http://attlc.berkeley.edu
> http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
>
>
>
>