WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: University Resources

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From: Joshua Hori
Date: Apr 17, 2025 2:03PM

UC Berkeley went through this back in 2013: https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-college-disabled-20130507-story.html

This is why we got the SensusAccess document converter. Back then, all the jstor documents were images, except the copyright page, which was fully accessible. The documents were usually clean and produced clean results. With SensusAccess, I have a web submission page, an email submission, and LMS LTI integration. We just updated our SensusAccess Inside so that it works next to all files within Canvas.

I’ve also been testing Palace App lately, which is improving their accessibility efforts…It’s a book finding app that allows users to read on their mobile devices which are being offered to libraries.

Best,

Joshua Hori
Accessible Technology Coordinator
Information Educational Technology
Academic Technology Services
50 Hutchison Dr.
Davis, CA 95616
530-752-2439
Schedule a meeting via Calendly<https://calendly.com/d/ytt-hsj-vbn>



From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > on behalf of Xander Andrews via WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Date: Thursday, April 17, 2025 at 12:36 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Cc: Xander Andrews < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] University Resources
Not a lawyer, or providing legal advice here in any way, but I would point out that a federal jury ruled in Payan v. LACCD that LA City College failed to meet its legal obligations to two blind students, and inaccessible library resources were listed as part of that failure. We may not be responsible for fixing the accessibility issues of a product, but we could be held responsible for using/licensing inaccessible products.

Many University Libraries have been pushing vendors to improve the accessibility of their products during contract renewal negotiations. The University of Washington Libraries tested all of our E-resources<https://lib.uw.edu/services/accessibility/e-resource-testing/#p> in 2022, to evaluate if they meet basic keyboard navigation. Higher level testing is being done by the Library Accessibility Alliance<https://www.libraryaccessibility.org/testing>.
[http://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/uw-s3-cdn/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/06/21094817/Univ-of-Washington_Memorial-Way.jpg]<https://lib.uw.edu/services/accessibility/e-resource-testing/#p<http://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/uw-s3-cdn/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/06/21094817/Univ-of-Washington_Memorial-Way.jpg%5d%3chttps:/lib.uw.edu/services/accessibility/e-resource-testing/#p>;>
Library E-Resource Accessibility Testing – UW Libraries<https://lib.uw.edu/services/accessibility/e-resource-testing/#p>
UW Libraries' testing efforts to ensure E-resources procured for use at the Libraries are accessible to individuals with disabilities.
lib.uw.edu



Xander Andrews, MCRP

Disability Resources for Students

Assistant Director, Academic Services



011 Mary Gates Hall

Box 352808

Seattle, WA 98195-2808

206-616-9757



From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > on behalf of Brandon Keith Biggs via WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2025 10:02 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Cc: Brandon Keith Biggs < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] University Resources

Hello,
U.S. universities will often offer to properly tag or convert papers to
Word that a student requests. There's a 2-week turn-around, and sometimes
math content, for example, is not done correctly, but it's very nice to
have the university who will be willing to make a complex file usable on
request.
For less complex PDFs, I recommend:
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://papertohtml.org/__;!!K-Hz7m0Vt54!k7vvAxRXZ6r4iheOvZeMO8OWLhM3TqYOXj902TK3-zrGuDmwNlXp427W_O9upWb1DvINcs8D21kImr0IG-5Nfp1guw$<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/papertohtml.org/__;!!K-Hz7m0Vt54!k7vvAxRXZ6r4iheOvZeMO8OWLhM3TqYOXj902TK3-zrGuDmwNlXp427W_O9upWb1DvINcs8D21kImr0IG-5Nfp1guw$>
Thanks,

Brandon Keith Biggs <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://brandonkeithbiggs.com/__;!!K-Hz7m0Vt54!k7vvAxRXZ6r4iheOvZeMO8OWLhM3TqYOXj902TK3-zrGuDmwNlXp427W_O9upWb1DvINcs8D21kImr0IG-48r6CSlQ$ >


On Thu, Apr 17, 2025 at 9:24 AM Julian Tenney via WebAIM-Forum <
<EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> I would say no, but it probably depends. If it's just general access to a
> third party resource, then the accessibility is not the University's
> responsibility. However that doesn't mean that the University shouldn't
> review the accessibility of that resource and i) highlight any issues to
> users, or ii) raise those issues with the third party.
>
> It might be more complicated if access to the resource is an essential
> part of a users job. The problem here is define 'essential'.
>
> The EAA is relevant here, with the onus falling on the third party. It's
> also more complicated because something like pubmed will contain resources
> in turn provided by multiple third parties, who may have varying standards
> / policies when it comes to accessibility.
>
> So in my opinion it's a good question because of the 'what ifs' but in my
> work at University of Nottingham I do not think we are responsible for
> pubmed's accessibility.
>
> Julian
>
> > From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > on behalf of
> Brian Lovely via WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Sent: 17 April 2025 16:53
> To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Cc: Brian Lovely < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Subject: [WebAIM] University Resources
>
> I'm a little out of my zone here, so I hope I can word this question
> correctly. If a university provides access to outside resources, for
> example JSTOR or PubMed, is the university responsible for the
> accessibility of those resources?
>
> Thank you,
> Brian Lovely
>
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