Tip of the Day

Include captions when using audio or video clips and materials.

Printer Friendly |  -A  A  A+ 

Learn About
Universal
Design in
Education

Major Web Accessibility Sites

Accessibility of websites is critical regardless of the intent of the site. Website accessibility for educational efforts is a significant component in UDE. These links will take you to the home pages of sites that have developed and been active in setting standards for website accessibility.

General UDE Resources
External link

8 steps of Institutional Coordination and Reform [Web Accessibility]

Offers a model organizations can use to evaluate Web pages, develop a planning team, gain support for a Web accessibility initiative, develop and implement a plan, train staff, and monitor the accessibility of Web pages over time. [Annotation from UW Web Accessibility for All]

WebAIM

External link

Access for All: Are barriers keeping people with disabilities away from your church?

This article by John R. Throop discusses the barriers that are keeping people with disabilities away from church, including topics such as: employee accessibility, public accessibility, worship accessibility, and program accessibility.
External link

Accessify - Web Accessibility Tools and Resources

"A site dedicated to furthering the cause of web accessibility by offering free tools and other useful resources."

Accessify.com

External link

Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media

NCAM acts as the research and development arm of WGBH's (Boston) Media Access Group and is involved in technology and policy and program development to assure that the nation's media and technologies are fully accessible to people with disabilities.

WGBH Media Access Group

External link

Conferences on IT in Higher Education

EDUCAUSE offers several opportunities throughout the year for learning and training for IT Professionals in higher education.

EDUCAUSE

External link

Designing More Usable Web Sites

Very comprehensive website for making websites accessible, includes multimedia and virtual reality. Provides information on browsers with built-in voice or other access features. Provides a link to a video that demonstrates how screen readers assist the blind. Many links to other related projects.

TRACE Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison

External link

EASI: Equal Access to Software and Information

A provider of online training on accessible information technology for persons with disabilities. 'Committed to using podcasts, webinars, online courses and interactive internet tools to help institutions make their computer and information technology resources more accessible to users with disabilities.'
External link

Guidelines for Creating Web Content Accessible to All

An easy to use overview of Web Accessibility.

From the Ohio State University Partnership Grant

External link

IMS Global Learning Consortium: About IMS

"In service to the community of organizations and individuals enhancing learning worldwide through the use of technology, IMS GLC is a global, nonprofit, member association that provides leadership in shaping and growing the learning and educational technology industries through collaborative support of standards, innovation, best practice and recognition of superior learning impact."
External link

NCBI CFIT: Centre For Inclusive Technology [Ireland]. Promotion: Education: Assistance

Much more than designing, testing and using accessible information and communication technologies. Discusses the current state of accessibility in Ireland, how to chose AT. 'Find out all about accessibility.' An initiative of the National Council for the Blind of Ireland.

Center for Inclusive Technology

External link

Software and Devices that Add the Sense of Touch to the Digital World

"Founded in 1993, SensAble Technologies is a leading developer of 3D touch-enabled (force feedback) solutions and technology that allow users to not only see and hear an on-screen computer application, but to actually 'feel' it.? The company evolved from undergraduate research done at MIT in the 1990s by industry pioneers Thomas Massie and Dr. Kenneth Salisbury."

SensAble Technologies

External link

The Art of [Web] Accessibility - Home Page

"We aim to prove that accessible, usable web sites built with universality and standards in mind need not be boring. We will show you artfully crafted sites made by some of today's most progressive web developers." Provides awards for accessible websites based on their criteria, gives examples, good discussion of issues.

Accessites.org

External link

UConn Center on Postsecondary Education and Disability

Home to "FacultyWare" - a website to provide "a broad range of information and tools to enhance the design and delivery of instruction for diverse college students."

University of Connecticut

External link

W3C Accessibility

"The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect."

 

Further, As part of the W3C, "The mission of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) is  to lead the Web to its full potential to be accessible, enabling people with disabilities to participate equally on the Web."

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

External link

WCAG 2.0 - Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

This set of web accessibility guidelines developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the standard for web content accessibility. It is useful for web content developers, web authoring tool developers, web accessibility evaluation tool developers, and others wanting or needing a technical standard for web accessibility.

W3C

External link

Web Accessibility 101 - Course Introduction

A free on-line course about producing accessible websites. 'Policy, Standards, and Design Techniques.'

University of Wisconsin-Madison

External link

Web Accessibility for All

Provides an array of resources - from online and downloadable tutorials designed to help create accessible web content, to tools to help your organization build its capacity to maintain electronic accessibility.

Center on Education and Work, University of Wisconsin

External link

Web Best Practices Overview

Web Best Practices Overview:  This group, lead by Jon Gunderson of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, convenes regularly "to develop best practices for web development using HTML, CSS, Javascript and Adobe PDF." Information about joining, issues and topics for discussion are found at this website.

Assistive Technology in Higher Education Network (ATHENS)

External link

Web Design References: Accessibility

University of Minnesota Duluth

Information Technology Systems & Service 

University of Minnesota Duluth

External link

Web Usability (Australia)

Comprehensive site to promote website accessibility.

Hudson, R

General UDE Resources

It took me several years of struggling with the heavy door to my building, sometimes having to wait until a person stronger came along, to realize that the door was an accessibility problem, not only for me, but for others as well. And I did not notice, until one of my students pointed it out, that the lack of signs that could be read from a distance at my university forced people with mobility impairments to expend a lot of energy unnecessarily, searching for rooms and offices. Although I have encountered this difficulty myself on days when walking was exhausting to me, I interpreted it, automatically, as a problem arising from my illness (as I did with the door), rather than as a problem arising from the built environment having been created for too narrow a range of people and situations.

Susan Wendell, author of
The Rejected Body: Feminist Philosophical Reflections on Disability