The University Faculty Senate Committee on Disabilities Issues
The City University of New York
Enabling Access to Excellence
What's This All About? Show Me!
An 11 1/2 minute captioned multimedia presentation at http://www.webaim.org/info/asdvideo/
features college students with a variety of disabilities. They explain
the educational technology related obstacles we see them encounter, as
well as what works best for them and why. The presentation is offered
in several media formats, and there is a separate text transcription
available from the same page. Note: To view captions using the Windows
Media Player, you may have to enable this feature through the VIEW menu.
The U.S. Department of Education has a PowerPoint presentation on the web called " Select from choices at http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocio/feddisabilitites/index.html
to view it as a powerpoint slide show, a pdf file, or as html. To
select html, pick the first entry in the list of slides, and then
navigate using the arrows on that slide.
Utah State University's Accomodating Students With Disabilities (ASD) offers sample videos and demos on their web site at http://asd.usu.edu/demo/index.html .
A valuable overview for project planning is the brochure produced by the University of Washington - "Designing Your Project to Be Accessible to All Participants," at http://www.washington.edu/doit/Brochures/Programs/design.html.
General Resources
Overview of Technology Issues
The following sites are useful for an overview as well as for the variety
of FREE detailed information they provide.
"Left Out Online:
Electronic media should be a boon for people with disabilities, but
few colleges embrace the many new technologies that could help."
From the WebAIM site as of November 2002:
"...Web Accessibility In Mind
(WebAIM) is administered through a grant provided by the Fund for the Improvement
of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) Learning Anywhere Anytime Partnerships
(LAAP). Our goal is to improve accessibility to online learning opportunities
for all people; in particular to improve accessibility for individuals
with disabilities who currently may have a difficult time getting access
to postsecondary online learning opportunities..."
Are you creating materials for your
students and want to understand how to provide accessible materials? Solutions on this site.
Jim Thatcher worked for IBM for 37 years [1963 - 2000], with 15 years
"devoted to assistive technology and accessibility." See especially the
free tutorials on this site.
User Tools
While some access tools can be controlled by the
users, they just don't work if what they are trying to read and
interpret is not created in an accessible way. Access success
presupposes utilization of often simple techniques by developers, and
some even then require specialized software on the user end. The
following are relatively new attempts to reduce problems of
accessibility for people with disabilities.
Microsoft's tutorials on basic accessibility options for Microsoft products are available at http://www.microsoft.com/enable/training/default.aspx .
- New! Adobe Acrobat Reader Accessibility Features
If a specific PDF document has
been CREATED using a version of Acrobat that supports accessibility
features, and using those options that implement those accessibility
features, the following instructions can help a user use those
accessibility features and have access to those documents.
Otherwise, while pdf files have their advantages, they are
INACCESSIBLE. See instructions at http://www.webaim.org/techniques/acrobat/reader.php#intro for the user with disabilities, and instructions at http://www.adobe.com/enterprise/accessibility/creating.html for those who need to create accessible content using Acrobat.
NYC Information (see also NYC Law - below)
- AAA Barrier Free Travel Guide for New York - available from AAA and some bookstores
NYS Information (see also NYS Law - below)
US Government Information (see also US Government Law - below)
Selected National / International Conferences
- Technology and Persons With Disabilities - California State University Northridge (CSUN)
- Accessing Higher Ground - Assistive Technology and Accessible Media in Higher Education - University of Colorado at Boulder
Library Resources
This tutorial is free to members of the American Library Association (ALA), and is offered periodically. The archived tutorial is at http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/oitp/emailtutorials/accessibilitya/accessibility.htm .
More on library accessibility is on our library resource page.
Travel Resources
AAA has a series of Barrier-Free Travel Guides for some major cities and regions. They are available in some bookstores and from AAA.
There are other books as well --- search on a book seller's web site
for terms like "barrier free travel" or "disability travel" or
disabilities travel."
Selected Resources on the Law
New York City Law
New York State Law
- New York State's Technology Policy 99-3: Universal Access for NYS Web
Sites, Sept. 30, 1999 (Supplement to 96-13), at http://www.irm.state.ny.us/policy/99-3.htm. From the site:
"...The purpose
of this technology policy is to require that all New York State agencies'
web sites provide universal accessibility to persons with disabilities..."
Although we haven't seen an implementation plan, a recent modification
to Chapter 219 of NYS law is related to accessibility of college level
textbooks. This is described on NY State's Vesid site at http://www.vesid.nysed.gov/lsn/stvnews/fall03.htm :
New NYS Law Improves Access to College
Level Textbooks! Effective January 5, 2004, the NYS Education law is
amended to add a new article 15B, section 715 requiring publishers and
manufacturers of instructional materials for students attending college
in NYS to also make available, at comparable cost to the printed
version, electronic versions of printed instructional materials.
Senator Paterson, one of the bill's sponsors, writes, "All students,
including those with physical disabilities, deserve an equal
[opportunity] to excel at their post-secondary education. This
legislation is intended to ensure that students with disabilities
attending a post-secondary institution in New York State have the same
resources available to them as students without disabilities." To read
the Senate bill, go to http://www.senate.state.ny.us, click on Bills & Laws and search for Bill S3306-A.
"....
Attorney General Eliot Spitzer today announced
settlements with two major travel web sites that will make the sites
far more accessible to blind and visually impaired users...The Attorney
General opined that the Americans With Disabilities Act requires that
private web sites be accessible to blind and visually impaired Internet
users..." From the same press release: ..." The Attorney General
also extended his thanks to the American Foundation for the Blind, for
its invaluable assistance, as well as to the Baruch College Computer
Center for Visually Impaired People..."
"...On July 29, 2003, New York State Education Law was amended
by adding a new section 715 to implement Chapter 219 of the Laws of 2003. This
law requires publishers and manufacturers of instructional materials that are
essential to a student’s success in the course of collegiate study to be made
available in alternate formats in a timely manner. This law took effect August
15, 2004...
...The purpose of these training workshops is to update
appropriate college personnel (staff that work with students with disabilities
and information technology staff) on their responsibility to provide effective
alternate format materials and how to effectively work with publishers
in implementing the new law."
Information about the law is available at http://www.highered.nysed.gov/Quality_Assurance/law/chap219instructdisabilities.htm .
.
US Government Law
Section 508 Requirements for Electronic Accessibility for People with
Disabilities
More on Section 508 Requirements for Electronic Accessibility for People
with Disabilities
Electronic and Information Technology Access Advisory Committee / Final
Report - May 12, 1999. From the site:
"...A
separate law, the Technology-Related Assistance for Individuals with Disabilities
Act of 1988, later replaced by the Assistive Technology Act of 1998, and
now known as the AT Act, has required states to provide assurances of their
compliance with Section 508 as a condition to receiving Federal funds for
their technology assistance programs. Although all of the states have submitted
such assurances, the lack of Federal efforts to enforce Section 508's provisions
has put the value of these assurances into question. The new Section 508
standards will provide much needed guidance to ensure compliance with these
assurances..."
http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/assistivetech.html
and
US Dept of Education's Requirements for Accessible Electronic and Information Technology Design
and
Department Receives Awards
for Section 508 Best Practices (November 2003)-
http://www.gcn.com/cgi-bin/udt/im.display.printable?client.id=gcndaily2&story.id=24089
According to the November 2003 award information on the site,
"...The Education Department and the Patent and
Trademark Office developed programs to integrate Section 508
accessibility requirements into all phases of their IT plans. For their
efforts, the agencies today received the first Government Best
Practices awards at the IDEAS conference in Washington.
Education’s Assistive Technology Program in the
CIO’s office assesses individual employee needs to overcome
accessibility barriers to using IT systems. It also identifies
technology sources, provides acquisition assistance, technology
installation, training and reviews Web systems for department bureaus
and other federal agencies..."
Telecommunications access issues and related laws.
US Department of Justice - Americans With Disabilities Act ADA Home Page
[CUNY Access Home Page]
[CUNY
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