Designing Programs for Ensuring Access and Equity for Students with

Disabilitiesor

How to Avoid Jail-Time.Making Digital Resources Accessible.

Ray RoseRose & Smith Associates

This work by Raymond Rose is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Ray Rose

• Author: Access and Equity for All Learners in Blended and Online Education (November 2014) includes reviews of OCR Reports

• Author: Access and Equity in Online Classes and Virtual Schools (2007)

Who are you?

• K-12• Higher Education• Vendor/Publisher• Other

What do you do?

• Administrator• Program Manager• Course Designer• Course Instructor• Other

What questions would you like to get answered at this session?

Terms

• OCR – US Dept of Education, Office for Civil Rights

• DoJ – US Dept of Justice• Compliance – meeting legal requirements

Jail-time is not a penalty for creating, offering, or delivering online resources to students that are not accessible.

FWIW

Non-Compliance

Extreme: Loss of all Federal Funding for the institution

Typical Non-Compliance Situation: Negative Publicity Paperwork (lots and lots) Resolution Plan Ongoing monitoring by OCR

NJ School Compliance Plan 10/2014

The school district has committed to:• Work with an expert consultant, survey students, parents and

staff and assess current programs and courses to identify any potential barriers

• Consider expanding criteria to determine eligibility and selection for enrollment

• Expand student, parent, and community outreach about available courses and programs

• Improve academic counseling services at the middle school and high school levels

• Train district and school site administrators and personnel in elementary and middle school math enrichment programs and advanced courses.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/new-jersey-schools-promise-to-correct-racial-disparities/2014/10/28/2b14e800-5ede-11e4-8b9e-2ccdac31a031_story.html

Standards That Include Access…

• K-12– iNACOL– Quality Matters

• Higher Ed– Quality Matters– Online Learning Consortium (formerly

SLOAN-C)

Become Familiar with UDL*

• Universal Design for Learning– Multiple means of representation– Multiple means of Action and Expression– Multiple means of engagement

* referenced in iNACOL National Standards for Quality Online Courses

http://www.cast.org/udl/

UDL ≠ Legal Compliance

Your institution’s obligation:

Meet legal requirements for accessibility in every online course. (That includes blended offerings.)

OCR’s Operational Definition

“those with a disability are able to acquire the same information and engage in the same interactions —and within the same time frame — as those without disabilities.”

OCR Compliance Review 11-11-2128, 06121583, paraphrased from 11-13-5001, 10122118, 11-11-6002

Your text hereYour text here

OCR Finding

Section 504of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973

Section 504

Section 504 of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Vocational Rehabilitation Act, 1973)

– mandates that qualified people with disabilities have access to programs and services that receive federal funds

Institutional 504 Basics

• Appoint 504 Coordinator• Establish 504 Grievance Procedure• Provide annual public notice of Coordinator

and Grievance Procedure

U. S. Department of Justice(DoJ)

• Enforces: ADA, 504, IDEA, Title IV, Title IX

• if qualified individuals with disabilities enroll in online courses, these courses must be made accessible to them

ADA

Title II, Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990

ADA

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 (Americans with Disabilities Act, 1990)

– reinforced and extended Section 504– prohibiting institutions from excluding and

otherwise discriminating against students with disabilities in public programs and services,

– regardless of whether or not they are federally funded

http://www.ada.gov/2010_regs.htm

OCR Finding

Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act 1973

• Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (U.S. Department of Education, 1998), – requires that electronic and information technologies

that federal agencies procure, develop, maintain, and use

– be made accessible to people with disabilities, both employees and members of the public,

– unless it would pose an undue burden to do so.

• The Vocational Rehabilitation Act Amendments (1998)– mandated the U.S. Architectural and Transportation

Barriers Compliance Board (Access Board) to develop accessibility standards for electronic and information technology to which federal agencies must comply

* “The use of the Accessibility Standards by OCR does not imply that conformance to Section 508, WCAG, and/or other electronic and information technology standard is either required or sufficient to comply with either Section 504 or Title II. Rather, OCR’s limited application of the Accessibility Standards served only as an investigative line of inquiry, assessing the designated website against specific technical requirements, which may indicate potential compliance concerns under Section 504 and Title II.”

*OCR Compliance Review: Docket #15-11-5002 *Boilerplate from OCR Compliance Reports

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0

• Perceivable• Operable• Understandable• Robust

http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0

• Perceivable–Text alternatives–Time-based media alternatives–Content can be presented in different

ways–Easier for users to see and hear

content

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0

• Operable–Keyboard functionality–Time constraints removed–Sensitivity to seizure-inducing design–Easily navigate and find content

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0

• Understandable–Text content readable and

understandable–Web pages are predictable in

appearance and operation–Help users avoid and correct mistakes

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0

• Robust –Maximize current and future user

compatibility–Including assistive technologies

OCR Finding

POLICIES

Policy Recommendation

Adopt quality standards for all online learning activities

Policy Recommendation

Review ALL courses to insure they are legally accessible

Policy Recommendation

Create process, responsibility, and timeline for retrofitting or replacing non-compliant courses

Policy Recommendation

Create a Special Needs Online Learning Policy

Policy Requirement

Ensure institution has:– 504 Coordinator– 504 Grievance Policy, and – Annual 504 Notifications

Policy Requirement

There is no gateway exam required to participate in online learning

Policy Requirement

Institutional website meets legal accessibility requirements

COURSE DESIGN

Think Print disability

• Includes:– Visual Print-disability– Physical Print-disability– Cognitive and/or Perceptual Print-disability

Course Design

Pay attention to color (color blind)

Course Design

Graphics• Alt Tag EVERYTHING• NO Eye Candy

Course Design

Captioning for Video andTranscripts for AudioARE NOT A LUXURY

Course Design

Everything needs to be accessible -- inside and outsidethe LMS

Course Design

Make PDFs searchable(If a graphic, follow requirements for graphics)

Course Design

Course navigation without a mouse is possible

Course Design

Courses reviewed with a screen reader*

*Screen reader info in Resources

More..

• Think UDL -- use Alternate Presentations

• Live Video needs to be accessible

• Caption Lecture Capture

Do NOT trust any vendors’ word on accessibility.

– 6 different vendors’ materials cited by OCR in various compliance reports.

PROGRAM and

COURSE MONITORING

Monitoring

Collect disagreggregatedenrollment data for all online courses and programs

Monitoring

Analyze enrollment data for comparison with sending population

Resources

FREE Video Captioning Apps• NCAM.wgbh.org

–MAGpie–CC for FLASH

Resources

Adobe and Accessibility website (PDF info)• www.adobe.com/accessibility.html2014 Access and equity for all learners in blended and online education• http://inacol.org2007 Access and Equity… Publication• http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED509623.pdf

Resources:

Color Blindness Simulator

http://www.seewald.at/en/2012/01/color_blindness_correction_and_simulator

See through the eyes of your red, green or blue colorblind student.

Android

Resources

FREE website accessibility testers• http://CynthiaSays.com• http://WAVE.webaim.org• https://amp.ssbbartgroup.com/expr

ess

Resource: Free Screen Reader

NVDA http://www.nvaccess.org/

NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access) is a free “screen reader” which enables blind and vision impaired people to use computers. It reads the text on the screen in a computerised voice. You can control what is read to you by moving the cursor to the relevant area of text with a mouse or the arrows on your keyboard.

Contact Info

Raymond Rose– ray@rose-smith.com– 512.791.3100

Slides available at SlideShare.netunder RaymondRose