Thank you very much. Welcome to the ADA and Accessible IT centers as you know you can contact your center 1-800-949-4232. I want to take just a brief moment to thank all of the participants. Many of you participate all year long. Some may be joining the first time. We would like to thank you and appreciate your participation. This is a great way once a month for 90 minutes to get access to a whole host of information relating to disability issues. This September is the last session for the 2002-2003 series. We are pleased to announce that on October 21, we will kickoff the 2003-2004 session. You can find a preliminary schedule for the 2003-2004 sessions on the great lakes website at www.adagreatlakes.org. We are pleased to have the first session on October 21st at 1:30 CST, a session dealing with e-recruiting, "ADA implications for employers"-on October 21. Susan Bryer, who is the director on the program of employment and disability from Cornell University. You can find that information on your great lakes website or 800-949-4232. Today''s session is being realtimed captioned by Caption Colorado, and you can access that through the great lakes website www.adagreatlakes.org, that is currently taking place. Additionally we will be having two presenters today. The second presenter has 21 slides that are available on the great lakes site, either to view while the presentation is going on or a down loadable version you can print off and follow on that way. Those are also are available through the great lakes website. Today we will be looking at "Best Practices in Accessible Information Technology Policy." As we are each and every month very fortunate to have with us some great expertise in this area. Not only do we have one excellent speaker, but we have two speakers during this thing. We are very fortunate to have that. Our first speaker today will be Debra Buck who is with the Information Technology Technical Assistance Center, ITTATC, located out of Georgia tech, a NIDRR funded program. She is the director of state it accessibility initiatives with ITTATC. She will be looking at how states are doing well in their Accessible IT policy. Deborah has over 20 years experience in the disabilities and technology arena. We will be able to tap into her knowledge this afternoon. Joining us after Debra''s presentation will be Debby Cook, technical assistance coordinator with Access IT located in Washington, another NIDRR funded program. Access IT is the national center providing accessible information technology in educational settings. Debby Cook is recognized in her assistance and policy development in accessible hardware, software and on-line learning tools. So we were able to tap into her knowledge as well. I have spoken enough. We have two excellent speakers at this point. At this point I will be quiet and turn it over to Debra.
Thanks, Peter. This is Debra Buck. To help you differentiate. It makes it challenging when both speakers are named Debra. I am with the ITTATC project located at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where I am director of State IT accessibility initiatives. Prior to joining ITTATC project in February of this year I was with the office of the chief information officer in the state of New York as the accessibility program manager. It was a nice transition, in that capacity at the CIO office, New York collaborated with Georgia on some initiatives that became the baseline of our looking at state it accessibility. What I want to do today is talk to you a little bit about that initiative, which was a survey and some of the results of that survey, what ITTATC is doing with that information to assist states in moving forward. The survey was originally conducted as a result of a partnership between ITTATC, University of Iowa, disability law and policy centers at University of Iowa, RESNA and the Association of tech projects. They subcontracted with the New York state office for technology to do a survey of state governments regarding IT accessibility. The intent was to see where states were in terms of policies, laws, processes to implement those laws related to IT accessibility, identify barriers and identify state needs in relation to this topic. What the survey was not meant to be was a report card on state compliance with section 508. The U.S.. Department of Education has interpreted that state governments, as a result of accepting federal dollars under the technology related assistance act of 1988, then subsequently replaced with the assistive technology act, because states receive funding under that and NIDRR has interpreted that states must comply with section 508. I am not going to get into the discussion of that topic because this initiative was not meant to ascertain whether it was an accurate interpretation or not. It was intended to see where states where and where they wanted to be and what helped them need to get there. In doing this survey what we try to do is look and understand that every state is in fact very very different and is at a different place and time. We also recognize that everyone has different interpretations of the needs and barriers. Therefore in doing the information collection we targeted each group in each state, the state assistive technology projects, the state offices of the chief information officer and the state procurement official. We did outreach to every state and territory and the results were we had 47 states assistive technology projects respond, 30 offices of the CIO and about 7 or 8 procurement officials. It is important to realize that the structure in every state is very very different so it cannot be assumed that the procurement official is under the CIO''s office. What we try to do is see, you know, what policies they had in place in terms of four key areas, web accessibility, application development, hardware and public access. And the public access was described as public kiosks, borading machines, in that area. One of the things that was benefit of the survey was separate from targets where states were we were able to identify some pattern of how states operate and this is information that is critical to the adoption and implementation of IT accessibility policy. It was very clear that the extent of the authority of the CIO''s office in each state varies dramatically from state to state. For example in one state they may have authority just over the executive branch agencies. They may have authority over Universities in other states they do not. the Universities and local school districts are under a separate authority. so probably my first piece of advice is never assume that if you see that the state has a law or a policy that is automatically apply over the board. For example in South Dakota they really are very different. They are a small state, their offices of CIO not only has responsibility for looking in information technology accessibility, information technology for state agencies. It does also have the authority and responsibility to look at it for school districts-they have got the responsibility of the actual purchase and rolling out of hardware and software, etc. They play a very different roll than many of the other states. One of the things we did fine when doing a survey. It has really blossomed since then, is a whole budget issue. That has really become a key factor for states, as well as the response to the need to look at security. The one point I do want to make is that even though states are in very dire fiscal straights, that does not mean that they have stopped moving forward on information technology. Many many states have viewed information technology as a mechanism to provide services, not only to their employees, but to their citizens and people in other states. They are recognizing that, that needs to continue. Their budgets may be different than they might have them expected to be a few years ago but they still are making commitments of funds to move forward. Let me talk a little bit about survey result because this does form the basis of where we are. The other thing that we just covered when looking at those four categories web accessibility , application procurement and public access, is that every state took a very different approach. In some states they pass a state law. Other states did an executive order, where other states are clearly moving forward on trying to adopt a technical or enterprise architecture which is planned development for the state in terms of its response to information Technology. If looking at the policies and processes and it incorporates the technical standards. Some states actually addressed the IT Accessibility within their technical architecture. That has some significant benefits because that is the umbrella for how that state will operate. And what that does is it means that IT Accessibility is a part of the whole if not a separate and distinct policy that might be kind of thought of after the fact. It becomes an embedded approach. One of the other things that we found from this survey is that many many states, either in state laws or other policies may have specifically targeted that the beneficiaries of their policies were people who were blind and visually impaired. Subsequently, a number of states did realize that they wanted to target beyond that one group of person''s disabilities. Even if their state law specifically targeted persons who were blind and visually impaired as they wrote their policies and processes to implement the law, they did expand that it was for all persons with disabilities. One of the areas where states clearly had the most progress is in terms of web accessibility. This has been driven by a number of factors, e-commerce, e-government has clearly become a priority for state governments, federal governments, businesses, etc, web accessibilities also has a longer history in terms of some of the standards for application and hardware, etc, because of the efforts by the worldwide web consortium. So states could look to the materials that were out there in terms of 508, the W3C web content accessibility guidelines, look not only for standards and guidelines, but the availability of testing tools, invalidate it, information, to how to implement a program, etc. This was a huge opportunity. If you want-if any of you are online, you can go to the ITTATC website. And the URL is http://www.ittatc.org/laws/stateLawAtGlance.cfm. That have kept-that website maintains all of the data that we have on states in terms of their efforts regarding web accessibility, application, procurement and public hardware. I can tell you that this is an extremely fluid area because when I joined the ITTATC project in February, one of my tasks was to help prepare information to be rolled out on the website, and doing quality assurance checks, things would change weekly in terms of progress by the states. As of last week, I can tell you we updated it so that now every state in the nation has something represented on the website in terms of website accessibilities across the board, every state in the nation as well as the District of Columbia has got something in place. What is in place is dramatically different across the board. For example, some states may have adopted a state law, executive order, within that, they are very clear about the scope of the applicability, I mean by that is, who must comply with it, executive agencies, authorities, local governments, perhaps, universities, school districts, etc. Other policies are not quite as clear. Some of them have clearly adopted standards as a requirement for their state agencies to follow. Others have given their state agencies a choice, for example, the state of Texas. They have moved a lot. They started out, adopting the W3C guidelines, at one point in time, they were looking for the section 508 guidelines, where the state of Texas stands now, they have instructed their state agencies that they are in fact required to insure that their websites are accessible. The standards that they choose to use to develop their websites can be a choice, they can decide to use whether 508 or W3C. That is unusual. Not every state gives their agencies the choice. What other states have are best practice guidelines, its not necessarily a requirement. When you look at our website, one of the things that you will see is that we have tried to identify states that have adopted 508, those that have adopted W3C. And those that have adopted what might be deemed a state hybrid. And if you look closely I know that there is a lot of concern within industry and other entities that state governments are moving off on their own and starting to develop their own standards and when they see the term "state hybrid" it does cause concern. It does look deeper into what constitutes to a state standard because in most cases the state has really adopted the W3C guidelines or the 508 standard and what they have also done is adopted other standards that they need to ensure that they can comply with those web accessibility standards. Its also an opportunity for them to look at their portal policies etc., to make sure that they are, if not just one set of policies regarding accessibility and accessibility is a broader spectrum. So keep that in mind as you look at those standards. When you look at all websites I want to let you know that The ITTATC project is committed to keeping that up-to-date we are in the midst now for rechecking all of the blanks and looking for new information if the state has adopted a new policy. And in addition we are looking at a new format to present that information to make it more user friendly. In the format that is on the website now you can go to it and click to perhaps the state of Alaska standards. And what it does, it brings you directly to Alaska. It may have an excerpt on the web page that talks about their standards. What we are going to do is reformat it so that it really is an at-a-glance kind of document, where you can look at it and see if they adopt a law, an executive order. Have they addressed who is applied to, what is the scope of applicability? Have they specified standards? Is there a compliance time frame? Is validation and testing required? These are categories that we think will be much easier for viewers and they can get a snapshot and then dwell deeper into that website. I know that a number of vendors have indicated these resources been really efficient for them. One of the things that ITTATC is doing and its year completion, is we are developing a document of states to look at the web accessibility policy. Most of the policies that are out there could used to be buffed up a bit if you will. Many of them from and informatory stand point if you are looking at webmasters in a state agency. If I were a Webmaster and I were to look at some of the states policies, I am not really sure I would know where to start or when to stop. The parameters are not really specific. So what we are trying to do is develop a decision making tool for states for development of web access policies that will, it will be an online tour, that will really draw them right through this process of good policy development. There will be sample language in there and links to examples that already exist. The intent is as a state goes through this policy, whether they want to develop a new policy or revise what they have they can go to this tool and at the end of the queries and the sample language, they could realistically have a policy, a full policy done. You know by merely using the tool. So that''s the process that is in place. One of the areas that we are going to be focusing on next is certainly the area of procurement. Less than 20 states have something in place requiring the procurement of Accessible E&IT. And most of those that do have something in place do require compliance with 508. But again the clarity in terms of the scope of applicability, clarity of definitions, expectations are lacking. In many cases as well, the process that they are using is that they are putting the onus on the vendor to insure that the products they are selling the state are in fact compliant with 508. That approach often is contrary to, often, general state procurement practices, for example, the state government is going to be contracting for an application, let us say, for their state employees to be able to look at their personnel record, or their health benefits, etc, a state government will look at what their technical standards are. We will take it off to bid. They will work with the vendor in the development stage. They will build in criteria as to how that goes along and validation testing or acceptance-acceptance testing to insure, it is a safe guard so that the government will realize they are in fact getting the product that they are asking for, and the contractor will know that they are on target as well. By using a vendor clause, this is just kind of a label, almost. I am not sure that the states are really getting the information that they need, should a procurement be questioned. ITTATC is working closely with the federal government, as you know section 508 has been in place, federal government has been required-regulation-here finalized in the year 2000. Many federal agencies have made significant progress regarding 50 will procurement. ITTATC has no intention of reinventing the wheel, I will be assuming new responsibilities as a federal liaison as well, use tools and practices that they have developed to make those available for state governments. I was just at a meeting of a number of federal officials. He demonstrated an on-line tool that will help procurement officials go to the process of a- procurement and identify whether or not 508 should apply, can apply. Then what standards they need to take into consideration. We are also going to be doing a session out at the conference which is held annually in California, will be collaborating with a number of federal agenc-gencies as well as two state government agencies, two state governments, in talking about their efforts to look at it accessibility, not only from a policy perspective but also from programic practices as well. If ITTATC is available to assist states in their efforts. I can tell you that that one of the things we are not going to do is we are not doing-we are not developing model language or model legislation for states. We had a number of queries from different states saying tell me what to write. Our approach the looking at components, state options how to address it, giving them the guidance to think of the different considerations as they go through the process of developing laws or policies, because every state is different. The way that they operate their programs are very different. So we are going to avoid that one size fits all kind of approach. But we really are looking at the issue of standards. One of the things I heard yesterday, the meeting I was at, the significant concern about not only for state governments possibly adopting different standards from 508 but the European community as well. There are huge standards nationally in terms of looking at it accessibility. From an industry perspective, it is very difficult to deal with 50 different standards, just as you are going to deal with the united states alone, not even thinking about the European government as well. So we are going to be looking at those issues, a key factor is the fact that the federal government, while they are a huge procurement entity, when you look at state governments, as a whole, combine the 50 states, they are the big gorilla as they procure much more than the federal government does. So as a result of that, it has made industry more concerned. They are watching very closely what is going on with state governments, so that they can realize that they can meet whatever standards are adopted. The state can benefit, the constituents of that state, people with disabilities can benefit as well. We are available to come and assist states at whatever level you might be available at. We have whatever states have logged on books but do not have practices in place and will be providing technical assistance to them. We also have a number of states that have been taking the approach of convening a task force to say what is it we want to do and where do we want to go. Oklahoma did that as well as the state of Indiana. They both passed legislation, requiring the convening of task force to look at the issue, develop standards. I am going to close, I think I have used up more than my time. Peter, are you going to open for questions now or wait until Debby is done?
We will wait until Debby is done for that. Thank you very much, Debra, for giving us the viewpoint at the state level. Now, we will bring in Debby Cook from Access IT who will give us the viewpoint for educational entities.
Thank you, Peter. I am Debby Cook, technical assistance coordinator for Access IT. If you have the power point slides I provided, please don''t go through-to all the links, there is a lot of information there, you will want to go back and get that later. I wanted to provide as much research as possible. Many of the things I will say are similar to what Debra has said. That makes a lot of sense. Because it accessibility policy is not usually developed in a vacuum. Many things play on to other things as that process goes along. I do have some slightly different examples than those that she has given you, but there are many that are out there, just tried to pick a few that would be specific in terms of examples of different kinds of emphasis in education. Often accessibility of information technology is considered only when students or employees with disabilities are unable to access information and request accommodations. But what we would really encourage is that with, as with physical environments, retrofitting is generally more costly, more time consuming, often doesn''t produce accessibility results that people want. So to resolve this, we really encourage institutions and choose to do upfront planning for it accessibility and procurement decisions which will increase timely and meaningful access to information technology for students and employees with disabilities. It can significantly help to reduce the costs associated with retrofitting or providing individual accommodations in many cases. So we think it is good business, good practicality. Procurement of accessibility information technology is really best achieved at any level whether we are talking about a state, college or local school district. It is achieved by adopting a written policy that clearly defines what is considered accessible it, I had-identifying the way in which compliance is monitored and even enforced, how do educational institutions develop information technology policy related to accessibility? There is no federal law or regulation that specifically mandates accessibility information technology in institutions. So design and implementation of information technology accessibility policy may be derived from a variety of resources including state or local policy already in place. Administration of educational entity implementing an institution-wide policy of some kind or any unit within a school or entity reflecting the interest or beliefs of a particular individual or group, or combination of the above. So there is not a system I can approach, just as Debra pointed out on the state-systemic approach one policy example is of the state law based in Texas, where the state law covers accessibility, and usability of state websites, and the university of Texas at Austin has complied with these requirements and I listed websites to demonstrate how the policy looks at the state level and what the policy looks like at the university of Texas. Developing usability and accessibility policies requires a number of components to make sure that they are accessible and again this is going to be true of any level, whether we are talking about a state level or at a college level, but certainly involving all of the stakeholders and in the education arena, those are many people. Those are departments, they would be developers and people that maintain websites, students with disabilities, faculty, a variety of people that are going to have to be engaged in that process. And then we need to clearly state how accessibility will be determined, enforced and maintained and this varies quite a bit across the board. But essentially, there has to be a very significant planning process, otherwise you adopt a policy or process and then there is no way for people to actually know how to do it. We also need to address earnest training for faculty, staff, and departments. This is whether we are talking about a state entity or an educational entity. A new field of endeavor. Whether we are talking about websites or general information technology. There will be many people who have not had training, for this to be effective, there must be a definite training plan in place to make sure the policy will work. Some factors to consider, yourself in developing an effective policy. The first one is what groups of people with disabilities are covered, by the policy plan to do? So, for example, there are some-there are some policies, which only cover a particular set of people, some of those, the nonvisual access policies, such as are in place in Maryland, Minnesota, for state government. They cover a particular set of people. Obviously, policies that cover the widest group of people may in fact be the post most effective. What types of technology are covered? Particularly in universities. Most policy is covering website, websites only. However, there is a notable exception to that. We have provided an URL for this, Oregon State University, which has both hardware access guidelines and software access guideline section, as a different kind of scope. But, in general, most college and university policy at this point does cover only website accessibility. So that is no-then, which even entities are covered? This becomes very, very confusing. In many, many cases, it is not clear, as Debra pointed out, who is actually covered, it may be clear that many-some-entities are covered, some not, this varies across the map. We have given you several examples of this to take a look at. Actually, Debra provided different ones. Arizona''s website accessibility policy applies to all budget units clarified in the document that is including community colleges but not universities, for example. Minnesota nonvisual access technology standards defines its scope of agencies, political, subdivisions, and the Minnesota state colleges and universities. The University of Minnesota it was advised it would be ideal if they comply but they are specifically not covered so you have disparity again in this example. The contrast, the different approach is taken in Arkansas. After 12:27, which is a nonvisual access law, applies to state assisted organizations. Theirs are defined as a college, nonprofit organization, person, political subdivision, school system or other entity supported in whole or part by state funds. So that is a very, very different definition from some of the others. Again, one additional example of this would be the MIT accessibility policy, which we have listed for you, and it applies to software, web-based products to be used in administration and services, courses of instruction, departmental programs, and institute-sponsored activities. So these do-these do range all over the map in terms of how this is covered. One of the issues schools have to determine how far done the food chain do they want to carry their policy process, should it apply to personal web pages of professors, for example, does it apply to things, that are on-campus, but are subcontracted off campus for activities. There are a host of issues to consider in determining policy, particularly for web content. As people get into more involved policy about procurement at which level will those policy impacts be felt? How about complaints? Certainly as Debra pointed out. Some states have adopted 508. Some have adopted W3C guidelines, some states have moved off in the process of developing their own policy set, some kind of hybrid or some kind of thing of all those or something else. We list the idea here that anniversary Arizona developed a set of standards based on 508, but by providing some additional specificity they have, I believe, 40 sub standards that they have added, whereas Texas states that websites must con form to generally accepted standards for internet accessibility and provide supporting document that identifies all the current guidelines, issues, but doesn''t recommend any particular set of guidelines or compliance level for the agencies, therefore, this would also follow along for the university, in Austin, that adopted this. The university of Wisconsin, Madison, policy, states that the university endorses-excuse me, the guidelines for the worldwide web consortium as the standard for dab accessibility and compliance, it also recognizes that 508 would be a valid mechanism for he compliance. They have a variety of issues there. To the point we have talked slew about-pretty much about university college, university, higher education accessibility. That is because most of the effort done for that state is in that area. There is very little effort around accessibility so far that that it-has resulted in policy at the k-12 issue, and this is particularly true, because k-12 schools and districts are at an earlier stage in technology evolution than most post secondary institutions. There is a growing effort nationwide for k-12 school districts to develop long-term policy and planning documents regarding their use of technology at all. But few if any of these documents have addressed the issue of technology accession . Again, this is totally exploratory area for schools. There are two exceptions to that. Ottawa area intermediate school district in Ottawa, Michigan addresses accessibility issue in its website policy. School websites must be accessibility by users with disabilities such as hearing or vision impairment, alternative methods of navigation need to be devised. It goes through and describes some of that information in their policy. TV school district in South Carolina also has included accessibility as a requirement in their guidelines for web pages. It includes web accessibility guy lines and discussion of the guidelines. They actually have not adopted a particular standard but have gone through and described in some detail what you would do to make a web page more accessible for specific use areas of assistive technology devices. It doesn''t by any means cover all of the WAI guidelines or the section 508 standards, but it is written in very simple terms and would be useful especially for novices, in the case of the k-12 level in terms of getting a picture for how they might make their pages more accessible. It is a nice example. In conclusion, creating accessible information technology environments requires a system-wide effort, school wide accessibility requires a proactive action, resources and commitment at all levels and is very critical that this be achieved. To achieve the best outcome accessibility must be addressed at the procurement level, particularly when talking about products, physical things such as hardware, software. Must include all types of information technology. Not be limited just to website, procurement and development, or any particular kind of technology, must cover with people with all types of disabilities, again, not focused on a particular disability group but making sure that the range of people is served by the policy and must state a commitment to accessibility, clearly define the technical level of accessibility that must be achieved. Identify who will evaluate whether the desired accessibility level was met, and I had the procedure by which an evaluation will occur. These are really, really critical issues and stipulate ways in which the policy will be disseminated. Address monitoring, enforcement, plan for the necessary training and support that will be needed. Allow for flexibility in changing specifications when technology changes without having to renegotiate the entire policy. So, those are my comments on web accessibility and information technology accessibility in education. Thanks, Peter.
Thanks, Debby. Thank you, Debra. At this point we will bring back Tiffany. She will give participants instructions on how they can ask questions of you two. While we are waiting for the first question, Debra, what you touched on at the beginning of the presentation, not wanting to get into the issue of whether or not states have to comply with the section 508 standards, whether they do or not, the states and then states have applications of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Title IV, and complying with 504 standards are great ways to meet the obligations under the laws.
That is right, Peter. States do have that obligation. The department of justice recently put out a technical guidance for state regarding accessibility. I will e-mail that link to you if you don''t already have that. You can make it available for the listeners later on. It is a very good, concise document looking at the applicability of ada. It does talk about the options of program availability, making the information available in alternate format. Clearly instructs states that they need to use common sense whether or not to use alternative methods to provide access.
Right. We can put that link on the transcript page when the transcript to the session is posted.
Great.
Do we have our first question.
Molly, Hunter, from affirmative living center.
Go ahead, Molly.
I am not sure I recognize myself. My name is Lori. I am from Birmingham independent living center. Could that be what you said?
No. But you can still ask the question.
I think that you might have answered it. This is my first conference, so I didn''t realize there would be a transcript. I didn''t catch the web address .
For ITTATC ?
The Debby talked about or Debra.
Sure, Debra can give that again.
ITTATC one?
Right.
Sure. Pull it up here again.
Or you can go to the home page and you can access it that way as well.
Yes, http://www.ittatc.org/laws/stateLawAtGlance.cfm. I will also send the link to Peter.
Right, it will be posted on the transcript page at the great lakes website.
Okay. I can still access that then.
Sure.
For the second Debby, did she intend to give or will this be in your transcript, the website for these higher educations?
They are all in the power point.
They will be there?
They are already there.
They are already there. That is it.
That is already on the great lakes website. You can access that right now.
I can get it myself. Thank you.
You are welcome.
That is it.
Our next question please. Go ahead with your question.
Are you there?
Hello. Go ahead with your question.
I don''t think they can hear us.
Okay. This is probably off the beaten path, but it looks towards individuals with severe physical disabilities who cannot basically communicate on their own, cannot talk, write, use a mouse and such. Even though there are some coming things with the web that might allow that access, if you have somebody, say, that is beyond the school system that spends a lot of time unable to communicate in there, they might not be ready to do it. That would lead to some sort of accessibility infrastructure to be considered. Is there anything in that area.
This is Debby Cook, One of the connections would be with the state tech projects. This is about assistive technology probably more than information technology. The premise in developing access information technology would be that you create a venue making it possible for people to use that type of assistive technology and if that person has been able to access adequate training for that. The projects would probably be the best resource in terms of the discussion of that piece of interface. Once the information technology is in place, what actually do use areas need, individuals need, in order to be able to make use of that. Is that even an appropriate way to get access? Particularly looking at this in the school systems, the whole issue of compliance with section 504, or under idea with developing an individual education plan, the notion is that you want to create the best access for that particular student which may in fact not be related to the access of information technology, for example, in the situation, if the technology can''t be accessed, you would have to look at this. We are looking at this from the standpoint of the information technology side. You are absolutely correct. There is a whole additional component that relates to users and whether they themselves can get it. Whether or not there is adequate assistive technology, whether accessing the technology is the best place for that person, same applies for seniors, many seniors without disabilities don''t necessarily want more accessible information technology, they want more accessibility information. That is a component that has to be considered for people.
Yes, but, it was how the accessible information is used, it is not an assistive technology thing. It is a question of how that active technology is used because of that-what I am trying to say, a parallel might be somebody sitting in a motorized wheelchair at the base of the ramp but nobody told him how to use the controls.
Right, that is user training, that is user training. We don''t actually address that in our particular project.
It is not the technical aspects.
Right.
It is how you go about addressing what you are trying to do?
All right. That is use are training.
No. User training is using assistive device, is it not?
Well, it might not be, using it in the case that you are describing, determining to go up the ramp, it is good to go up the ramps, whether it is good for you to go up the ramp, whether that is with a device, whether you would need to ask for assistance, that would be part of user training. Sure.
Okay. Well, it is really-well, is there anybody that is looking at a place between the user training and how that is used?
Not that I am aware of.
Yes. That would be a pretty individualized things. I think that you are right, even though it is bigger than user training, per se, I think because it has to be addressed on an individualized basis, depending on where the user was in the support system, for example, all of those issues would have to be considered in any educational planning, if we are talking about a student. Talking about an employee that would have to be considered as part of the reasonable accommodation process. All of those components that might vary for an individual would have to be addressed for that individual. But in the projects that Debra and I are working on, we are actually working a little more generically with the structure, if you will, itself.
Thank you for your question. As Debby had mentioned, you need to contact the state assistant technology project. He you can get that information, contact information through your regional ADA center. For Illinois-or Indiana you can find the information on the great lakes website. With the next question, if you are using a speakerphone, if the individual asking the question could pick up the hand set. That would help every one hear what is being asked a great deal. Your next question.
This is actually Nathan White at the Northwest IT center. I am looking at Debby Cooks presentation. It seems for k-12 there are a few places where people talked about website policies. Are there any models in k-12 entity that is looking at establishing policy. Hardware, software procurement, where they can look?
This is Debby Cook. We haven''t, so far, unearthed a specific procurement policy in k-12, with respect to hardware. Do you have one, Debra?
Yes. The state of Maryland has passed a law. They corroborate with a group especially located at Temple University to look at the process for implementing that. I can say that they are facing some challenges in terms of applying 503 at the k-12 arena. That is something I am hearing more frequently that-who would like to adequate adoption of 503 through k-12 area and whether that is the applicable standard for that venue, whether it would be totally inappropriate for web accessibility standards for school sites. It would be very appropriate in terms of hardware procurement for office administration. Enable school districts to hire staff and students and teachers with disabilities, copying, etc, helping being a teacher''s assistant. In terms of the actual instructional technology arena, that is where some of the challenges are emerging. What is becoming clear, that is an area that needs to be explored further to see if 508 is appropriate standard. [inaudible]. Could go any distant of 508 was significantly low. That is an area emerging. Not really models to that, ye-et, I am not sure what to advice you in terms of a goal.
This is Debby Cook. As Debby said, Maryland policy that carried down to k-12, but what they are doing is adopting whatever they did for state procurement, pretty much.
In Maryland, it is a state law.
Right. That is what I am saying, it is still the same state policy pretty much.
It is a separate policy from there, their generic it. Mostly the same language. Doesn''t have all the issues that you addressed in k-12. Particularly software. That is why it may be problematic, a lot of issues with it. There is a work that needs to be done in this area. Before schools will be able to effectively do anything other than adopt their state policy or write their own that mirrors it or mirrors 508 or some similar policy.
Debra, how is Indiana, which recently passed the state requirement adopting 508 regulations, which is in effect for state agencies but will be in-ffect for municipalities and k through 12. Do you have any discussions regarding k-12?
I do not. Frankly, Peter, this whole issue kind of raised its ugly head in the last couple of weeks. I will follow up with Indiana to see what their experience has been. Certainly, as things progress, people take on different strategies. They may have found a way to do it or to look at some of the issues and look at some exemptions.
Do we have a next question, please?
Hi, this is Michelle of caltran. The conference that was addressed by Debra, I want to know more about that. Second, what was the results of the terms of the state of California?
The conference I was speaking about is called the season conference held at the California State University at North Ridge. This year it is scheduled for March 15-16, that period. It regularly holds preconference sessions, one half day to one day in length. They are more focused sessions. We have been invited to do a one - day session on IT accessibility there. That will be March 15 or 16. California, in terms of its policies and approaches to it accessibility, passed a law last September in terms of adopting 508. That was a piece of legislation, add on to a piece of legislation, establishing an office for, office for people who are deaf, hard of hearing, it does require the state to comply with 508. I am not sure what progress they made in implementing that. I was in California in May of this year. Had preliminary brief descriptions with Catherine who is the deputy at the division for rehab. Catherine will take the lead on implementing the strategies for that. I know historically that caltran has been very active, you all have a history of being proactive in terms of adopting it accessibility. I think you should check with Catherine to see if that is something that your group could have participation on in helping the state to formulate its policies. The California law does-there are some controversial pieces of it. One is that anybody who sells to the state has to take on responsibilities for problems and issues that might occur. And the vendors. It is also the usage, it applies to the expenditure of state dollars. So I frankly am not really sure how far that goes. If it goes down to-that accepts state dollars as well. That was unclear to me. That will be flushed out in the development of regulations.
Thank you.
Debra, have you seen a state policy that has a piece in it. Obviously, if states pass laws or policies, with regard to accessibility it. There is no teeth to the regulation. It may not go anywhere. Have you seen any that do have some ways in which individuals can seek recourse at the state level?
Actually, some of them have, the state of Kentucky, the first ones out of the chute in terms of passing state it access and had the opportunity to request an injunction if there is a complaint or problem. Currently, there is the possibility that individuals could take a lawsuit against the state. Even if-I know that in there are people that have concerns about that. There has been some progress of late. I know there were concerns with some of the changes, interpretations of the ada that consumers wouldn''t have the ability to sue state governments. Some of the states have taken a proactive effort in passing, adopting legislation that specifically clarifies that and does allow consumers to sue the state. I believe-bear with me, I am not accurate. I believe the state of Illinois within six-months adopted a piece of legislation like that.
That is correct, where the employees can file Title I or employment suits against the state. The immunity not only under the ADA but under all the federal employment laws.
There are two states that are currently being sued regarding IT Accessibility. The state of Arkansas has a state law regarding accessibility since 1999. Developed to protect people who are visually ed, hearing impaired, preceded the 508, finalization of the 508 standards. The state was developing and rolling out a state-wide application for services employees. As it turned out the application was not acceptable. There is a lawsuit in progress. The most recent development was that the state was looking to roll out additional components of this application . The judge handling the case ordered an injunction. They were required to stop. The challenge with the Arkansas piece of legislation is that it is very similar to 508, almost more stringent. Under 508, federal government, clearly some exemptions to federal agencies having to comply with 508. State of Arkansas law has no exemptions outlined in its state law. Counter case is state of Pennsylvania being sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Also rolling out a statewide application, web based, human resource based application where people can check their health benefits, etc. That turned out not to be accessible. That case, they were sued for that. The chief information officer, I saw him at a conference. He related to every one that his second day on the job, he was told that ed like a $30 million deficit. His third day on the job he was sued. He didn''t specify that this was the case, but this was the case. What ultimately happened is that the state of Pennsylvania has vowed to step back, looking to fix the application. But you need to look at the cost-effectiveness of that approach across the board, the development of the application had been made accessible at the front end, it would have been a lot easier, would have saved a lot of money. The Arkansas application, my understanding, it cost $19 million originally to build. It is up to about $50 million now in trying to fix it. It is a real good example of doing it right at the front end versus trying to retrofit it. Doing work that doesn''t really work some time.
Thanks, Debra. Before we go to our next question, Debby Cook, if you could give us a quick overview or synopsis of the difference between at and it so people that are aware of what we are talking about, best practices, accessible IT versus the individual uses.
This is Debby Cook. On the access it website, we actually do, great opportunity for me to give a commercial for our knowledge base. We do actually have frequently-asked questions, one of those questions that is information technology, assistive technology. The third one obviously. How do they sort of relate. When we think about assistive technology. We think about all of those devices that people use to do a variety of things. But with respect to information technology, assistive technology that relates to that might be things like screen readers, screen any caution products who are blind, magnification keyboards, myself, different products. People with physical disabilities, word prediction software for a person with learning disability or physical disability. A range of different pro, whereas information technology relates to software, hardware. Websites, telephonic equipment this might be used at a site. Some some areas. Assistive technology could also be information technology, if somebody is using a computer, laptop computer to write, if they are can''t use a pencil to write, then IT becomes AT for the person, assistive technology is the device that allows the person to access the information technology in the example we are looking at.
Right. Obviously. The optimum situation is that the it is constructed, it that is purchased allows someone who needs to use that at to step in, without missing a beat, that the it is designed in a way that minimizes the need for the assistive technology.
Right. One of the requirements in general of section 508 at least, the only sort of large standardization of IT across the board, is that the IT needs to be compatible with AT I believe with the characteristics of AT. It doesn''t necessarily mean that it is going to work with absolutely every piece of at that they aren''t required to test it with every piece but they would have to have characteristics, for example with software, that might be keyboard accessibility, a focus, defined focus for hardware, controls that could be easily operated that don''t require incredible dexterity to operate, for tell communications products such as phones, it would require TTY compatibility, that sort of thing. That is how those things would interact.
Our next question, please? All right. The ITTATC website with the information on state policies. Debra, have you found businesses using that small business, as you mentioned, you know, the one good thing about section 508 is the federal government purchases so much IT, that eventually, hopefully, because money is driving the process, it will become much more accessible. Companies won''t manufacture two different products, one that they sell to the federal government, one close to the general, to th-utside the federal government. But as you said states purchase a whole lot of it as well, you know, the wide range of policy that exists out there, some using 508, some using hybrid or other standard. Are you getting a lot of contact or calls from smaller companies or manufacturers of software developers.
In terms of the industry, they are one of the customers of the ITTATC project as well. While there are other industry corporations that have embraced 508, seeing it as a market advantage, in some cases, they would like to see more states asking for it. Because that gives them to push wh-ithin the company. Certainly some companies have less resources, ITTATC is trying to develop supports for them to help them understand the standards as well. How to look at marketing, changing their design processes to incorporate 508. It is important to note that a lot of the industry is using the ITTATC website to find out the laws for the state. They are using it for two reasons. If they have embraced 508, modified their product, are seeing it as a market niche, they are certainly looking for those places where they will have an advantage. They know in the constitution, their product can be viewed as having all the criteria. On the other hand, if they have adopted 508 and can see a state, a state that has a law on the books, but in the procurement process the state has not adopted strategies to validate that the products coming in are 508 compliant. They are looking at that as well to see what kinds of criteria and support they have to do a bid protest in the future. If they have complied with the state law, but the state in sifts is not implementing processes to comply with that law, the vendors are looking at what is it that they might need to do, or what documentation can they do to do a bid protest, intervene, make the state aware that they might have the better product.
Thanks, a lot. Excellent. For you, Debby Cook, with the explosion of distance learning, individuals being available to-able to take courses from educational institutions across the country from their home computer. What have you seen in terms of the development in institutions beginning to pay attention to the accessibility issue of distance learning formats?
This is Debby Cook. Yes, a lot of-of course, a lot of what happens in distance learning will be covered by the web polls of an institution. So, if they have good web accessibility policies, that will go a significant way toward covering, at least the web-based pieces of the tool, obviously, other, potentially other components of of distance learning but may or may not be it related at all. Those parts that are often covered through the website, through the website accessibility. National center for accessibility-accessible media at WGBH in Boston have done quite a bit of work around guidelines related to distance learning and other kinds of multimedia site information, schools can take advantage of those. There has actually been some very good effort. It is one of the few areas in educational technology where the developers have actually been pretty actively engaged in increasing the accessibility of their product. So most of the major developers of distance learning platforms have gone to quite a bit of effort to increase the accessibility of those platforms. So that is been a positive factor. Another thing that I would-this is not about distance learning, but it does relate a little bit to the question that you asked Debra, which is where does industry sit on this? As she mentioned, of course, from the study done by the association for tech projects, there is not been a great deal of movement in the industry. There hasn''t been the strong impetus, organized impetus that there was around the development of section 508. We have in fact been approached by a number of industries, software developers, in particular, who are interested in figuring out what this might entail for them, knowing that some states have laws or other laws that might apply to education, particularly k-12. One of the challenges for those developers, actually two big, one is it is very difficult to sometimes determine what their product is in terms of what its medium is, a web-based product, software product, multimedia product. In fact usually all those things. They are usually looking at a number of standards, not really so possible to sort of say, well, does it comply with software standards, does it comply with web standards. The other thing that really is a challenge to developers, particularly in primary grades, is the concept of divorcing the content from the presentation, so much of what they plan to convey needs to be conveyed in a particular way to get attention or the way, the content may be completely accessible but the presentation is not. So, or may be accessible to some people. Kind of a third area that I have discovered that developers won''t be able to do too much about. We have to think about the implementation level. The fund of knowledge and experience for folks at k-12 kids, k-12 students is less as you go further down the primary grades. So what a first grader knows about their environment, can extrapolate and use to ag-ugment accessibility is different typically than what a college student could do or what a person who is employed could typically do. There is a real, a real coordination issue around. What is it that the product developer can actually do to enhance that, where, in fact, will what the pro developer do in the school system, or instructional entity have to take over?
Good. As you said, industry, Debby. The situation in distance learning platforms. Large University systems in Ohio, California, Texas have great purchasing power.
Right.
When they have these good policies in place, your blackboards, other companies are going to have to take those issues seriously if they want to continue to sell their products to these large educational entities.
That is right.
E&IT is a strong leg to stand on, whether it is a state entity or institution. If they have to comply to sell their merchandise, they will do whatever it takes to make their product accessible. Especially if they can get a leg up on the competition, and being the only product that meets the standards for the state agency or 508 standards. Do we have any further questions?
I actually had a couple of questions, but you addressed some of them. I was wondering about a best model, distance education source for people looking at the sort of distance education programs, thinking of developing them, they can look at models for how they have been implemented in an acceptable manner.
This is Debby Cook. We have several of those policies identified on our website. We update those as we can. That is probably the best place to look for those. Also-again, there is also a reference to the guidelines that do exist. Again, those are guidance. There is a variety of guidance about accessibility of distance learning.
My other question for you you mentioned that-earlier stage, technology of evolution. You identified some of the reasons why developers might have difficulty in developing for the younger, you know, for that younger and you had . But just looking at how, both universities in k-12 entities are covered by 504, title 2. What is the strategy for reaching k-12. Who should be targeting, vendors, help them. Superintendents, people who can have more of an influence of policy, educators themselves, what are your sort of thoughts about what outreach strategies might help to push accessible strategy in k-12?
This is Debby, again, I think all of those are good strategies, certainly, ultimately we have to get to the people who made policy. I think a group you didn''t mention that is critical are parents of students. If you look at the history of section 508 of the development of 508. You had consumers who were frustrated, maybe on behalf of k-12, parents of consumers in some cases. You had consumers who were frustrated. People who were specifically not able to do things they needed to do, in employment or access to public information, who were vocal about that, who approached both industry and government at the same time industry had some reputation for being interested in this, in fact came to the table well with consumers and other people. Those things all have to happen. One of the difficulties, of course, at the k-12 level, there is mostly thought in terms of 504, idea. Those specifically relate to the accommodation of individuals as opposed to systemic design of accessibility. So I can accommodate you being something that works for you or creating an environment that may work for you but not work for the next person who comes bias well. So the notion of a standard that is larger than the accommodation of an individual has not quite filtered down there yet. It is understand able in some ways it has not, because if it does filter down people do in fact end up in the place that Debra has described that i-o I adopted it. I believed in it. Now I can''t really implement it well. The stuff I need doesn''t exist. I think a piece of this is to get people to adopt reasonable standards, at access it, we are in fact looking at a- lot of the issue that is relate to how do you personal eyes, if you will, standards, policy, to meet the needs of students. So you want to accomplish all of the things that happened in the policies of section 508, state levels, whatever, how do you also identify, define those so that they might meet the needs of students and clearly describe where that goes, doesn''t go. How you sell that, does that need to be sold at the governmental level like section 508? Does that need to be sold at the state level which does actually make the most sense in some ways, does that have to be sold on a district by district basis, in some states, how it will be done. Who are the entities, again, you look at your stake holders, parents, students, procurement officials, software developers or product developers to say that in the most broad terms. It is whoever really does make policy for that entity, whether the state has the authority to do that, whether it has to be done by a municipality, whether it has to be done by a board of education or that sort of thing. Because this is-it varies incredibly across the country, the best we can do overtime is to provide some blueprint materials on what the things need to look like, where you might go to start them. They will vary significantly just as the state policy varies significantly so will in fact where they are implemented in the education system.
Do we have another question? All right. Well, Debra, Debby. I will give you a moment here to wrap up. Please give out the information individuals can get to your websites. So, Debra, if you would like to go first, please?
Sure. I just, I guess, want to reiterate that we recognize that every state is at a different level, has different ways in which their state does business. It is, we recognize that there is no one way for states across the board, in terms of how to adopt and promote it accessibility. There are different strategies that we have found will work, we are willing to work with whatever states in whatever capacity it takes to work on site visits, telephone, internet, whatever. We can help you identify other resources. It is ultimately looking at the benefits for the state, the users. One of the things we are looking at developing is some business case information, not only for industry, but for state government, so that they can understand the long-range benefits of it accessibility. The ITTATC website is www.ittatc.org. My e-mail is Debra deborah.buck@ittatc.org.
Debra, additional closing costs?
I don''t have anything additional to say. We provide technical assistance to the 10 regional sections, they are there as a resource to provide technical assistance on these issues and others, we provide assistance to them. We are glad to interact with people directly. Our website http://washington.edu/accessit. So, that website is available. We have a lot of resources we do update our policy section regularly. We also have a vast array of frequently-asked questions, we have other pieces of information, publicize various conferences, other thing that is are available. We have quite a few resources as well as on-line training that people can take on various access topics. We are glad to have people do that. E-mail us at accessit@u.washington.edu. That e-mail will be forwarded to the most appropriate person, if you are asking a question, it will probably come to me. I would like to have the e-mail come there. That way they have track of it. They can make sure I answered your question. That actually is a great thing. We are glad to provide follow-up assistance, particularly if you are in an entity that is looking at developing educational policy. You would like some technical assistance, your DBTAC, also your access it. We would be glad to serve new that way.
I would really like to thank Debra, Debby. Want every one to realize the amount of time that not only the 90 minutes that they gave us today but the amount of time that they put in getting prepared for this session. As you heard Debra calling from a conference she was attending, Debby, we are able to catch her for 90 minutes during the many jobs that she has. We truly appreciate their expertise and the time that they provide us to at the disability business and technical assistance centers. For the participants, I would like to thank you for your participation in the ADA distance learning session. This will conclude the 2002-2003 calendar. We will kickoff the 2003-2004 calendar October 21, from 1:00 to 2:30 central standard time. Susan Bruyére from Cornell University, we will look at e-recruiting and the ADA implications for employers. For additional information about that session, please contact your regional ADA center at 1-800-949-4232 or you can also visit the www.adagreatlakes.org site to find out have information about the October session and also view the preliminary schedule for the remainder of the 2003-2004 schedule. Once again, thank you for participating. Have a great afternoon.