UALR Web Accessibility

In September of 1998, then Chancellor Charles Hathaway enacted the first Web Accessibility Policy for the UALR campus. The policy was developed by a subcommittee of the Chancellor's Committee on ADA Compliance. Members of the subcommittee included faculty, staff, and students with disabilities. The committee developed the policy and presented it to the Faculty Senate. The Faculty Senate endorsed the policy and the Chancellor enacted it. Since that time many advances in Web related technologies have occurred. Therefore the Chancellor Anderson has approved the new updated policy in July of 2004 (http://www.ualr.edu/provost/webaccesspolicy.html). The policy has the backing of the Deans Council and the Provost's Office.

Here we have brought together several resources for your convenience. We have links to numerous sites with information on Web Accessibility. Links to explanations of some of the terms with which you may not be familiar, and links to guidelines and check lists which will assist you in developing accessible Web Sites.

Reports

The ACCVerify Accessibility Reports for UALR The reports are for every site UALR hosts on the site WWW.UALR.EDU. Since students are not covered by the policy, we will probably never achieve a 100% pass result. There will always be a considerable number of sites which are not completely accessible. The left frame contains a list of passed files. To see if any of your pages fail verification select the “Total Files Failed” link in the summary report.

The typical problem areas are the checkpoints listed below. Your failed file report will provide information about the checkpoint(s) on which you page fails. A quick definition is shown below.

  1. Checkpoint 1.1 — Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element.
  2. Checkpoint 7.1 — Do not cause the screen to flicker (e.g. don't use the blink element).
  3. Checkpoint 9.1 — Provide client-side image maps instead of server-side image maps.
  4. Checkpoint 12.1 — Title each frame to assist users with frame identification and navigation.
  5. Checkpoint 6.3 — Make sure pages display the correct information when scripting is turned off, or provide equivalent information on an alternative accessible page.
  6. Checkpoint 11.4 — If all else fails create an accessible page using in a text only format.

Web Accessibility Technical Assistance Available on Campus

Melanie Thornton
Project PACE
569-8361, mpthornton@ualr.edu

Jason Cole
Web Administrator
Computing Services
569-3345, jrcole@ualr.edu

Aimee Dixon
Instructional Technology Specialist
Scholarly Technology and Resources
569-8954, acdixon@ualr.edu

Accessible Design Resources

WebAIM 2003 Online Training — http://www.ualr.edu/pace/webaim/

This comprehensive training package is made available to UALR faculty and staff through Project PACE with a grant from the Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education (Award #P333A990056). Instructions for accessing online training:

  1. Internet Explorer - enter your username, password, and domain (e.g. facstaff).
  2. Netscape - enter the domain name and your username in the username field (e.g. facstaff\username).

AccVerify Accessibility Assessment Tool — http://www.ualr.edu/accessibility/AccReports/

Academic Computing Services runs accessibility checks on all websites on the UALR server each week and posts the results. Look for your URL in alphabetical order. Unfortunately this application passes sites that have some inaccessible features. For example, if you use PDF files, these are not accessible to screen readers, but AccVerify doesn't catch it. So Remember not to use PDF files, or add an accessible text or html version as an option.

UALR Project PACE - Web Resource on Universal Accessibility — http://www.ualr.edu/pace/webaccess

This site provides an easy to follow introduction to creating accessible Web pages.

WebAIM, a program of Utah State University — http://www.webaim.org

It is the goal of WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind) to improve accessibility to online learning opportunities for individuals with disabilities through the dissemination of training and materials. This site includes an extensive number of tutorials and resources on Web Accessibility.

World Wide Web (W3) Consortium Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) — http://www.w3c.org/WAI

WAI, in coordination with organizations around the world, pursues accessibility of the Web through five primary areas of work: technology, guidelines, tools, education and outreach, and research and development.

Other Resources

Priority 1 Checklist Summary
WAI Guidelines (complete from W3C)
DIS Best Practices
The Alt Attribute A discussion by the Royal National Institute of the Blind RNIB