Since the article does not address access to online information resources, I
felt compelled to comment on it as follows:

   I read Sara Hebel's article with much interest, and I appreciate her
efforts to assess the impact of the ADA since its enactment in 1990. There
is, however, one major ADA-related aspect that she did not address: access
to online resources, such as institutional web pages, web-based courseware,
electronic reserve, and electronic library resources.

   With the growing importance of digitized, web-based information, the
issue of access to information is no longer limited to the physical realm.
Just as there are enabling and disabling conditions in the physical
environment, so are there conditions in cyberspace that result in the
inclusion or exclusion of people. As Sarah Hebel points out, some
universities, such as Purdue, have created labs equipped with adaptive
computer technology. Unfortunately, assistive technology alone cannot
overcome the barriers that are created at a more basic level: the format in
which content is presented. Information that is solely presented in
graphical form, for example, cannot be accessed even with the help of the
most sophisticated screen readers (software that converts the text on the
screen to voice).

   Studies (http://library.uwsp.edu/aschmetz/Accessible/websurveys.htm) show
that the web sites of the nation's colleges and universities contain
numerous barriers for people with "print" disabilities. On the average, only
30%- 40% of top-level campus pages are accessible. Unacknowledged by Sarah
Hebel, Purdue University stands out for the high degree of accessibility of
its general campus web pages. However, even at this school, much improvement
is needed at the level of individual academic departments. About two thirds
of the graduate departments' homepages at the West Lafayette campus are not
approved by "Bobby," a diagnostic tool that checks for compliance with the
accessibility guidelines developed by the World Wide Web Consortium's Web
Accessibility Initiative. The Communication department's "Graduate Programs"
homepage is a case in point: Blind students visiting this site will
encounter an inaccessible image-map that keeps them from linking to the
information on general admissions, degree requirements and
courses-information readily available to sighted students.

   At a time when more and more courses are offered online, the low
accessibility of distance-education sites is particularly distressing.
Research shows that three quarters of distance-education web sites have
major accessibility problems. With few exceptions (such as California
Community Colleges), distance-education policies do not help to improve this
situation; typically, they do not reflect any concern for access to online
resources for people with disabilities. The same can be said for the
literature on online distance learning. Dan Carneval's article ("Colleges
strive to give disabled students access to online courses") in the Chronicle
of Higher Education (Oct. 29, 1999) is one of the few exceptions.

   Collectively, the nation's institutions of higher learning are currently
investing billions of dollars into web-based information technologies.
Choosing barrier-free technologies would not only enable people with
disabilities to enroll in higher education to an unprecedented extent, but
it would also help to save expenses in the long run. Much of Purdue's annual
spending of $550,000 for Braille services and interpreters, for example,
could be saved if learning resources would be provided in an accessible
electronic format to begin with. Furthermore, less of the university's
budget would have to be spent for legal expenses resulting from lawsuits
likely to be filed by students with disabilities who find themselves at the
disenfranchised side of the digital divide. Finally, any court-imposed
changes to established information resources would be far more costly than
starting out with a system that has been designed, from the ground up, with
the needs of all people in mind.





-----Original Message-----
From: EASI [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2001 7:36 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: online discussion about ADA and colleges


>Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 15:59:21 -0500
>From: Scott Jaschik <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: online discussion about ADA and colleges
>Sender: Disabled Student Services in Higher Education
> <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Reply-to: [log in to unmask]
>X-Lotus-FromDomain: CHRONICLE
>
>The Chronicle of Higher Education is sponsoring an online discussion this
>week about how the Americans With Disabilities Act has changed campus life
>for students and faculty members with disabilities and whether those
>changes have gone far enough in making colleges responsive to the needs of
>all students and employees. The discussion is based in part on an article
>in the new issue of The Chronicle, which looks at the ways one university
>has changed in the 10 years since the A.D.A. was enacted.
>
>The Chronicle invites members of this list to read the article and to join
>the discussion at:
>
>http://chronicle.com/colloquy/2001/disability/disability.htm
>
>Scott Jaschik
>Editor
>The Chronicle of Higher Education
>
>To sign off the list, send a message to
>* [log in to unmask]
>* with the message
>* signoff dsshe-l
>To search the archives, go to
>http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/archives/dsshe-l.html
>Questions? Contact Listowner Dan Ryan at [log in to unmask]
>