If anybody is in the Northeast (or likes to travel a lot) and in academics,
you might be interested in the Web Accessibility conference being held here
at Amherst College.  I'm including the text of the email notice they sent
out on the NERCOMP mailing list below my signature block and it contains a
pointer to their web site which has more information.  Speakers will include
Axel Schmetzke who many of you know from this list and Sarah Horton, a well
known web designer from Dartmouth.  It's target audience is technical
support people and faculty so it may be pretty basic for some of you.

Ironically, the NERCOMP web site for the conference isn't, at the moment,
fully accessible in that it's missing alt tags and may have other problems.
As far as I can tell, the untagged images don't contain critical
information.  If you find other issues, please email me at
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Paul Chapin
Curricular Computing Specialist
Amherst College
413 542-2144


NERCOMP ANNOUNCES A SPECIAL WEB ACCESSIBILITY WORKSHOP
Monday October 8, 2001, 10:00am - 4:30pm
(What better way to spend Columbus Day!)
Registration and Coffee start at 9:00am

WEB ACCESSIBILITY
With the growing use of course specific web pages and other web resources in
higher education, there is a pressing need to make sure that this
information is available to all of our students including those with various
disabilities.  There are both ethical and legal reasons for us to want to
assure that this new technology increases our ability to education all
students rather than becoming a new barrier for some.  This SIG meeting will
look at ways of solving some of the practical issues that face faculty and
faculty-support personnel who want to assure that their course information
is made available in as accessible format as possible.

Topics will include:
-Access Barriers to Web-Based Information in Higher Education; Problems and
Strategies for Change
-Visually-Impaired Students and the Struggle to Survive
-The best and worst accessible web pages
-Practical Accessibility in Web Page Design
-Cognitive Disabilities and the Internet

Come and spend the day with noted specialists as they share their knowledge
and experience. For a complete schedule and registration information, please
go to:
http://www.nercomp.org/sigs/100801/schedule.html

We would be grateful if you would forward this email to friends and
colleagues who might find this workshop to be of interest.  Hope to see you
there!

Sincerely,
NERCOMP
North East Regional Computing Program
www.nercomp.org
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