The Chronicle of Higher Education
  Friday, January 26, 2001

  Colleges Focus on Making Web Sites Work for People With
  Disabilities

  By ANDREA L. FOSTER


  When Margo L. Bailey, an assistant professor of public
  administration at American University, posted on the World
  Wide Web the syllabus and handouts for her course on personnel
  administration, she gained a fan.

  Thomas McKeithan II, a blind student in her class, realized
  that he wouldn't have to depend on others to read aloud notes
  and other written material. Software that recognizes online
  text could do the job.

  "I just walked up to her and said, 'Did you know I was coming
  to the class? You just made my life a hell of a lot easier,'"
  says Mr. McKeithan, an undergraduate in his sixth year. Ms.
  Bailey was nonplused. "I told her, 'You just don't understand.
  I don't have to carry around a lot of paper. I can read this
  on my own.'"

  For disabled college students, professors' increased use of
  the Web for instruction can create obstacles rather than clear
  them away. Many disabled students find that new technology
  cuts them off from the learning process.

  To prevent that, colleges are -- among other things --
  designing Web sites and buying computer workstations that meet
  the needs of disabled students.

  Fueling the activity is the government's enforcement of the
  Americans With Disabilities Act at California community
  colleges following complaints by students there. In addition,
  a new rule requires federal agencies and state institutions to
  make their Web sites accessible to disabled people.

  In January 1998, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for
  Civil Rights cited the A.D.A. in ordering California's
  community colleges to take specific steps to make print and
  electronic information available to visually impaired
  students.

  Meanwhile, the new federal regulation clarifies Section 508 of
  the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. State-controlled colleges must
  make their Web sites accessible, and make sure that when they
  purchase new computer hardware and software, the machines and
  programs can be adapted for use by disabled people.

  Although the rule was written primarily to aid federal
  employees and those who use federal Web sites, state
  institutions, too, are required to comply with Section 508,
  because all states receive money under the Assistive
  Technology Act. "Section 508 is the A.D.A. of cyberspace,"
  says Cynthia Waddell, an expert on disability law and
  information technology.

  Many state universities are only now beginning to learn that
  the new rule will apply to them. And while private
  institutions are not covered, advocates for the disabled say
  the rule is likely to spur the creation of products to promote
  Web use by disabled people, and that those products will also
  benefit students at private colleges.

  The regulation is scheduled to go into effect June 21. But the
  new Bush administration says published regulations that have
  not yet taken effect will have their enforcement date delayed
  for 60 days, while they are reviewed.

  None of the college administrators interviewed for this
  article oppose the regulation. But that doesn't mean it's
  pain-free.

  "I don't think there's anybody that would take a public
  posture that this is not an appropriate next step," says
  Sheldon E. Steinbach, vice president of the American Council
  on Education. "But at the same time, one should acknowledge
  that this is another additional cost that ultimately has to be
  paid in some manner, which usually means an increase in
  tuition and fees."

  Disabled students say the regulation is necessary. Lured by
  Web-design products, professors often create colorful,
  stylish, and audible Internet sites for their classes. But
  students with limited vision struggle to comprehend electronic
  pictures and graphs, audio material is meaningless to the
  deaf, and those with impaired mobility can struggle just to
  send an e-mail message.

  Among other things, the rule clarification means that
  state-university Web pages must provide text alternatives to
  images and make color-coded information available without
  color.

  Video and multimedia productions understood through visual
  data must be made audible as well.

  Colleges have much work to do. Last year, Axel Schmetzke, an
  assistant professor of library services on the University of
  Wisconsin's Stevens Point campus, surveyed the home pages of
  24 colleges, along with a connecting link from each page. He
  chose the 24 colleges because they are known for having
  first-rate library schools. But he found that, on average,
  only half of the pages were accessible to people with
  disabilities.

  The new rule also applies to purchases of computers, printers,
  fax machines, and video and multimedia equipment. Such
  equipment must meet certain height and reach requirements,
  either by being adjustable or through installation. Software
  to interpret images and hyperlinks on a Web page must be made
  available to visually impaired students.

  The regulation will have the biggest impact on distance
  education, according to a lawyer with experience in
  disabilities issues. "Some faculty, to keep students
  interested, use Internet technology and Web-design techniques
  that may not easily translate to an accessible medium for
  disabled persons," says Thornton Wilson, an assistant attorney
  general in Washington State, who gives legal advice to the
  University of Washington.

  "Streaming audio is of no use to the deaf. Or an e-mail chat
  room that allows many students to discuss a topic
  simultaneously can be difficult for a blind person to follow,
  even with screen-reading software. Faculty will need to
  reconsider how they use the Internet in their courses," he
  says.

  Norman Coombs, director of an organization called Equal Access
  to Software Information, or EASI, predicts that the new rule
  will make adaptive technology more widely available to all
  colleges, at competitive prices. The Rochester, N.Y.-based
  group, affiliated with the American Association for Higher
  Education, advises schools and colleges on making computer
  technology more accessible.

  "A lot of software and hardware producers have treated the
  disability market as too small to put much effort into," he
  says. "But the government market is a big one, and vendors and
  producers will now pay attention to the market as they never
  did before."

  SSB Technologies, a software company in San Francisco,
  released two software products in May that are designed to
  make Web sites more accessible. InSight scans the sites and
  flags areas that could cause problems for disabled users,
  while InFocus fixes the flagged areas, says the company's
  president, Marco Sorani. California's community colleges are
  using the products, he adds.

  Some institutions use software called Bobby, which functions
  like a spelling checker, to diagnose accessibility problems.
  The program was created by the Center for Applied Special
  Technology, a non-profit group, based in Peabody, Mass.

  Even before the clarification of Section 508 was proposed,
  both public and private universities had been showing greater
  interest in making technology more available to disabled
  users. The Department of Education's use of the A.D.A. to
  force California community colleges to respond to student
  grievances has not been lost on other colleges. Disabled
  students are becoming increasingly assertive, colleges are
  fearful of disability-related litigation, and the percentage
  of college students who are disabled is growing.

  According to a survey by the American Council on Education,
  the proportion of freshmen reporting disabilities increased
  from about 3 percent in 1978 to 9 percent in 1998. (The
  disability most commonly cited in 1998 was learning
  disability.)

  In September, the presidents of 25 research universities said
  in a letter to President Clinton that they are committed to
  making information and communications technologies accessible
  to people with disabilities. Also last year, Connecticut's
  information-technology office announced a policy requiring
  state agencies, including colleges, to make Web pages
  accessible to the disabled.

  Now college officials are asking Mr. Coombs, of EASI, about
  making campus technology available to the disabled.
  Participation in the group's online workshops has been brisk,
  he says, and conference sessions on the needs of disabled
  students are attracting larger audiences.

  How much it will cost universities to meet the new
  requirements is anybody's guess. The Department of Education
  has not provided an estimate. California's community colleges
  are receiving $11-million from the state to put the federal
  requirements into effect.

  But the real stumbling block to making adaptive technology
  more widely available is not cost, say advocates for the
  disabled. It is a university's attitude and organization.

  On some campuses, Mr. Coombs says, departments get mired in
  squabbles over which of them will pick up the tab. If top
  administrators are committed to the needs of disabled
  students, he observes, the cost can be spread out across
  several departments or the whole university budget.

  Some advocates say having a collegewide policy on adaptive
  technology is the key. Because of a lack of coordination among
  campus Web designers, though, it is common to see only a
  smattering of accessible Web sites within a university, says
  Jane Jarrow, president of Disability Access Information and
  Support, a consulting company in Columbus, Ohio, that focuses
  on accessibility issues.

  California decided to hire a person on each of its 108
  community-college campuses to respond to the recommendations
  of the Department of Education. The civil-rights office had
  noted, among other things, that many of the colleges did not
  have effective procedures for providing students with
  documents in Braille or large print.

  "There is some cost associated with modification of software,"
  says Ralph Black, general counsel to the chancellor's office
  of the community-college system. "But most of this is simply
  design work -- having a person who knows how to deal with
  modifying a Web site, is able to follow guidelines developed
  by other entities, and can go through and label text with
  images."

  Ms. Jarrow tells colleges to design Web sites that are
  accessible from the start. Since one university can have
  hundreds of thousands of Web pages, making changes after the
  fact can be inordinately time-consuming -- as many colleges
  are now discovering, she says.

  "It's going to be nearly impossible to retrofit Web sites of
  that size to make sure they're accessible. What colleges ought
  to be doing is making some hard decisions and saying, 'Nothing
  will get posted unless these rules are followed.' Instead of
  clearing up, the problem is getting worse, because more stuff
  is getting posted."

  Kirk Snedeker, the Web manager at Southern Connecticut State
  University, concluded that it would be easier to construct an
  alternative site for disabled users than to revamp the
  university's current site, which comprises 1,000 pages. He
  hopes to have the alternative site up and running in June.

  Visitors would reach it by following a link on the home page.
  A decision on revising other university-affiliated Web sites,
  like those operated by the student center and the health
  center, has yet to be reached, he says.

  Jan Hecht, coordinator of adaptive-technology services at
  Southern Connecticut, is spreading the word to faculty members
  about making their Web sites accessible. The university relies
  on Web-design software from WebCT, which doesn't prompt users
  to attach textual descriptions to graphics, she says, so she
  reminds professors to do it by hand.

  WebCT plans to release software that contains such prompts in
  December, says Glen Low, director of educational technology
  and development.

  College-affiliated research-and-training centers are working
  to help other colleges develop procedures for making their
  sites accessible. The World Wide Web Consortium's Web
  Accessibility Initiative, at the Massachusetts Institute of
  Technology, has established standards for Web developers that
  many colleges have adopted.

  The federal government used the standards last year as a model
  for the new regulation (http://www.w3.org/WAI). Universities
  can also get help from the Center for Rehabilitation
  Technology at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

  In addition, the WGBH National Center for Accessible Media is
  collaborating with M.I.T.'s Center for Advanced Educational
  Services to make an interactive, online physics course
  available to students with visual and hearing impairments. The
  project is based on a popular introductory-physics course
  taught at M.I.T. by Walter Lewin.

  But before colleges seek out technical support, they might
  want to listen to the disabled students themselves. At
  American University, Mr. McKeithan recalls a meeting with
  administrators a little over a year ago at which adaptive
  technology was discussed.

  "I said, 'Look, every student pays the requisite cost to come
  to this institution. It's an unacceptable practice that we
  don't have this or we don't have that to get the job done.
  Don't come to me saying we don't have the money to make it
  accessible. Your priorities are in the wrong place.'"

  On the other hand, Shelley Reeves, director of
  disability-support services at American, says she has
  "received nothing but support from the university."

  "We're constantly evaluating where we need to go and how we
  need to get there."

  During the 2000 fiscal year, American University spent $21,918
  on adaptive-technology equipment, including $1,050 for
  Braille-translation software; $3,825 for a Braille printer
  with speech capability; $1,515 for screen magnifiers; and
  $3,000 for four height-adjustable workstations.

  Mr. McKeithan says officials have, in fact, generally been
  responsive to demands to make technology more accessible to
  disabled students. Nonetheless, he insists that the university
  -- like others -- can do more.


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