Campus Digital Accessibility Plan (2016)

Public Communication

UW Bothell’s current and past Accessibility Plans are available:

  • Online at the Accessibility website at: uwb.edu/accessibility
  • By written request to Accessibility
    • University of Washington Bothell
      Box 358500
      18115 Campus Way NE
      Bothell, WA 98011-8246
  • By email at uwba11y@uw.edu

Alternate formats are available upon request.

Accessibility Feedback

UW Bothell recognizes that feedback is critical to the process of identifying and removing barriers to participation as well as improving how we deliver our services to persons with disabilities. The Accessibility Feedback Form can be used to submit feedback about accessibility to the Accessibility Advisory Committee.

Feedback may also be given by emailing the IT Help Desk at uwbit@uw.edu, by telephone at (425) 532-2345, or by fax at 425-352-5488. You may also send feedback via regular mail:

University of Washington Bothell
Box 358500
18115 Campus Way NE
Bothell, WA 98011-8246
Attention: Digital Accessibility Advisory Committee

Introduction

Purpose

The purpose of this document is to describe the current efforts in accessibility for UW Bothell and a plan to move forward to increase accessibility across campus. The intent is an Accessibility Plan that serves the university in the following ways:

  • Address accessibility in the priority areas: Instruction, Services, and IT
  • To establish shared accountability and responsibility for accessibility for persons with disabilities at UW Bothell
  • To continue to provide educational opportunities about accessibility to improve understanding of accessibility issues
  • To continue efforts to incorporate accessibility issues in university diversity initiatives

Scope

This document only addresses the required resources for all digital artifacts including content that resides within www.uwb.edu. It does not address requirements for other digital artifacts, in-house / purchased applications, physical spaces, hardware and these requirements are addressed in a separate plan.

Accessibility at University of Washington

The University of Washington has supported accessible technology activities since 1984 IT. Accessible Technology Services (ATS) directs these efforts. ATS leads accessible IT in support of the UW vision to educate a diverse student body and by the university’s values of diversity, excellence, collaboration, innovation, and respect.

In 2012, the UW instituted a campus-wide IT Accessibility Task Force with a variety of stakeholder groups and developed IT Accessibility Guidelines that point to WCAG 2.0 Level AA as a standard measure of accessibility and link to a checklist to guide campus webmasters and other IT personnel in IT accessibility. In 2016, an aspirational policy, the UW Policy–IT Accessibility, was adopted, which states:

The University of Washington (UW) strives to ensure that people with disabilities have access to the same services and content that are available to people without disabilities, including services and content made available through the use of IT. IT procured, developed, maintained, and used by the UW should provide substantially similar functionality, experience, and information access to individuals with disabilities as it provides to others. Examples of IT covered by this policy include web sites, software systems, electronic documents, videos, and electronic equipment such as information kiosks, telephones, and digital signs.

Also applicable is the Washington State Policy #188 on IT Accessibility, effective August 2016, which “establishes the expectation for state agencies that people with disabilities have access to and use of information and data and be provided access to the same services and content that is available to persons without disabilities unless providing direct access is not possible due to technical or legal limitations.” Requirements of Policy #188 include assigning one person as the Policy #188 coordinator; for the UW, this is the Director of ATS, Dr. Sheryl Burgstahler.

Commitment to Accessibility

University of Washington values people first, and seeks to treat all individuals with dignity and respect. To this end, the University is committed to providing accessible information to all people wherever possible. The University will work to ensure that applicants, students, faculty, staff, and members of the public with disabilities all have an opportunity equal to that of their non-disabled peers to access and utilize information materials, technologies, and technology-related services, except where doing so would impose an undue burden on the University or require a fundamental alteration.

Benchmarks for Accessibility

In order to ensure the accessibility of our information materials and technologies, the University will measure the functionality of individual resources against a set of nationally-recognized accessible technology standards.

WCAG 2.0 Level AA and WAI-ARIA

The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) is an effort coordinated by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international standards organization for the World Wide Web. The WAI has published multiple guidelines for accessibility which address a variety of web-related technologies, including the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), and the Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) technical specification. UW Bothell will use these guidelines to evaluate and improve web content and applications. For details about these guidelines, follow the URLs below.

  • WCAG 2.0 Guidelines
  • WAI-ARIA Technical Specification

EPUB 3 Accessibility Guidelines

The International Digital Publishing Forum is a trade and standards organization for the digital publishing industry. They develop and maintain the EPUB content publication standard that is used by publishers industry-wide for the digital distribution of books, journals, newspapers, magazines, etc. They have developed a set of accessibility guidelines for content authors using the EPUB format. UW Bothell will use these guidelines when evaluating or creating content distributed in the EPUB format. For details about these guidelines, follow the URL below.

EPUB 3 Accessibility Guidelines

Implementation Plan

Overview

Outlined below, the University provides a list of priority actions to increase the overall accessibility level of its information materials and technologies. Oversight and accountability will be maintained by the Accessibility Advisory Committee.

Annual Review Process

Beginning in 2019, the Accessibility Advisory Committee will provide a review which summarizes the progress of accessibility-related tasks undertaken by the University in the prior year. This review will also provide details regarding any ongoing efforts to improve accessibility, as well as planned improvements for the subsequent year. These will be made available online on the UW Bothell Accessibility website.

1.0 General

1.1 Accessibility Policy and Procedures Statement

The campus has developed an Accessibility Policy for digital content that communicates its commitment to accessibility in an official capacity, as well as a set of standard procedures to implement the accessibility policy across all disciplines and media formats. Since its approval in 2019, the policy and procedures are being disseminated to all levels of UW Bothell personnel and students and will be made available on the campus accessibility website. The University has established an Accessibility website which contains information regarding the ongoing work of the Accessibility Advisory Committee, as well as accessibility training resources for the employees and students of the University.

1.2 Accessibility Annual Training and Resources

Training will be provided for web content owners/editors who are responsible for creating and distributing information through the UW Bothell web site at www.uwb.edu. The training will include information regarding the web accessibility procedures, and their role and responsibilities to ensure that web design, documents, and multimedia content are accessible. For those needing additional assistance, individualized or classroom instruction will be provided. The training will be provided through online documentation available for review and updates and training sessions. Individual support will be provided to content owners/editors who require additional assistance with identifying and resolving accessibility issues.

1.3 Accessibility Grievance Procedures

The University will establish a set of procedures whereby any individual may submit a complaint for any discovered inaccessible content (e.g. web content, document, course content, etc.). The University will disseminate information about these procedures to all levels of University personnel and students on a recurring basis, and will also make the procedures available on the University website.

1.4 Accessible Content Training and Support

The University will provide training and support to expand campus capability to create accessible electronic content. This support includes training (ad hoc, group sessions, courses, Just-In-Time) for faculty and staff and materials such as tutorials, checklists, accessibility assessments, and templates as needed.

2.0 Websites

2.1 Academic Sites

Our goal is that all academic webpages for the University will be WCAG 2.0 Level AA conformant. To this end, an emphasis will be on the creation of new accessible webpages and the remediation of existing content prioritized on usage.

2.2 Web Accessibility Policy Additions

Language is already added to the University’s Web Accessibility Policy that all new web pages, web content, and documents added to the University website must maintain WCAG Level 2.0 Level AA conformance. Assistance will be given to unit-level web administrators and department heads for ensuring compliance.

3.0 Procurement

1.5 Accessible Procurement Procedures

The University’s Department of Fiscal Services and Audit / Contract Services will begin to integrate the model of accessible adoption/procurement recommended by the UW Seattle campus.

4.0 Electronic Media

4.1 Captions and Transcripts for Audio and Video Resources

In 2018 the University’s Office of Information Technologies purchased DocSoft: AV, a web-based product which provides automatic speech-to-text captions and transcripts for audio and video files, greatly increasing the efficiency of the caption/transcript workflow over time. Due to the web-based nature of the product, and its allowance for several concurrent users, the University intends to provide access and training to this resource for content developers who need to create captions or transcripts in order to make their multimedia content accessible. This resource will be managed by an individual designated by the University’s Chief Information Officer, who will administrate the use of the product and ensure the availability of training resources.

5.0 Disability Services

5.1 Management Software

The University intends to investigate a proposal submitted by the Office of Disability Services for the purchase of a new Comprehensive Accommodation, Appointment, and Case Management Software. This software will, among other things, allow University staff who provide accessibility training to reach out to the instructors of courses which have students with disabilities enrolled, and will help them to meet the specific needs of those said students in a proactive manner.

Accessibility Plan Approval Process

This document was initially created as draft and has been submitted for formal review to UW Bothell. This is a living document and it was reviewed by the last academic leadership group May 2019. The final version of UW Bothell’s Digital Accessibility Plan is now posted to the following URL: uwb.edu/accessibility.

Communication of Current and Future Plans

UW Bothell intends to communicate their commitment to accessibility, their plan for accessibility improvement, and any significant future developments to the entire University community, including all faculty, staff, and students, in order to build awareness and garner the support needed to accomplish the tasks outlined in this document. Communication will occur through a variety of media and at several intervals moving forward. However, the primary resource for communicating all current and future plans, as well as any other relevant information related to accessibility at the University, will be through a website which was developed for this purpose: Accessibility at UW Bothell

Campus Point of Contact

If you have questions about the information provided in this document, or about accessibility at the University in general, please contact the Digital Accessibility Advisory Committee using the email address: uwbA11Y@uw.edu

Definitions

Content Editor: A content editor is an individual who manages / edits an uwb.edu departmental web page.

Content Publisher: A content publisher is an individual who approves and publishes an uwb.edu departmental web page.

  • UW: University of Washington
  • DLI: UW Bothell Digital Learning & Innovation Team
  • ESDT: UW Bothell Enterprise Services Delivery Team
  • AER: UW Bothell Advancement & External Relations Team
  • WEB: Refers to www.uwb.edu and any site/resource that can be linked to through it.

Departmental Implementation/Support: All faculty and staff play an important role in UW Bothell’s success to ensure the goals of Web accessibility are met in a timely manner. Each school contributes by implementing Web accessibility best practices or supporting other schools as they train, assess, remediate and create accessible Web content.

Instructional Materials: Instructional materials refer to items posted in the LMS (CANVAS) or accessed from the Web, including but not limited to written documents (i.e., syllabi, instructions for projects, PowerPoint presentations, etc.), videos (embedded videos and/or videos that are linked to), and graphics (i.e. charts, pictures, diagrams, etc.).

Software and Apps: Software and apps refer to a computer program, or group of programs that users interact with designed to carry out operations in support of a business or academic function.

WCAG 2.0: The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are part of a series of web accessibility guidelines published by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the main international standards organization for the Internet. They are a set of guidelines that specify how to make content accessible, primarily for people with disabilities, but also for all user agents, including highly limited devices, such as mobile phones.

Web Accessibility: Web accessibility means that a person with a disability can perceive, understand, navigate, interact with, and contribute to Web content with the same effectiveness as a person without a disability. Accessible information systems are developed to be flexible enough to accommodate the needs of the broadest range of users, regardless of age or disability.

Web content and Services: All information, content or visual/auditory media hosted or displayed directly through the www.uwb.edu or related resources that can be linked to via www.uwb.edu.

Accessible Technology Services (ATS): The Access Technology Center serves UW-wide students, faculty, and staff as part of Seattle campus UW-IT.

Updated July 03, 2019