Accessibility Help

Faculty play a key role when it comes to providing access to our students with disabilities.  Faculty must maintain the confidentiality of students with disabilities.  To discuss students, please contact DSPS at 805.730.4164.   DSPS is the designated agent of the college responsible for ensuring equal access to students with disabilities by providing reasonable accommodation to instruction.  Designing your courses and following the principles of Universal Design of Instruction creates an equitable and inclusive environment to benefit all of our students.

Resources:
- Letter from Chancellor Oakley re: Accessibility Standards
- SBCC Accessibility Standards 
- BP 3730, Web Standards
-AP 3730, Web Standards
- BP 3725, Information and Communications Technology Accessibility and Acceptable Use
-AP 3725, Information and Communications Technology Accessibility and Acceptable Use

The Takeaway : 
1. Know that accessibility is part of your responsibility in creating instructional materials.
2. Know something about the accessibility of the technology the instructional tool creates (e.g. HTML, PPT, PDF, E-books from publishers, ones you create or open educational resources).
3. Know how the authoring tool supports accessibility features.
4. Ask vendors - how does your tool help me learn about and create accessible content using universal design principles.
5.  Expect vendors to provide you with a knowledgeable answer.

Overview of Access and Compliance requirements at Santa Barbara City College.

Assumptions about the classroom

• Classrooms are comprised of diverse learners, including students with disabilities and a wide range of learning profiles

• The college has a legal obligation to provide services and accommodations for students with disabilities

• The college depends on the interactive process to establish needs, procedures, and expectations

• The partnership between faculty, student and the college promotes a consistent process for managing the needs of the student

• The Universal Design model of teaching provides a lens in which to increase awareness and educational access

Review the principles of universal design for instruction

The term web accessibility speaks to the inclusive practice of removing barriers that prevent interaction with, or access to websites, by people with disabilities. When sites, learning management systems, student systems and/or publisher sites are correctly designed, developed and edited, all users have equal access to information and functionality. (WCAG overview)

Designing an Accessible Course

It is much easier to build your course with web accessibility in mind at the start of your workflow, rather than going back to retrofit problem areas later. Think of the user approaching your class, what “keys” will you build into the course for better navigation? By incorporating these simple steps , you’ll be creating a course with universal design in mind, no matter who enters your classroom on the first day. You want to be sure your class is running in top form on the first day of class.

To be compliant with our campus standards (WCAG 2.0) you must have content that is organized around the following four principles, a foundation necessary for anyone to access and use Web content:

1. Perceivable – Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive.

   • This means that users must be able to perceive the information being presented (it can’t be invisible to all of their senses)

2. Operable – User interface components and navigation must be operable.

   • This means that users must be able to operate the interface (the interface cannot require interaction that a user cannot perform)

3. Understandable – Information and the operation of user interface must be understandable.

   • This means that users must be able to understand the information as well as the operation of the user interface (the content or operation cannot be beyond their understanding)

4. Robust – Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.

   • This means that users must be able to access the content as technologies advance (as technologies and user agents evolve, the content should remain accessible)

If any of these are not true, users with disabilities will not be able to use the Web. These guidelines should be followed during the development of a new course. For existing courses, these guidelines should begin to take shape in the course at the point of redesign.

In 2011, the Chancellor’s Office released the Distance Education Accessibility Guidelines. These guidelines provide the 113 community colleges with guidelines for increasing accessible courses for students with disabilities.

Making these adjustments in your course will have a greater impact for long-term student accessibility.