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Evolving with Access

Evolving with Access. An Analysis of Accessibility in the Writing Center Community. Download T his Presentation. JMDembsey.com. About Me. J. M. Dembsey Co-Coordinator OWC Community JMDembsey.com. Progress. How to Progress. Consider who is encouraged to soar within our field

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Evolving with Access

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  1. Evolving with Access An Analysis of Accessibility in the Writing Center Community

  2. Download This Presentation JMDembsey.com

  3. About Me J. M. DembseyCo-CoordinatorOWC Community JMDembsey.com

  4. Progress

  5. How to Progress • Consider who is encouraged to soar within our field • Normalize accessible practices and approaches • Look to disability studies for inspiration

  6. Accessibility & Disability

  7. Accessibility • Provides flexibility and choice • Considers factors for using, obtaining, understanding, or fully participating in something • Has broad and focused perspectives

  8. Broad Accessibility • Considers finances, time, location, transportation, employment, affiliations, etc. • Example: online conference opportunities

  9. Focused Accessibility • Considers experiences and needs of users with disabilities specifically • Example: online conference technology that can be navigated by members with disabilities

  10. Price (2011) Quote 1 “[...] disability is popularly imagined as a medical ‘problem’ that inheres in an individual, one that needs to be fixed (‘cured’) and is cause for sorrow and pity. DS [disability studies] countermands this dominant belief by arguing that disability is a mode of human difference, one that becomes a problem only when the environment or context treats it as such. [continued]

  11. Price (2011) Quote 1 (cont) To take a frequent example, using a wheelchair is not in and of itself a problem unless one must navigate a built environment, such as a bus, airplane, or building, which assumes stairs are the best and only way to ascend from one level to another.” (p. 4)

  12. Price (2011) Quote 2 Disability studies “shifts the ‘problem’ of disability away from individuals and toward institutions and attitudes.” (p. 4)

  13. Session Outline • Presentation design • Conference design • Publication format • Problematic literature • Reading recommendations

  14. Presentation Design

  15. Usual Design • Focus on oral delivery • Requires attendees to listen and look • Assumes attendees can record notes quickly

  16. More Inclusive Design • Printed transcripts • Website to download transcript and PowerPoint • Videos with closed captions • Sign language interpreter • Equal focus on oral and visual delivery

  17. What We Can Do • Make our content more accessible to members with disabilities • Normalize accessibility • Model for others

  18. Presenter Tips 1 and 2 • Write a script and share it both in print and electronically • Design slides with high contrast and verbally describe images on your slides

  19. Presenter Tips 3 and 4 • Share presentation materials online • Design online materials to be accessible to assistive technologies

  20. Design Resources • University of Washington Accessibility Guidelines • WebAIM.org • Microsoft Support articles

  21. Access Advocacy • Avoid fragrances • Report accessibility issues to conference chair • Share accessibility suggestions on follow-up surveys • Visit Composing Access Project (2019)

  22. Conference Planning

  23. Planning Tip 1 • Create international and local conference committees on disability • Example: CCCC Committee on Disability Issues in College Composition

  24. Committee Tasks • Work with conference chairs • Provide disability information table • Identify funding for accessibility support • Research disability issues (CCCC, 2019b)

  25. Committee Tasks (cont) • Distribute accessibility information about local area and conference buildings • Elevate voices of members with disabilities (CCCC, 2019a)

  26. Planning Tips 2 and 3 • Create and distribute accessibility guides • Consider “crip” time when scheduling breaks, meals, keynotes, and other group events

  27. Price (2011) Quote 3 “Crip time, a term from disability culture, refers to a flexible approach to normative time frames (Gill; Zola). At a conference, adhering to crip time might mean permitting more than fifteen minutes between sessions; it might mean recognizing that people will arrive at various intervals, and designing sessions accordingly; and it might also mean recognizing that audience members are processing language at various rates and adjusting the pace of conversation.” (p. 62)

  28. Planning Tip 4 • Offer the full conference program in print, Microsoft Word, and web HTML

  29. AHEAD

  30. Publication Format

  31. Open Access • Available online and for free • Not necessarily accessible from a focused perspective

  32. Buck (2018) • Published Open-Access, Multimodality, and Writing Center Studies • Analyzed the digital histories and accessibility of WLN, WCJ, and Praxis

  33. Buck (2018) (cont) • Considers access broadly as a matter of obtainability and navigability • No consideration of disability

  34. Focused Perspective • Open access • AND navigable by keyboards, screenreaders, and other assistive technologies

  35. Publication Formats • PDF documents • HTML webpages (considered more universally accessible)

  36. National Disability Authority (2014) “PDFs are good for printing but poor for accessibility compared to good web documents.”

  37. Disability Studies Quarterly • Is “first journal in the field of disability studies” (DSQ, 2019) • Has published every issue for free in HTML since 2000

  38. Disability Studies Quarterly Website

  39. Our HTML Publications • Praxis • The Peer Review • Another Word • The Dangling Modifier

  40. Our PDF Publications • Writing Lab Newsletter • The Writing Center Journal

  41. Adobe (2019) “Unfortunately, scanners only create an image of text, not the actual text itself. This means the content is not accessible to users who rely on assistive technology. Additional modifications must be made to make the document accessible.”

  42. Tests for Inaccessibility • You can’t select text with your cursor • You can’t use the “find” feature to search the document

  43. Writing Lab Newsletter Archive

  44. WLN Accessibility • 165 PDFs (45%) are inaccessible • 46% of articles on disability are inaccessible

  45. Writing Center Journal • Full PDF archive through JSTOR • Partial archive through IWCA

  46. Writing Center Journal Archive

  47. WCJ Accessibility • Not open access • Restricts information based on finances or institutions • Requires navigating through multiple sites that may not be accessible

  48. Move to HTML • Is less expensive for distribution • Is less time intensive to make accessible • Still allows for print and PDF options

  49. Past Issues • Transition past issues into HTML • Start with content that is most frequently visited • Allow users to request content to be made accessible

  50. Other Steps Forward • Encourage members with disabilities to be editors and reviewers • Insist on revolving editors

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