LERA – 2008

1. Presented by: Dr. Becky Sue PartonDr. Robert Hancock Institutes of Higher Education: Are they Hitting the Mark for Web Content Accessibility? LERA – 2008

2. Southeastern Louisiana University – Educational Leadership & Technology • WCAG – Web Content Accessibility Guideline • EvalAccess – on-line tool for testing accessibility of websites (automatic tools have limitations) • Priority One – If not met, a group will find it impossible to access information on the page. • Priority Two – If not met, a group will find it difficult to access information on the page. • Priority Three – Satisfying this checkpoint will improve access. Definitions LERA – 2008

3. Southeastern Louisiana University – Educational Leadership & Technology • 750 million people world-wide have a disability • Kane, Shulman, Shockley, & Ladner (2007) - study of the top 100 international university web sites selected from the Times Higher Education Supplement’s 2006 World University Rankings. Analyzed by Bobby, now called WebXACT. Only two universities, the University of Michigan and the University of Queensland, were free of all priority 1, 2, and 3 errors. • A study of the websites of 350 Canadian universities and colleges (using Bobby) was conducted by Zaparyniuk & Montgomerie (2005). It revealed that 19.9% of the sites were free of priority 1 errors . • Year 2000 (Sullivan & Matson) – 50 most popular websites; 41 inaccessible • Year 2003 (Lazar) – 50 largest in Baltimore area; 49 inaccessible Literature LERA – 2008

4. Southeastern Louisiana University – Educational Leadership & Technology • TREND – Decline in Accessibility rather than an Improvement over Time • In a unique study by Hackett, Parmanto, & Zeng (2005), 45 higher education websites were retrospectively analyzed from 1997 to 2002 by using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine which provides a web page snapshot as it existed at a particular point in time. The sample of higher education websites became progressively inaccessible – from 64.4% compliance in 1997 to 15.6% in 2002. • Additional finding - “A worrying trend in the United States is the addition of a ‘508 and old browser’ sub-site where the designers have decided to create a cut-down, text version of their site to meet the accessibility criteria. This obviously goes against the goal for inclusiveness …” (Witt & McDermott, 2004, p.54). Literature LERA – 2008

5. Southeastern Louisiana University – Educational Leadership & Technology • 50 Universities – Random Sample • 50 K-12 Districts – Random Sample • 154 Schools for the Deaf • 29 Schools for the Blind Sample LERA – 2008

6. Southeastern Louisiana University – Educational Leadership & Technology Results LERA – 2008

7. Southeastern Louisiana University – Educational Leadership & Technology Group 1 – K-12 Group 2 – Blind Group 3 – Deaf Group 4 - Universities Results LERA – 2008

8. Southeastern Louisiana University – Educational Leadership & Technology • Trend pattern between Priority 1, 2, and 3 • Universities and Schools for the Blind were most accessible • K-12 Districts were least accessible • New guidelines in 2008 Discussion LERA – 2008