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IT Accessibility Committee Initiatives and Accomplishments

2007-2008

Note Related to Projected 2007-2008 Initaitives:

Italics indicates initiatives added at the July 13, 2007 Forum Planning Session
Numbers in parenthesis indicate votes cast for the initiative at the July 13, 2007 Forum Planning Session.

The Forum founded the IT (Information Technology) Accessibility committee to raise awareness of these issues with the technology community, to encourage the development of sensible policies to address these issues, and to provide the technical training necessary to implement the policies.

2006-2007 Accomplishments

  • Training Planned and Conducted

    • Presented to Webmasters' Guild and Corporate Roundtable on NYS policy and standard
    • Distributed awareness video via Forum web site
    • Worked with the Webmasters' Guild and World Organization of Webmasters to set up Search Engine Optimization - delivered by Bebo White
    • Closed out Successful Web Communications in NYS Government I and assisted with identifying the courses and providing course outlines for Successful Web Communications in NYS Government II
    • Investigated the possibility of developing online learning components from portions of the Committee's resource site; not possible now but may try again in future
    • Presented at the MAPAC conference on creating an accessible XML application
    • Led roundtable discussions on captioning at OFT's request. Two sessions were done.
    • Partnered with Webmasters' Guild to deliver "Webcasting Best Practices" to a capacity crowd
    • Arranged (with Forum support) for training sessions in the use of MAGpie, a free post-production captioning tool

  • Research

    • Developed expertise in developing and preparing multimedia for the web, especially in the area of captioning. Assisted OFT staff in developing implementation advice on Governor Spitzer's Executive Order No. 3, and the result was an implementation requiring all webcasts to be captioned
    • Culled a "top 30" from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Research-Based Web Usability Guidelines
    • Performed accessibility testing on the nominees for the Forum's Best of the Web competition

  • Publications

    • Continued monthly e-mail newsletter and appointed an Editor (Joel Obuchowski)
    • Provided OFT with our "Checklist by Standard" document, which they subsequently re-published as OFT Best Practice Guideline G06-001

  • Tool Development

    • NYS-Specific Validation Tool ? Developed technical requirements, assisted in RFP development, dissemination, answering questions and proposal evaluation
    • Added a Wiki to Committee Resource Site to capture information shared with agencies in e-mail consultations (we do 4-5 per month)

  • Forging New Alliances

    • Developed a good working relationship with staff from WGBH/NCAM in working on EO #3
    • Have been doing extensive work in educating IT vendors/contractors about accessibility issues.

  • Policy Reviews and Recommendations

    • Met with OFT on biennial policy and standard review: Revised required procurement language to make it clear that both the policy and the standard applied, made other minor changes to standard, concurring with OFT that no major changes were necessary
    • Provided recommendations for OFT regarding the disparity between our Standard 11.3 and the EO #3 requirements. Per EO #3, ALL webcasts to be captioned. Standard 11.3 required 50 percent of all web content to be captioned by 1/1/07
    • OFT members of the Committee met with the Procurement Council and suggested to them that the procurement language described in Policy P04-002 be included in Appendix A, which pertains to all procurements

2007-2008 Projected Initiatives

  • Training

    • Develop and deliver a comprehensive training program for the Validation Tool (4)
    • As the W3C ARIA workgroup finalizes their recommendations for Rich Internet Applications, develop expertise in the new techniques so that we can share them with the web development community
    • Prepare a follow-up session on the "lessons learned" from agencies' experiences with Executive Order #3
    • More MAGpie training

  • Research

    • Keep abreast of the specification changes coming out of the W3C; HTML is currently undergoing revisions to become "HTML 5," and other standards are rapidly advancing
    • Monitor news related to accessibility (e.g., outcome of litigation, new devices or programs, etc.)

  • Publications

    • Develop a reliable program for updating Committee site content

  • Tool Development

    • Continue the development of the Wiki and publicize it and the resource web site
    • Complete the contract with the preferred Validation Tool vendor, and provide support for the tool's development, including training
    • With the Webmasters' Guild, manage the development of the Validation Tool (4)
    • Market the Validation Tool to users
    • Reach out to educate IT vendors who do business with New York State

  • Policy Reviews and Recommendations

    • Investigate ways to fund Validation Tool after initial development period has ended
    • Succession Planning for Committee