NYS Forum IT Accessibility Committee Meeting

February 12, 2009, 2:30-4:00 p.m.
Forum Offices, 411 State Street

Attendees: Marilyn Cordell (OFT), Laura Edlund (AT&T), Kim Fraim (DOH), Martin Navojosky (Tax), Joel Obuchowski (INS), Debi Orton (GOER), Lisa Rosano-Kaczkowski (Commission on Quality of Care and Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities), and Mike Short (DCS).

Old Business:

  1. Agency Consulting:
    1. OFT: Validation Tool retention and standardization on screen readers. Debi to do further research
    2. Office of Homeland Security: Citrix application support using Metaframe on central box.
    3. Civil Service: VB6 Program
    4. Dept. of State: JAWS training course inquiry.
    5. OTDA: Standards questions.
    6. DCJS: Maintenance questions on validation tool.

  2. Validation Tool: Making progress on getting the support for the necessary funding to continue the use of the Validation tool. Debi and Marilyn are taking the following steps to try and gain approval.
    1. Marilyn to complete a survey to collect relevant information from agency CIOs in order to justify moving forward with the Enterprise License Agreement (ELA) with HiSoftware for the NYS Accessibility Validation Tool. Each state agency was given two free desktop licenses for the first year and unlimited access to the online tool. The ELA would provide unlimited licenses and would bundle the desktop licenses with the online tool. CIO/OFT may also negotiate additional services like training and technical support.
    2. Once the surveys are returned by the CIOs, Marilyn and Debi will build a business case to justify moving forward with OFT to fund the ELA with HiSoftware and then bill back the agencies.
    3. Marilyn also shared that OFT put a request in to fund the entire $75,000 Enterprise License fee as well and they are awaiting approval.

New Business:

  1. Upcoming Presentations:
    1. Accessibility for Executives: Health (Dee McCumber) volunteered to use their department as a best practice example in the session. Dee could not attend meeting and will send her Powerpoint file to Debi and Mike for review. After review, Debi will work with Dee to try and schedule the session.


  2. Discussions about the remainder of the Forum program year:
    1. Debi still is working on the planning for a session on "How to create an accessible PDF".
    2. We anticipate having to present one or more sessions on the validation tools.
    3. Marilyn noted that the Technology Academy is pulling together a series of classes similar to the award-winning NYS/PEF "Successful Web Communications in NYS Government" series. Marilyn asked if the committee would be willing to act as SMEs. Debi and Mike agreed that they would.
    4. In conjunction with the JAWS training request from DOS, Lisa said that she'd try to find some information on local JAWS trainers through the Commission for the Blind and Visually Handicapped.

Next Meeting:

March 12, 2009
2:30-4:00 p.m.
Location: TBD