NYS Forum IT Accessibility Committee Meeting

July 9, 2009, 2:30-4:00 p.m.
Forum Offices, 24 Aviation Road, Colonie

Attendees: Lisa Cammaro (OCA), Laura Edlund (AT&T), Rudy Nugent (OMH), Joel Obuchowski (SID), Paul Peters (Tax), ), Lizette Rivera (OPDV), Mike Short (DCS).

Old Business:

  1. Agency Consulting: 4 Agencies. OFT - General questions regarding 508; DOT - W3C Link Text question; DOH - Validation Tool question, so referred to OFT; Aging: Captioning question when published on YouTube.

    Mike led a discussion about publishing on YouTube. The consensus of the committee was that publishing on YouTube did not change an agency's responsibility to make the content, in this case a video, accessible. The policy covers publishing state content on third-party sites. The fact that the site is a public site, rather than a private one, does not change anything. When a state agency publishes on a public site, they implicitly contract with the host. The policy is explicit regarding contracted hosting.

  2. Training Progress: Debi distributed two outlines for future training presentations; "Writing in Plain English for the Web" and "Creating Accessible PDF Documents" last month. The committee agreed that sessions are work in progress and shooting for Fall presentation delivery.
  3. Annual Report/Planning Meeting: The team reviewed the accomplishments and goals for the 2009 program year and Mike reminded the committee that the annual planning meeting will be held on Friday, July 10th.

New Business:

  1. Upcoming Presentations: Here are the other programs we are planning with estimated target dates:
    1. Writing for the Web - Planning a session for either 11/3, 11/4, or 11/10. Debi provided a copy of Kathy Farrell's outline for this session, covering reading levels, clear language, how users read on the web, and how to optimize content for the medium.
    2. Creating Accessible PDFs - Debi provided an outline in June and we're planning for a presentation mid to late September.
    3. Basic Web Development Skills - CIO/OFT was interested in offering a "web basics" class. Debi had offered during the last meeting to follow up with Marilyn, neither attended this meeting, so we don't have an update.
    4. Basic Web Development Skills - CIO/OFT was interested in offering a "web basics" class. Debi had offered during the last meeting to follow up with Marilyn, neither attended this meeting, so we don't have an update.
    5. Social Networking presentation including Twitter, Facebook , etc.
    6. Possible Web 2.0 Refresh with the Webmasters' Guild.
  2. Adopting Section 508: OFT had recommended we consider the adoption of the Federal section 508 standard. While the committee in general favors the adoption of 508 standards, there are issues that need to be considered. Paul discussed the risk we run when we do not have control of the standards. If our policy points to 508 standards, and the standards are changed, then we would be responsible for bringing our web sites into compliance immediately. With our own standard, we can control how quickly our agencies need to be in compliance. Mike is concerned about proprietary formats. He feels they are not well covered by the 508 standards, and that our current New York standards handle them better. If we adopt 508, Mike would like to see our standards for proprietary formats (Standard 14) incorporated directly into the policy.
  3. Elections in September: Mike shared that he and Debi will be stepping down as the Public Sector Co-Chairs and asked interested people to volunteer. Laura shared that with one vacancy and no groundswell of interest on the corporate side, that it is likely she will continue her role as corporate co-chair. Mike thanks Laura for her hard work behind the scenes publishing the minutes and greeting new members.

Next Meeting:

September 10, 2009
2:30-4:00 p.m.
Location: Forum Offices, 24 Aviation Road, Colonie
NO MEETING SCHEDULED IN AUGUST