You Are Here: IT Accessibility Committee May 2005 Newsletter
It hardly seems possible that the time has come for another newsletter, but it has. Here's what's happened in the past month, and what you can expect to look forward to in coming months.
PROGRAM NOTES - PAST AND FUTURE
May Webmasters' Guild Focuses on Accessibility Policy, Standards, Resources & Tools
At this Friday's Webmasters' Guild meeting, the Office for Technology will be delivering a presentation on the Accessibility Policy and Standards. This is your chance to ask questions, get clarification and provide feedback about your experiences in implementing the policy and standards. We will also see a presentation from OFT on the new State e-commerce banner and associated implementation issues. The second half of our program will be a demonstration of New York State-based, veteran-owned Intercon Associates, Inc. product Accessible Form Net, which has been adopted by the GSA. The main program will be followed with a Websphere users' group meeting.
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PEF/PDC-Sponsored Training
As you may remember, the Forum's IT Accessibility Committee and Webmasters' Guild approached GOER and the PEF Professional Development Committee to suggest that a comprehensive training program be established for web development personnel in State agencies. Everyone agreed that this was a needed skill-building opportunity and a proposal for the project has been sent to several backdrop contract vendors. Four proposals were returned. The proposals must now be evaluated by a panel of objective raters.
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Accessibility Clinics
On April 12 we held our first monthly Accessibility Clinic. The topic for this clinic was "Using CSS to Lay Out Forms," and was coordinated by Mike Short. Mike delivered a short presentation on the topic for the day (you can find a copy of that presentation at http://www.nysfirm.org/documents/html/itaccess/cssforforms.html) and several committee members offered one-on-one help for participants.
We are very excited about this innovative program. Based on your critiques from class, we believe the program was successful, and in response have scheduled monthly session from now through November for the third Tuesday of the month at the OFT Academy in Classroom D.
Next Clinic
Our next program will be held on Tuesday, May 17. The first 30 minutes or so will be a presentation on marking up tables by Ed Donahue from OFT. After that, volunteers from the Forum's IT Accessibility Committee will be available to help you solve your particular table accessibility issues. You are welcome to bring your pages along on machine-readable media, such as floppies, CDs or a flash drive. We recommend writable media so you can take your changes with you.
Pre-registration is required at https://www3.oft.state.ny.us/glc 
. Class size is limited to 14 and participants will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. The last offering filled within 36 hours, so be sure to sign up so that you don't get shut out! If you have any trouble registering, please contact Mike Short at mbs1@cs.state.ny.us.
May Accessibility Clinic: Accessible Tables
DATE: Tuesday, May 17
Location: OFT Training Room D
Swan St Core 4 Floor 3B
Max Enrollment: 14
Contact: Michael B. Short
Contact Telephone: 518-457-5105
Hours: 1:00 - 3:00 PM (although we'll stay longer if needed)
Instructor: Michael B. Short
Comments: This month, Ed Donahue from OFT will offer a 30-minute presentation on Marking Up Tables for Accessibility. Following the presentation, Ed and members of the Forum's IT Accessibility Committee will answer participant questions. The Question and Answer Session will be followed by hands-on assistance with participant web pages.
Date: Tuesday, 05/17/2005
The training room is located in the Empire State Plaza, Swan Street Building; Core 4 (north end of the building near the Legislative Office Building), Floor 3B.
Future Clinics
We have tentatively scheduled clinics for the next few months, so you may want to mark your calendars now. Below are the dates we've chosen:
Tuesday, 6/21/05
Tuesday, 7/19/05
Tuesday, 8/16/05
Tuesday, 9/20/05
Tuesday, 10/18/05
Tuesday, 11/15/05
If you have ideas for future clinics, please e-mail Mike Short at mbs1@cs.state.ny.us or Debi Orton at dorton@goer.state.ny.us.
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ANNOUNCEMENTS
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CTG Hosts Brown-Bag Discussion
On Thursday, May 19, the Center for Technology in Government will host a brown-bag lunch "discussion of the challenges faced by public managers in managing an agency Web site." Registration is required, and you can find more information at http://www.ctg.albany.edu/about/lunch .
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Follow-Up to December's Web Developer Survey
In December of 2004, the Webmasters' Guild and the IT Accessibility Committee collaborated on a survey hosted on the NYSFIRM web site. We were soliciting information from our target audience on what sorts of learning opportunities they would like to see. In the process of sorting through the responses, we discovered that the information was much richer than we'd anticipated.
As a next step, we held several follow-up focus groups with a cross-section of staff from a variety of agencies. Again, the information provided was very provocative. We are currently working with all of the information with Katie Crossett, a student from Rockefeller, to produce a report on those experiences. We'll announce the results here, when they're ready.
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Agency Web Accessibility Liaisons
As part of NYS Technology Policy P04-002, agencies were asked to designate a web accessibility liaison and to forward that person's name to Julie Leeper in OFT. (The instructions on this are included in the policy.) If you don't know who your agency's web accessibility liaison is, chances are that OFT doesn't either. Check with your CIO or e-Commerce representative to see who in your agency should be the point person on accessibility, and have them make OFT aware of the designation.
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Contract/RFP Language on Accessible Web Sites
Did you know that NYS Technology Policy P04-002 also includes specific language to be included in RFPs and contracts where the vendor will be producing web content? It's true! Check the policy at http://www.oft.state.ny.us/policy/p04-002/index.htm ; the standards are available at http://www.oft.state.ny.us/policy/s04-001/index.htm .
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NEXT MEETING:
The next meeting of the IT Accessibility Committee will be on Thursday, May 12 from 2:30 - 4:00 at the Forum offices, 411 State Street, Albany NY. There's plenty of free parking available in Washington Park...and the tulips are lovely this time of year! We have a lot of work left to do, and we could sure use your help.
Next month's newsletter should have news about our Committee Web Site Redesign Contest!