[WG: Accessibility] FW: Sakai is being recognized as "taking accessibility seriously" on the WebAIM e-mail list

[Richwine, Brian L]

It is great that Sakai is being recognized as taking accessibility seriously. I've been really inspired by those in the Sakai community who have sought out the accessibility review reports and taken on fixing accessibility issues on their own and by the eagerness of developers to fix problems once they have been identified. In a product as ambitious and as complex as Sakai, some of the accessibility problems can be challenging. It is great that the Sakai community is willing to take them on.

The upcoming revisions to Section 508, the updates to the ADA focusing on web accessibility (Announcement of Proposed Rule Making), and the new ISO standards covering accessibility all seem to indicate that institutions should/will be considering accessibility with heightened and appropriate seriousness in all areas of information technology -- including in choosing an LMS. 

The Sakai Accessibility Working group has made significant improvements to the accessibility review process. The use of walkthrough scripts has greatly improved our ability to understand Sakai's capabilities and to find accessibility issues that really will affect Sakai's users. We have focused our energies on getting these practical accessibility issues addressed as well as on pushing hard on getting all of the issues revealed by the technical accessibility protocol testing resolved.

To continue to position Sakai as a learning management system with high levels of accessibility I plan to undertake the following work in the coming weeks. As the 2.8 release draws closer, I will update/overhaul the Sakai "Current Accessibility" pages on the Accessibility Working Group's pages. They need to be more polished, less busy, and straight to the point and yet represent the friendly energy of the Sakai Community. Our Sakai Accessibility statements will transition from Draft to being formally included in the above Sakai Accessibility documentation (Sakai 2.x after the review we are on now, Sakai '3' after the Sakai 3 Q1/Q2 accessibility review we are about to launch). These are the first accessibility reviews we've undertaken since the draft accessibility statements were approved.

The "Current Accessibility" page will be changed to refer to the various flavors and versions of Sakai. This is because Sakai versions linger and so people can see the trail of accessibility improvements. The "Current Accessibility" pages will include two landing pages -- one each for Sakai 2.x and Sakai 3 (or Sakai OAE as it is now being called). These pages will include the Accessibility Statements, Info on the Sakai Working Group, how to report accessibility issues to the group, links to pages detailing Section 508 and WCAG 2.0 conformance, a link to the current accessibility help pages, and links to the appropriate accessibility review splash page. Once the new documentation has been posted, the Sakai Working Group home page will be updated to feature teasers and links to those pages prominently at the top of the page.

The above changes to the Sakai "Current Accessibility" pages should help institutions understand Sakai's true accessibility, and make evident the seriousness with which Sakai takes accessibility issues. Some recent emails have made me realize how this openness of Sakai's Accessibility status, the Sakai development process, and the transparency of the issues we are working on can expose Sakai to criticism. This is unfortunate because it is my belief --confirmed through recent progresses made-- that Sakai accessibility issues are being noted and remedies implemented. We will need to continue taking this work seriously, building on and enhancing the accessibility foundation that has been established to date. 

If anyone has any suggestions for, or expectations of, what should be included in the Sakai Accessibility Status documentation, please let the accessibility working group know!

Thanks,
  Brian Richwine

-----Original Message-----
From: Nate Angell [mailto:nangell at rsmart.com] 
Sent: Saturday, December 11, 2010 12:25 PM
To: Richwine, Brian L
Cc: "management at collab.sakaiproject.org Council" Eli Cochran; management; accessibility at collab.sakaiproject.org WG (accessibility at collab.sakaiproject.org)
Subject: Re: [WG: Accessibility] FW: Sakai is being recognized as "taking accessibility seriously" on the WebAIM e-mail list

Brian/Mary:

I agree with Eli: thanks for sharing!

My takeaway from this is that whatever Sakai's actual accessibility, our approach to accessibility is correct: to be open and thorough.
Just putting a stamp on software certifying a complex characteristic like accessibility is not the same thing as having an ongoing, open and deep engagement with it.

- Nate


On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 9:21 AM, Eli Cochran <eli at media.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> Brian,
> Thanks for sharing that. I'm spreading a little wider.
>
> - Eli
>
> On Dec 9, 2010, at 9:10 AM, Richwine, Brian L wrote:
>
>> Mary found this encouraging take on the Sakai Community on a WebAIM e-mail list:
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Stores, Mary A.
>> Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 11:55 AM
>> To: Richwine, Brian L; Londergan, M D; Humbert, Joseph A
>> Subject: Sakai is being recognized as "taking accessibility 
>> seriously" on the WebAIM e-mail list
>>
>> Is there anything I should say to them? I'm happy to do something.
>>
>> Mary
>>
>>
>> ----- Forwarded message from deborah.kaplan at suberic.net -----
>>    Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2010 11:47:14 -0500 (EST)
>>    From: deborah.kaplan at suberic.net
>> Reply-To: WebAIM Discussion List <webaim-forum at list.webaim.org>
>> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Accessible SCORM Compliant E-Learning Software
>>      To: WebAIM Discussion List <webaim-forum at list.webaim.org>
>>
>> Sam asked:
>>
>> "I am looking for a SCORM compliant e-learning software and authoring tool that is accessible. Ideally, both the authoring tools and the courses they produce should be accessible. "
>>
>> And Michael Langum responded:
>>
>> "Don't forget that an accessible course is only half the issue.
>> You (or you client) will also need to ensure that your Learning Management System (LMS) is also accessible."
>>
>> I will also add, the classes are only accessible as the course designers make them. No matter how much accessibility is built into the learning management system, if the professor/course designer puts up videos without captions, flash without accessibility, and images without alternative text. Training your faculty/course designers is a huge part of making sure your classes are accessible.
>>
>> (Also, kudos for making sure that both the authoring tools and the 
>> courses be accessible -- many course designers have accessibility 
>> needs as well! As do the LMS administrators, so make sure that the 
>> administration tools are also accessible.)
>>
>> In any case, I've been very impressed with both Moodle and Sakai, fairly unimpressed with Blackboard, and exceedingly unimpressed with Angel. The latter two obfuscate what they mean by accessibility and what their accessibility efforts are. Moodle and Sakai, on the other hand, both take accessibility very seriously and are very open about what they mean by accessibility and what their efforts are:
>>
>> http://docs.moodle.org/en/Moodle_Accessibility_Specification
>> http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/2ACC/Sakai's+Current+Acces
>> sibility
>>
>> My favorite part of the Moodle accessibility specification is at
>> <http://docs.moodle.org/en/Moodle_Accessibility_Specification#Rationale_for_Moodle_accessibility>:
>> the legal, moral, and market argument for taking accessibility seriously.
>>
>> -Deborah
>> _______________________________________________
>> To manage your subscription, visit http://list.webaim.org/ Address 
>> list messages to webaim-forum at list.webaim.org
>>
>>
>> ----- End forwarded message -----
>>
>>
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> . . . . . . . . . . .  .  .   .    .      .         .              .                     .
>
> Eli Cochran
> manager of user experience design
> user interaction developer
> Educational Technology Services, UC Berkeley
>
> "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
>    - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
>
>
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