Managing Assistive Technology in Higher Education

Will that be paper or PDF?

2011-07-06T21:47:00.001-07:00

I am evaluating accessible-document work flows for my school and several others. For the most part, this means documents in the PDF file format. Like so many aspects to this topic, none of the solutions are easy and/or cut and dried. It would seem that applying an existing process for web accessibility would do the job, but this isn't so.
The web work flow is a poor fit because of the disparate skill sets between the document creators. Most colleges have professional web designers, especially for their main pages, but the skill of those creating PDF documents vary greatly across the campus. For every skilled designer using inDesign, you have dozens of instructors creating quick, unstructured and inaccessible PDF documents with MS Word. You certainly can achieve a level of accessibility with MS Word, but most of the instructors on my campus don't take the necessary extra steps.
One interesting response I've heard on several campuses is just a flat out dismissal of PDF as the wrong tool for the job. It is hard to find evidence, however, that colleges are decreasing their dependence on PDF documents. Duff Johnson (a person worth following if this topic interests you) wrote Why PDF? outlining reasons for PDF's entrenchment in our electronic-document systems. He makes very good points. Don't bet on PDF disappearing anytime soon, in spite of what some experts are saying.
It's doubtful that one work flow is going to work on most campuses for PDF production. Certainly professional designers need to add accessibility to their skill sets so that what they create for their university works for all users. Faculty, on the other hand, need to create short documents and frequently do so quickly.

A Work Flow for Faculty

What then is a good work flow for faculty? As someone who was an instructor thirty years ago and remembers creating mimeographed syllabi, handouts, tests etc., I understand the notion that the faculty creates course material from start to finish. I think it may be time to reconsider this idea, particularly in the electronic age. A PDF document is so much more versatile than its paper counterpart. It can be searchable, which is real benefit for a long handout. Carefully made it can be accessible to people with a wide variety of print disabilities.
Faculty have become accustomed to creating these course materials in a word processor, usually MS Word, and then hitting "save to pdf." That's quick, but the resulting PDF is unstructured and certainly not very accessible. Ironically, making an accessible syllabus PDF from MS Word is not that difficult. Unfortunately, compared to typing it out quickly and hitting "save to pdf" it seems more complicated. I recently asked a departmental communications director, "Are you after wide-spread behavior-modification of your faculty or do you want accessible syllabi and handouts?" The response was a reflective pause.
So what am I proposing we consider? What if faculty could "knock out" a syllabus or handout in Word and then a departmental staffer creates the accessible PDF? Remember, I said that going from MS Word to an accessible PDF is not that difficult. Adding staff usually raises an eyebrow or two, but in this case one or two well-trained work-study students should be able to handle it. What about more problematic elements such as tables? They're not extremely problematic it is just that they cannot always be rendered accessible in Word alone and sometimes require some additional work in a tool like Acrobat Pro.

The computer gave us a quick and simple way to create paper documents. Electronic documents are vastly different from paper. Paper is rigidly locked into its presentation format. Electronic documents are fluid and dynamic. They can be "read" in various ways and soon can be translated into other languages.

The problem is we continue to use a "paper" work flow for an electronic document.

Planning Enterprise Level Web Accessibility

2010-04-28T09:49:00.000-07:00

I was invited to attend a meeting between a communications committee and the new IT director at a college. Among the new director’s responsibilities was the college website and accessibility was on the agenda. What I heard were fairly vague reassurances that the website would be accessible, but really no substantive plans to make that happen.

After the meeting I sent the chairperson a brief list of the sorts of things one should be hearing when accessibility is going to be integrated into the web production process. I thought I’d share those here. Bear in mind that this not the only approach and someone else could come up with different list. But these are the main building blocks to publishing an accessible enterprise level website.

Accessibility Guidelines
The foundation to accessible web delivery is identifying the guidelines you intend to comply with. The government’s 508 and W3C’s Web Accessibility Content guidelines are cited most frequently. 508 is concise, while W3C tries to be complete and overarching. W3C recently updated their guidelines and 508 is in the final stages of revision as well. “Being accessible” is rather vague, but complying with a set of published standard should be concrete and verifiable.

Implementation
How do you intend to ensure the guidelines are followed in your web production? This goes to how pages are created. Will a professional developer or development team create maintain the site or will a content management system (CMS) allow for all level of employees to contribute content? If you use a CMS, then the more accessibility the CMS can automate the less testing and verification may be required later. Automation is attractive, but it still may require thoughtful response. A CMS may prompt for an alt attribute, but what your employee creates for that attribute may require some careful consideration.

Any web elements routinely used on your site and not handled by the CMS may require either training for the staff or outsourcing. For example, a complex data table can be completely accessible, but coding it is not trivial and difficult to automate. Either staff will need to know how to create these or the production can be outsourced.

Verification
How do you test for compliance of either your live site or a pre-live test site? This is where independent validators are attractive. See: http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/complete.html. Validators have their supporters and their detractors. I tend to stay out of that debate. But no matter what, you need an articulated process for ensuring that your accessibility guidelines are making it into you web site. Even a process in which random pages added within the past two months are spot checked for accessibility is better than no process at all.

Maintenance and Complaint Resolution
Maintenance is either checking new pages for compliance or for evaluating the accessibility of new “widgets” that heretofore have not been used on the site. I acknowledge that “complaint resolution” comes across heavy handed, but the reality is this is an area that could easily turn into a legal issue. If we are informed that a person feels that they cannot use one of our websites on the basis of their disability that can become a serious issue. Simply put, articulate the process of maintaining accessibility, testing new web “mini apps” and assessing end-user complaints about accessibility.

The Take Away
The process of ensuring accessibility of enterprise level web sites is a deliberate and involved process. The process should be clearly articulated from: standards to development to verification and finally deployment and maintenance. Anything less, will more than likely result in a site that is unfriendly and not useful to people using assistive technologies.

AT and the Evolving DS Service Model

2010-01-26T09:01:00.000-08:00

Like many Disability Services offices my department is examining how it does what it does. This is not new and many offices have been doing this for several years now. The basic thrust of these evaluations is to move from a medical model definition of disability to a social model definition. Without getting too into this (and it is a field of study) the medical model focuses on the individual and treats disability as an impairment, while the social model attributes “impairments” to an inadequately designed environment. The medical model leaves “prescriptive” decisions to “experts” rarely consulting the person with a disability; while the social model puts the opinion of the person with a disability first and foremost. As I said, this is a field of study and my two sentences hardly do it justice, if you want to learn more, then web search “disability medical model” and “disability social model.”

What this means to most DS offices is a move from “clearing paths” for individual students with disabilities to promoting a campus environment in which most paths have had the barriers removed. For example, rather than hunt down a classroom for a student in a wheelchair, invest time in ensuring all classrooms are wheelchair accessible. If this sounds like something you are not going to accomplish overnight, you’re right. And if it sounds like you’re putting your campus on the path toward Universal Design, you’re right again.

There are a number of reasons for doing this. Not the least of which is higher education’s commitment to inclusion and diversity. Read through your school’s mission regarding inclusion and how can you not want to revamp how students with disabilities are treated? There are, however, other reasons for considering this change. Not only are the service models built on social and cultural assumptions that are being challenged, and the older models are not really sustainable. The old model cannot handle the increasing numbers of people and the broadening definitions of disability.

Of course a change like this does not occur on a campus easily or without the support of other departments. And we have found that there are quarters on our campus that are quite comfortable with the older definitions and service models. To be fair, there are also departments who ask, “What took you so long?” Just remember this is a transitional process and incremental gains are good gains.

What We Can Learn from AT

Now having set the stage, let me discuss AT’s place in all this. At my school AT has already started down this path and the reasons are rather pedantic. Fifteen years ago the typical personal computers in student labs ran a handful of programs and replicating them in an AT lab was not too difficult. Now, however, the typical computer is running dozens of programs in general student labs and the departmental labs run highly specialized software dedicated to an academic field. There is simply no way an AT lab could keep up with all this diverse technology. And even if you could technically, you would not have the lab assistants that could help students to the depth that a specialist in a departmental computing lab could.

Sustainability has forced AT out of our AT lab and onto computers all over campus. Basically I have had to learn to partner with the IT people on campus. And my campus is highly decentralize which means I’ve had to deal with various personalities and attitudes over the years. Add to that the systems change efforts that I and other AT coordinators have had to promote around accessible web and electronic documents and you get a fairly good dress rehearsal for what many DS offices themselves about to embark on.

Another preview of things to come is the advocacy of accessible web and electronic documents. AT coordinators find themselves trying to convince campus communicators to produce accessible electronic publications, but it is frequently a steep up-hill battle.

One problem with the new model (as far as “others” are concerned) is that it shifts the work and responsibility from one office (the DS office) and distributes it among the campus community. I have actually had web designers suggest that I should retrofit accessibility on their campus sites rather than them build it in to begin with! That would be hilarious if it if it hadn’t been a sincere suggestion.

Universal Design includes, but also extends well beyond, technology. The deployment of AT into mainstream computing labs does serve, however, as a great map for at least one method of moving toward access or all.

Universal Design and Access is the obvious direction for human interface development. It is inevitable, but DS programs can quicken the pace of adoption. Colleges and universities are immense organizations, but they’re usually more flexible than business organizations in implementing new ideas. DS offices are great motivators for the campus implementation of UD and the AT area may have some insight into dealing with some of the essential stakeholders on campus.

There are two take-aways from this. One, is that your AT people may have some useful input and advice as your office embarks on modernizing “disability services’ on our campus. And two, is that the old rationales of legal consequences, higher moral obligations etc. just aren’t as persuasive as they once were. Spreading Universal Access is going to take more sophisticated organizational change methods.

WebAIM Training
I'll be attending WebAIM's accessibility training on February 17 and 18. I plan to "twitter" from the training. Follow me at jbailey on Twitter during the training.

Experimental or Applied Accommodations?

2009-11-18T13:49:00.000-08:00

Many students are fluent and facile AT users and, as such, may want to “push the boundaries” of the technology access afforded by AT. Which means we may encounter requests for what amounts to experimental accommodations. “Experimental” means an adaptation that, for whatever reason, is not widely used. It could deal with new technology such as touch screens (although those aren’t really new). It could also be applying new technology to an old obstacle.

The opposite is an applied accommodation. Applied accommodations are fairly routine deployments of AT. For example, a student who uses a screen reader requests that the university’s supported screen reader be installed in a departmental computing lab. This is a fairly cut-and-dried request for an applied accommodation.

To some this may sound like the idea of an inveterate bureaucrat, but it doesn’t have to be. Allow me a quick side note here: ideas like this are rarely inherently good or bad. The good or bad comes with the implementation. If an idea like this appeals to you, be sure you implement it in such a way that it clarifies and streamlines your workflow.

Since these types of requests are handled differently, the identification initiates either one process or another. With routine and applied AT the process should be a rather quick deployment of supported AT in an area of campus where it is lacking. With a more experimental request, time needs to be spent evaluating the purpose of the accommodation and its technical feasibility.

In the case of an unusual or untested accommodation you must communicate to the student that an applied adaptation does not exist and that your efforts may take additional time and the results are not certain.

It is important to keep the student involved in the process. And not simply by keeping him or her informed, enlist the student to do some research into the idea. Do they have friends or colleagues that are using technology applied in this way? Or, in contrast, is this a hypothetical idea in which the student speculates this combination of technologies might work together?

Various factors effect how you might respond to such a request. You may not have the personnel or other resources to conduct much experimental work. In that case, you might ask the student to fairly thoroughly research the question and narrow down the possibilities. Some DS coordinators may not like the student-research idea, but the alternative – for many schools that I know of – is to have a policy to provide only fairly routine technical accommodations.

The take away here is to consider how you will manage a technological accommodation request for which there is no obvious – and generally accepted – solution. What process will you use to evaluate such a request? Who might you consult about such a request? If you decide to try and provide the accommodation, what will that process look like?

You do not need really detailed answers for these questions. It is important to have considered these points and have some idea about how you might proceed. Students are always more confident in your responses if they are reflective and deliberative rather than appearing to have been made up on the spot.

Uncommon Tech Accommodation Requests

2009-10-14T13:51:00.001-07:00

As assistive technology (AT) in higher education matures the requests for accommodation tend to become fewer and those we do get are apt to be somewhat sophisticated or complex. A complex accommodation request requires thoughtful consideration.

Focus on Tasks and Not Technology
I recently worked on an issue of making a touch screen accessible for a screen-reader user. The user is faculty and the environment is a new classroom in which all the technology is driven from a touch screen. In the early conversations I was concerned that there was too much focus on the touch screen itself and not enough on the tasks involved. The tasks were pretty routine; things like, play a DVD, run a PowerPoint, play an audio file etc. These sorts of tasks are easily done from a laptop, so I didn’t want to put too much time into retrofitting some commercial interface.

The take away here is that if you encounter a request for an accommodation for which there is no commonly applied adaptation, then stay focused on the tasks involved and not necessarily on the offending technology. As I said in one of the early meetings on this request, “We didn’t reinvent wheelchairs to climb stairs, we provided ramps.” The goal of an accommodation is to get people
doing the same things as their peers, but they may not accomplish it in exactly the same way.

This story actually has a twist ending. This particular touch-screen product has a screen-builder component. IT support can make custom screens. I looked at it very briefly and it does hold out promise that it may make for keyboard accessible touch screens. I will look into this in the weeks to come and report back here. If the touch screen cannot be easily adapted, then I go back to the idea of running the various playback devices from the faculty member’s laptop.

Accommodation vs. Preference
This is a very slippery slope but it must be considered when evaluating accommodation requests. Sometimes a request or an aspect of a request may actually be more of a convenience for the student rather than an accommodation. Several years ago I was involved in deploying AT into general student computing labs. These labs were popular and there was usually a wait to get on a computer. A student with a disability requested an accommodation that would eliminate his having to wait in line. When DS evaluated the request, documentation and the student’s disability they did not see this as an accommodation and did not provide it.

DS offices need an articulated and published definition of an accommodation that they can refer to in instances like this. This is not about strict definitions or splitting-hairs, but it is about understanding the purpose of an accommodation and providing adjustments or adaptations that meet that purpose.

Legacy Accommodations and Expanding Technological Options
When you deployed your campus-wide AT it was built on some sort of prototypical computer system. Whether intentional or not that was the case. And this prototype included one, possibly two, internet browsers. These days there are up to four nearly mainstream options for internet browsers and each of them may interact differently with your AT.

If an AT user tries a new browser, they may very well have some trouble with its interaction with the screen reader. And then they may ask your AT staff for help. This is a bit of a grey area. It is mostly dependent on your staffing resources. I truly know of schools where one person is handling every aspect of DS management and deployment. In that case, the student may need to stay with the supported browser. If, on the other hand, you have AT staff then it may be appropriate for them to look into the issue.

DS should know and post what AT they support and what specific computer applications they support. Then DS is responsible for maintaining the functionality of those combinations on campus computers. And this list needs routine examination to consider either new software products or new versions of older supported software.

An aside to this topic is whether or not you want to work on student computers. My school has decided that the AT Center does not work on student computers. We simply do not have the skills to go into any brand of laptop or desktop and start making changes.

Carefully Consider Your Response
Don’t be hasty in offering your response to a request for a new accommodation. Your response should be thoughtful, clear and unambiguous. If it requires information gathering and testing, then you communicate this to the student. This is particularly true if you are trying something new. If you cannot guarantee meeting academic deadlines like the start of classes or finals, then don’t.

Steps in Evaluating a Request

determine that it is within your institutional definition of an accommodation
focus on tasks rather than “fixing” technology
if this is new technology you may ask the student to stay with your supported technology, but consider adding the application on your next AT rollout
provide a clear response including any unknowns that may effect the outcome

By now, most of us have fairly robust computer accommodations deployed across our campuses and they are used routinely and successfully by students with disabilities. Technology, however, is not a static field, it changes constantly. Those changes inevitably bring requests for new types of technological accommodations. Careful assessment and response to these requests will help your students and grow your AT program.

Next Month's Blog
Experimental vs. Applied Accommodations

Conference Calendar
Accessing Higher Ground
November 10-14, 2009

Partnerships and Leveraging Existing Services

2009-09-15T14:11:00.001-07:00

One thing I emphasize over and over in my workshops is the importance of partnerships and leveraging existing services. Last year I worked with a school that hired their campus print shop to do the bulk of their alt-text work and charged on per-book basis. This is a great example of utilizing existing services rather than going to the expense of duplicating what is already being done on campus.

This past winter I was involved in serving a student that required Braille. The student was in a short-term and time-compressed program and the advance notice and preparation had not been handled very well.

I have student transcribers working for me and they do a very good job Brailling books that have very straight forward formats. In this case, however, the texts were more like work books that presented information in multiple columns and used spatial relationships on the page to convey meaning.

We investigated having the job done start-to-finish with several Braille services. The costs were high, but that is to be expected, they’re worth it. Time, however, was another factor with which we were dealing.

We do have a LOC certified Braillist in our town and while I knew her, we had never worked together. I met with her and proposed a workflow that would get us quality Braille formatting done within our time constraints.

The workflow went like this. We would cut and scan the book. A student worker would do a basic “cleaning” of the formatting. This was to conform to what was in the original book and there was no effort to reformat for Braille. A PDF and the Word file were sent to the Braillist. The PDF was for the Braillist to use to review the original page. The Braillist would then reformat the page so that it made sense in Braille. A Duxbury Braille file was emailed to us which we embossed in our own shop.

This turned out to be the most efficient way to get quality specially-formatted Braille to our student. One leverage aspect of this is that the Braillist was only spending time on her area of expertise, she was not wasting time scanning, embossing etc. I realize larger operations have people to scan and such, but it is always more expensive to hire a job done (in this casing scanning) than to do it yourself. We also leveraged our existing scanning and converting operation to contribute what it knows how to do well. Besides offering timely delivery, it also cost us far less than contracting a service to do the whole job.

Next Month's Blog

Evaluating Uncommon Accommodation Requests

Conference Calendar

Accessing Higher Ground
November 10-14, 2009

My EASI Webinar

2009-03-03T11:15:00.000-08:00

I am very excited about my upcoming webinar for EASI. It will be four live sessions April 21, 28, May 12, 19 (By the way this was rescheduled from a March date). There will also be three asynchronous discussion sessions. This webinar is built around my recent LRP book on managing AT in higher ed. Select here to go to EASI’s announcement about this webinar.

What is most exciting to me is that it will be delivered on the web. The web is certainly one of the most important educational “venues” of the future and EASI’s Norman Coombs has literally years of experience providing educational events on the web. I think our collaboration will make for a memorable training experience. .

Webinar Focus

Those of you familiar with my work know that I emphasize AT management strategies for practitioners in higher education. Managing AT is a process and the better we understand our goals, the various tech pieces, our resources and our limitations the smoother our operations will run. And that not only benefits the student, but also the harried and overworked DS or AT coordinator.

Of course, technology is central to any workshop on AT, but there are different ways to approach technology; you can take the micro approach and discuss an application’s operational key combinations, installation quirks etc. or you can take a more macro approach and discuss types of AT and how they work in the larger university environment. Both approaches are equally valid, I just happen to take the macro view because it fits well with the management discussion.

Who Should Take This Webinar?

This training is very helpful to DS or AT coordinators who are relatively new to the field and are still gaining experience. Experienced managers who want to integrate their AT offerings into a cohesive program, but are finding it fairly challenging will also benefit from this webinar. If, on the other hand, you are trying to find out things like what the keystrokes the screen-reader JAWS needs to read footnotes, you should seek a different workshop.

A Brief Story

I was leaving a conference in Nevada last summer and the line for the airport shuttle was long and not moving. I turned to the person behind me and asked if he wanted to share a cab and he said yes. On the way to the airport he asked if I remembered him and I admitted that I did not. He told me he had taken my work shop in Pittsburgh a year or two ago and he said that the workshop helped him get a job as a DS coordinator. Well, I can’t promise such results for everyone, but if you are truly interested in successfully organizing, implementing and managing your college’s AT program then you will benefit from this webinar.

A Word About Me

I do workshops, consulting and even wrote a book, but my full-time job is as the AT coordinator for the University of Oregon. I work all the time with real students, real faculty, real campus IT people, real campus web developers etc. You get the idea, I fight the same fight you do every day. The material in my workshops comes from this distinctive and authentic environment.

2008-11-24T12:30:00.000-08:00

Carl Brown
1946 - 2008

The AT professional family has lost one of its most esteemed members. Carl Brown, Director of the High Tech Center Training Unit (HTCTU), died November 21, 2008 in Northern California. One simply cannot overstate Carl’s importance to the field of assistive technology, especially in higher education. He steadfastly championed this cause for over 30 years.

I had the very good fortune of participating in his training program in the early 90s. Carl and his staff at the time, Wayne Chenoweth and Marcia Norris, produced trainings that remain the standard by which others are judged to this day.

Carl Brown had the greatest vision and the most resolute determination of anyone I have ever known in the AT field. For many it will be hard to understand this loss because Carl promoted ideas, programs and philosophies rather than himself. But make no mistake; absolutely no one has had greater influence on shaping and defining AT in higher education than Carl Brown.

One trick I quickly learned during those training days was that if you brought your lunch back to the HTCTU, the chances were good that you would end up having lunch with Carl and whoever else was around in the conference room. I have fond memories of those lunches. My very first in-depth class about the internet was done by Carl in 93 or 94. Not only was he enthusiastic about the internet in its then rather primitive state, but it was clear he could see the future and the great possibilities the internet held. Also in those days I “toured” the De Anza College campus in a virtual reality that Carl built. It was a completely text and command line environment, but you could enter rooms, explore objects and even travel across the campus. As I said, he was man of vision.

It has been years since I have spoken with Carl, but his influence remains in much of my daily work. This is truly a very sad loss. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family.

Emerging and Diverging Competencies in College AT Support

2008-11-17T14:57:00.000-08:00

I recently attended the International Dyslexia Association (IDA) national conference and it has me thinking about how supporting Assistive Technology in colleges and universities is diverging into two separate and distinct competencies. On the one hand, is the technical support aspect to AT, and on the other there is an emerging end-user support competency. The reason the IDA conference got me thinking about this is the way they discussed students utilizing AT. There was very little “technical” talk of keystrokes, networking problems, roaming profiles etc at the presentations. There was talk about assessing students, selecting appropriate tools and strategies, evaluating outcomes etc. While technology is an important tool to these professionals, the focus remained on the student.

The technical support competency essentially makes sure that the computers work and the AT is functioning as it should. The newer emerging end-user competency ensures that the user is getting the maximum benefit of the technology and in the world of AT this is a critical piece of support. These competencies are not unique to AT, but it is the AT aspect that is the subject of this brief article.

The Technical Support Competency

The AT tech-support competencies includes basic skill sets such as: understanding computer security, networking protocols, configuring and maintaining of desktop computers and basic web interactions. Additionally, the AT tech-support provider needs to understand resolving software conflicts, innovative uses of system level devices and their special application to AT. They also need a basic understanding of the alternative methods students with disabilities use when computing.

But in the end, the AT technical support competency is about providing a smooth-running, efficient and trouble-free computer. It has little to do with the end-user.

The End-user Support Competency

The end-user support competencies are skills related to the successful use of the recommended applications. Training computer users has grown into its own area of expertise. It is an even more critical task when the computer users have disabilities. While training students with physical disabilities requires special skills, it is students with learning disabilities that I want to focus on here.

Students with learning disabilities, obviously, may require alternative learning methods and learning to use the computer is no exception. An AT provider expected to get students with learning disabilities fluent with computers, must have some expertise in this specialized training area. And remember, we are not (necessarily) talking about using word processors or spreadsheets, but specialized programs to help the student compensate for a reading or other cognitive deficit.
Most AT support staff will probably tell you that their job is a blend of these two skill sets. I have been doing this for over fifteen years and that is what I would say. The depth of knowledge in each skill set is increasing to the point that it is becoming difficult for one person to do both well. In my own case, a few years back I began shifting basic tech-support to a systems group and I received formal and informal training in teaching technology integration to students.

How This May Affect Your Staffing

If you have an AT specialist on staff, then establish whether their strengths are technical support or end-user support. If your employee has good technical skills, then you might consider enhancing your end-user support. Most colleges have a department supporting academically struggling students and they can make a great partner in this endeavor. Their specialty is the student. They may even find some of your technology of interest for the students that they are serving.

If your AT specialist leans toward end-user support (this can be the case when a college hires a former student with a disability to work in the AT lab), then you might want to strengthen basic technical support. You usually find such support from your college IT department. Support can also be available from a smaller group, sometimes referred to as “systems support.” For example, such a group might manage computers in the library.

If you have no AT specialist, but are contemplating hiring one, then decide which competency set you need most and let that direct your job description. The important thing is that, in the very near future, blending these skill sets into one job may not be in the best interest of your students.

The Take Away

Know that there are two emerging and separate skill sets necessary to deliver high quality AT support in colleges and universities. By virtue of history, the technical side is more established, but now many experts recognize the importance of specialized support for maximizing the end-user’s benefit of the technology.

The technical set-up and maintenance of academic computing facilities is increasingly being taken over by various systems groups on college campuses. This frees DS to hire a technologist who’s expertise and training focuses on end-user success. And this is extremely important in promoting the academic success of students with learning disabilities.

Stay Focused!

2008-11-13T14:28:00.000-08:00

This short article reminds us all to keep our eyes on the ball.

This term my e-text production service started converting a lot of PDF files into various forms of alternative-text. Things were going well and then we hit a few files that “choked” our ocr software OmniPage Pro. Opening the PDF in it’s native environment, Adobe Acrobat Pro, and stripping out some “document information” initially solved the problem. (Don’t ask me why…)

Finally a file came for which this solution did not work. It became a real technical challenge to “fix” this PDF. My staff and I searched the internet for similar problems and (hopefully) a solution. We tore apart the file in Acrobat Pro searching for its “fatal flaw.” I wouldn’t say we were obsessed, but we were pretty dedicated to solving this problem.

Then it hit me.

Actually a student worker provided the clarity with these words, “Why don’t we print it and scan it?” In that moment I realized that we (I) had lost site of getting usable text to the student and had jumped down some technological rabbit hole. Printing and scanning solved the problem in just a few minutes. Granted, you don’t want to do this with all your PDF files, but if you get one that defies cooperating with your other technology, just print it. I know that there are PDFs that will not print by design, but that is a topic for some future article.

The moral of this story is to stay focused on your original goal. In this case, getting clean usable text to a student with a print related disability. Technology has a seductive way of taking your attention from your task and redirecting it onto the process itself. You’ve been warned!

Utilizing Student Workers for AT Services

2008-10-06T13:26:00.000-07:00

If you already utilize student workers in you AT delivery, then you can skip this article. But if you feel perpetually understaffed and shorthanded in the AT department this article may be able to help.

Many of the DS coordinators I work with have nothing but good things to say about student workers. Most say that they could not adequately deliver services if it were not for the student labor pool. Here are some of the ways my AT program makes use of student workers.

Computerized Based Notetaking (CBN)

Students with certain types of LD issues benefit from seeing notes in real time with the lecture. It is a text supplement delivered as the lecture is delivered. The notes are transmitted between two wirelessly linked laptops. The notetakers are students who are paid an hourly wage for their services. Obviously a college is a great place to find good notetakers.

Alt-Text

Providing alt-text on many campuses has grown into a small industry. And it is an industry that could not survive without student workers. In my program students handle book cutting and scanning. They manage the automated processes used for students with LD related reading issues. The do the precision editing and conversion required by our blind students. Student workers are the “face” of our alt-text program. Once students using these services get appropriate assessment and any necessary training they work directly with the student workers to obtain their alt-texts.

Basic AT Lab Management

I have worked with many DS coordinators who use technically savvy student workers to provide routine computer maintenance in their AT lab and to offer students basic technical support.

Take Advantage of Some Basic Characteristics of Student Workers

I have hired and managed dozens of student workers for my AT program over the last ten years. Most students want to work 8 to 12 hours per week during the academic term. I take advantage of this by giving the students only two to three related tasks to do. (I.E. cutting, scanning and automatic file creation.) This simplifies training and make it easy to isolate production breakdowns if or when they occur. Students, like most people, are drawn to meaningful and satisfying work. Supporting students with disabilities really qualifies for this. I always point out that no matter what career path they may ultimately take, serving students with disabilities will be a plus on their résumé.

Create a Congenial Work Environment

Over 95% of the students I have lost, I lost to graduation. Rather than adhering to an absolutely strict schedule, make objectives within the job the priority. If your students are getting good and usable alt-text files reliably, does it matter if the student workers adhered to a strict work schedule? Allow for down time. Some weeks no one needs books or journal articles converted. Pay your workers “to be available” it is a wise investment.

A Little Upfront Effort on Your Part Will Pay Handsome Dividends

Do a small departmental self-study and determine where you need help. Separate out the work the requires professional skills and then check what of the left over jobs could be handled by students.

Break the work up into jobs involving two or three tasks. Not only does this make training easier, it also makes for a very productive work flow.

Write clear job descriptions. These are not long or super detailed. List attributes you think the successful worker in this job will possess.

Either create or use your school’s existing job application. Post the job via your school’s “job board” and then review applications and interview applicants.

I realize this sounds like considerable work, but you can mange it by reserving a certain time each week for the process. Once your student workers are in place you will be surprised at how they lighten your schedule.

Flier for My Managing AT Book

Managing the Assistive Technology Process

Remembering Dick Banks

2008-07-10T07:23:00.000-07:00

The AT community has lost a treasure. Dick Banks passed away on July 8, 2008.

I wish I could write that I was Dick’s close personal friend, because I felt that way. But I have a suspicion that anyone who interacted with Dick more than a few times felt like his close personal friend. That is just how Dick treated people.

Dick was a highly regarded leader in the AT field when I started over fifteen years ago. And he remained so right through to the end. I am convinced that there are thousands and thousands of students who are much better served today because of his work. And he approached his work with passion and dedication.

Dick was a sweet and gentle man. He had a huge influence on the development of assistive technology. I am afraid we will never replace him and I know we will never forget him. As I write these closing words, I can hear Dick’s distinctive laugh. It is a memory I will always cherish.

God bless Dick and his family in this time of loss.

Faculty Development and Document Accessibility

2008-06-10T13:36:00.000-07:00

I recently presented at a faculty development workshop at DePauw University. It was dynamic and full of positive energy. I want to thank Diane Hightower, Dean of Student Academic Support, and Allison Cath, Director of Academic Support Programs for presenting such an energetic workshop. The other presenters were Heather Stout and Sally Coffman from Purdue University.

Reconsidering Our Approach to Faculty

I believe the nature of AT in higher education is rapidly evolving and this invitation made me reflect on how we communicate this to faculty. In the past, such presentations focused on an isolated student with a disability and how an instructor might have to make adjustments or accommodations in the class for the student. However accurate this perspective may have once been, it does not reflect the new classroom landscape.

Our advantage now is that much of what helps a student with a disability also very favorably impacts all students. That is how to frame these presentations; focus beyond what is accessible and emphasize how these techniques benefit all students. For example, a text based PDF is the bare minimum for a student with a disability, but it is also much richer and more useful educational material for all students by being a searchable document. I will get back to PDF in a bit.

Demonstrating Kurzweil 3000

You can make a pretty entertaining workshop around Kurzweil 3000 (K 3000) or similar products. Remind the audience what word processors did for writing and then explain that this technology is a “reading processor.”

First and foremost let the instructors know that this is a “play” session and they are not expected to learn how to use K 3000. They should just relax and play with voices, create notes, try to “break” the dictionary and highlight text. Along the way the participants can try reading by highlight and saving highlights out to an outline.

These features have been on K 3000 and similar products for several years and I do not mean to imply that they are new and innovative. My goal was to get the faculty intrigued and engaged in the possibilities and for them to understand what a useful tool this is for students.

By the end of the workshop they were making mp3 files, creating voice notes and easily interacting with various aspects of the program.

Creating Accessible PDF Files

Once the faculty saw how alternative documents could really help a struggling student, it was time to discuss what they can do to help.

I started off with PDF files “copies”, that is, PDFs of journal articles etc. I showed two truly hideous examples from an actual course packet. One had a shadow across about a third of one of the pages. The other had a similar shadow, but also had underlining and margin notes in handwriting. I pointed out that these were not readable by machines or people! I think they got the idea that “clean’ originals were an essential starting place. I did not stop there. We talked about the effectiveness of educational materials. Here the point was made about a searchable text-based PDF being far more useful to all students over a picture-only version. It is important to leverage the fact that these instructors use PDF files in their own work and they know that a searchable version is a much more useful and more versatile document. I pointed out that if they were using Acrobat Pro to create PDF files it could convert them to text-based files quite easily.

We moved from PDF “copies” to PDF “originals.” These are files created in a word processor and then made into PDF. By making small changes in how you create these documents you can make them more structured and navigable. MS Word is the word processor that integrates well with PDF production. The participants learned that by using Headers Style rather than simply bolding a word (that is a header) makes the document more readable for students using computer reading aids. They found it was easier to use the column formatter in Word rather than fuss with multiple tab and enter keys to create columns. And this preserves the correct reading order in the PDF. The participants got tips on how to make tables more readable and how to create brief text descriptions of images. It is interesting how many faculty are inserting the image of their textbook cover (no doubt thanks to amazon.com) into the syllabus.

The participants were surprised to learn that creating a structured and readable PDF took only slightly longer than their old, and far less accessible, methods.

Creating Accessible PowerPoints

This gets a little tougher. Accessibility has never been a strength of PowerPoint presentations. It is usually presented in real time as a backdrop to a lecture. The handouts are also notoriously either inaccessible or incomplete. Nevertheless, steps can be taken to not only make PowerPoint more accessible, but also a freestanding and accessible study aid or review tool.

Before I get any further, I want to thank Greg Kraus from LecShare, Inc. He worked very hard to support this presentation and contributed to its success. LecShare Pro is a great tool for making PowerPoint presentations more accessible and packaging them for future use. LecShare is a great product and I predict it is going to be an indispensable tool for most colleges. By the way, I own no stock in the company nor do I benefit in anyway from the program’s success.

We spent time on the basics of accessible and solid presentation creation. Choosing a good (san serif) font and a reading-enhancing color combination was the start. We discussed animations and slide transitions and that they should only be used to clarify or advance the presentation. The group learned to add text descriptions to images and graphics.

LecShare include tools to clean-up alt-texts and change slide titles. While LecShare exports to four different file types, the html export is probably the most accessible. Each slide is its own web page with “next” or “previous” links for easy navigation. Another link makes the slide text only.

LecShare also creates a very nice replay package in the form of a movie file. The instructor can read text from the notes page of the presentation onto an audio track. The text of the notes page then becomes captions that appear with the slide. Such a “package” could be posted to Blackboard or Moodle as excellent content review material and again, this works for all students.

I don’t want this to get too technical, suffice it to say that the faculty participating in this workshop learned some fairly easy ways to make accessible PDF and PowerPoint files. A final point that was made was if this work seemed burdensome, the faculty should strongly encourage their department to hire a student worker who could make these changes on the files before they are made available to the students.

The big point here is that accessible electronic documents or presentations are more useful for all students than their inaccessible counterparts.

When putting together a faculty development workshop on accessible materials, seize the momentum that already exists. Faculty already know from personal experience that some files are more useful to their work than others and you should play to this awareness.

Faculty will continue to make increasing amounts of instructional materials and the more they embrace universally accessible materials, the easier your job will be.

Flier for My New Book!

Managing the Assistive Technology Process

Conference Calendar

AHEAD - “Multiple Intersections” the 31st Annual Conference
July 14 - 19, 2008 ~ Reno, NV, USA

http://ahead.org/training/conference/2008/index.php

Alt-text and Its Disparate Consumers

2008-05-13T07:42:00.000-07:00

Frequently, and I am guilty of this too, alt-text is referred to as a single thing. We are learning to be a little more careful about this with the proliferation of commercial E-books. E-books, we are finding out, are not all that accessible for people with print disabilities.

Even in the world of providing alt-text to college students with print disabilities there are very different needs. Ignoring these differences can lead to wasted time, money and effort. Even worse, it may be short changing the student. When contemplating your alt-text services, define it in student terms.

At my school there a generally two types of students getting alt-text services and both have valid print access disabilities. One group has learning disabilities and the other group has vision issues. The fact is, these two groups get very different alt-text “products.” I’d like to share our system with you and I invite your comments.

Alt-text for Students with Learning Disabilities
The basic reading issue for college students with learning disabilities is comprehension of long chunks of text and not basic reading remediation where the student struggles with identifying single words.
These students typically have full visual access to their books. While some follow highlighted text on the computer screen, others read along in the original text. These students typically use Kurzweil, WYNN, text, pdf, or mp3 files.

Our student orientation includes demonstrating a range of tools from lab-based Kurzweil to Natural Reader that can be used on their own computers. The student decides which is the appropriate tool.

The files we make for these students are unedited and the process is fairly automated. Students are either looking at a picture of the text or following along with the original text. They know that there may be an occasional discrepancy between the audio and the print, but this has never caused a problem for our students.

For students with learning disabilities we convert whole books only. The students are expected to convert short runs or articles themselves on equipment provided in our labs. This promotes independence and usually students can convert their own short runs faster than going through the bureaucracy to have us do it.

Alt-text for Students with Vision Issues
The needs of a student whose print disability is vision related is different from the student with a learning disability. Our students who do not have visual access to the original material get a different set of services.

The first thing we do is assign a dedicated editor to each student receiving services. This gives the student flexible and responsive management of their alt-text production. That is, a student can instruct his/her editor to cancel chapter four and do chapter six instead based on class assignment changes.

Some of our students have developed distinctive and unique preferences for table and chart descriptions. They can convey this to their editors and get more meaningful conversions. Some may say such custom work could become a disadvantage later on and that is a possibility we remind our students of.

As to file type, that is up to each student. Word processing “doc” files and Braille embossing remain the bulk of our production for this population. We are, however, prepared to offer other file types when requested.

Be Student Driven
We try to look beyond technology and stay focused on student academic success. For students with learning disabilities a small program adjustment may encourage adoption. Recently, we have started demonstrating small, free or low cost alternative readers that students can load onto their own computers. These programs lack many of the features of their expensive counterparts, but for some students the portability and independence is just what they need to adopt this form of support. For our students with vision disabilities, managing their own work flow seems to be most helpful. They get to know their editor and know that they set the priorities for their alt-text production.

508 Web Compliance and Higher Education

2008-05-05T13:57:00.000-07:00

A report has been published about college Web sites and their 508 compliance. The results are not good. 100 colleges were randomly selected with the condition that each state be represented by 2 schools.

Here are some highlights:

88% had broken or no “skipnav” links

83% of those page containing form elements had a missing or incorrectly associated form label

71% contained at least one image with a missing or inappropriate alt attribute

This is truly not good! One, these elements are the best known accessibility fixes. If these were ignored, I just assume the subtler elements were never even considered. Two, the 508 standards have been around for seven years! What does it say if we cannot adopt a set of accessibility standards in seven years.

What does this mean to a DS coordinator?

I maintain that the DS office cannot get involved with campus Web accessibility at the coding or programming level, but DS is a stakeholder in this issue and must actively promote and support the accessibility of their school Web sites.

A DS coordinator must get some sense of the general accessibility of the school’s Web site and go from there. Many schools are adopting style guidelines for their pages and that is an excellent opportunity to have accessibility policies included.

This is extremely important to students with disabilities. Colleges are transmitting so much important student information over the Web that to ignore this invites trouble.

Read the summary of the report
It was conducted by GOALS which is a project of National Center on Disability & Access to Education . WebAIM is a partner in this effort and mentions this report in their blog . WebAIM, by the way, maintains a great website regarding accessible web design. I highly recommend it.

2008-02-20T12:36:00.000-08:00

1.08

Welcome

Welcome to my blog! The fact that blogs are great ways to transmit, discuss and exchange information is old news. That being the case I think it is about time for me to host one about managing AT in higher education. I hope to post 2 to 3 times per month at somewhat regular intervals. The topics will be about current issues in providing AT in higher education and will hopefully stimulate discussion (a pretty important aspect of a blog).

Mardi Gras and AHEAD

AHEAD held it Management Institutes in New Orleans right around the start of February and the Managing AT A to Z was a delight! We had a good group with lots of questions and comments.

I completely updated the web and distance ed modules into a new module called AT 2.0. I hope to expand and elaborate on this topic for AHEAD’s national conference this summer in Reno

Conference Calendar

CSUN - Technology & Persons with Disabilities Conference
March 10-15, 2008 ~ Los Angeles, CA

http://www.csun.edu/cod/conf/

Managing Assistive Technology in Higher Education

Will that be paper or PDF?

A Work Flow for Faculty

Planning Enterprise Level Web Accessibility

AT and the Evolving DS Service Model

What We Can Learn from AT

Experimental or Applied Accommodations?

Uncommon Tech Accommodation Requests

Steps in Evaluating a Request

Next Month's BlogExperimental vs. Applied Accommodations

Conference CalendarAccessing Higher GroundNovember 10-14, 2009

Partnerships and Leveraging Existing Services

Next Month's Blog

Conference Calendar

My EASI Webinar

Webinar Focus

Who Should Take This Webinar?

A Brief Story

A Word About Me

Emerging and Diverging Competencies in College AT Support

Stay Focused!

Utilizing Student Workers for AT Services

Computerized Based Notetaking (CBN)

Alt-Text

Basic AT Lab Management

Take Advantage of Some Basic Characteristics of Student Workers

Create a Congenial Work Environment

A Little Upfront Effort on Your Part Will Pay Handsome Dividends

Flier for My Managing AT Book

Remembering Dick Banks

Faculty Development and Document Accessibility

Reconsidering Our Approach to Faculty

Demonstrating Kurzweil 3000

Creating Accessible PDF Files

Creating Accessible PowerPoints

Flier for My New Book!

Conference Calendar

Alt-text and Its Disparate Consumers

508 Web Compliance and Higher Education

Next Month's Blog
Experimental vs. Applied Accommodations

Conference Calendar
Accessing Higher Ground
November 10-14, 2009