IT Accessibility Checklist Help

Checklist Item: We have a system in place for monitoring and improving the accessibility of our web content.

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Educational entities typically have hundreds, thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of web pages. Addressing the accessibility of such a vast quantity of web pages will likely require a systematic approach. A system for monitoring and improving the accessibility of web content might include the following components:

Assign a specific individual or group the task of coordinating the web accessibility effort.
Conduct benchmark web accessibility assessments at regular intervals to track progress.
Pursue developing a high-level web accessibility policy or publishing web accessibility guidelines, in order to formalize your efforts and get buy-in from your institution's administration.
Prioritize. Decide which pages are most critical, and address those first. For example, an institution might decide that first priority is course content for courses in which students with disabilities are currently enrolled, second priority is sites with the highest traffic, and third priority is pages specifically relevant to students with disabilities (i.e., pages describing available disability accommodation services).

Several commercial products are available that provide users with the ability to automatically evaluate web sites for accessibility. Some of these products were designed to evaluate large quantities of web sites by following links (spidering) from a single starting page, such as the institution's home page. There are limits to what any tool can automatically assess (some web accessibility techniques require human judgment). However, tools like this can be effective for conducting benchmark assessments and tracking progress. High-end versions of these products have built-in functionality that was specifically designed to assist with implementing an enterprise-wide systematic accessibility improvement process.

The following AccessIT Knowledge Base articles may also be of interest:

For additional information, contact your region's ADA & IT Center at 1-800-949-4232.