Distance Education and
Accessibility
California Community Colleges
DE Webinar
Scott Valverde
December 10, 2012
Access in Action
 Curriculum based on Universal Design
principles benefits all learners!
 We are here to help you…
 Navigate our complex system
 Understand the myriad of resources
available to you
 Understand all your responsibilities
Legal Issues
 DE courses are required by law to be accessible to
students with disabilities
 Federal Law
 Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act
 ADA as amended
 California state law
 Title 5
Office for Civil Rights
 Joint “Dear Colleague” Letter
 http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/coll
eague-20100629.html
 “Requiring use of an emerging technology in a
classroom environment when the technology is
inaccessible…is discrimination…”
Systemwide Responsibility
 Jack Scott’s letter to the colleges
 “[The] requirement to provide the reasonable
accommodations and services…is an institutional
obligation, regardless of adequate state funding for
DSPS”
Got standards?
 Standards for access are available!
 Section 508
 Purchasing technology
 Software and hardware
 Videos/multimedia
 Web accessibility
 World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
 WCAG 2.0
 http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/
What Access Means
 Video content is captioned.
 Synchronized captions for A/V
 Transcripts for sound-only presentations
 Documents (Word, PDF, PowerPoint) are
accessible.
 Text-based, structured files
 CMS/LMS being used is accessible.
 Conforms to ADA/Section 508 standards
 Note: Chat is notoriously inaccessible!
Trainings and Tools
• HTCTU resources (free!)
• www.htctu.net
• Trainings on-site and offsite—legal and technical
• Information and key documents
• Free Website assessment tool
•
HiSoftware Compliance Sherriff
• Distance Education Guidelines
• www.htctu.net/dlguidelines/dlg_index.html
• @ONE accessibility training
• www.onefortraining.org
Other Money-saving Resources
• EduStream (free!)
• www.edustream.org
• Repository of captioned video
• Educational broadcast channel
 Distance Education Captioning and Transcription
(DECT)
• Funding for video captioning
• Online and hybrid courses
….and coming soon…..
• “Sidekick” collaborative
• One-stop to find resources
• SensusAccess project
• Creating accessible documents
• Will include PDF and MP3
• SharePoint accessibility services
• Technical and informational webinars
Contact Information
Scott Valverde, DSPS Specialist
(916) 445-5809 or svalverde@cccco.edu
Or
Gaeir Dietrich, HTCTU Director
(408) 996-6047 or gdietrich@htctu.net
DSPS Website Address:
http://extranet.cccco.edu/Divisions/StudentServices/DSPS.aspx