July 16, 2025 • 47 mins
Updates to Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act regulations require public colleges to increase their efforts to ensure that digital content meets accessibility standards. In this episode, Sean Moriarty joins us to discuss strategies to foster a culture of access across an institution. Sean is the Chief Technology Officer at SUNY Oswego. Sean and Rebecca have worked collaboratively on digital accessibility initiatives at SUNY Oswego since 2017
A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.
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(00:00):
Updates to Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act regulations require public
colleges to increase their efforts to ensure that digital content meets accessibility standards. In
this episode, we discuss strategies to foster a culture of access across an institution.``
(00:23):
Thanks for joining us for Tea for Teaching, an informal discussion of
innovative and effective practices in teaching and learning.
This podcast series is hosted by John Kane, an economist...
...and Rebecca Mushtare, a graphic designer......and features guests doing important research
and advocacy work to make higher education more inclusive and supportive of all learners.
(00:54):
Our guest today is Sean Moriarty. Sean is the Chief Technology Officer at SUNY Oswego. In
this role, Sean provides leadership for the continued development of a client-centered,
agile, robust, accessible, and secure digital campus environment that advances
the university's strategic goals. Sean and Rebecca have worked collaboratively
on digital accessibility initiatives at SUNY Oswego since 2017. Welcome back, Sean.
(01:20):
Well, thanks a lot. It's good to be back with you two.
Today's teas are:... Sean, are you drinking any tea today?
I am. I am having an Irish Breakfast tea.I almost drank that knowing that you were probably
drinking that. Yes.
And I am drinking a pure peppermint tea today.And no fear, I've got English breakfast.
(01:41):
Got the British Isles represented.So in January of 2019, we had you on to
talk about SUNY Oswego’s work to build a culture of accessibility. And five years later, in January
of 2024, members of SUNY Oswego’s workgroup on accessibility practices joined us to talk about
one of our initiatives, the 10-day accessibility challenge. And several weeks ago, we had Mark
(02:07):
Greenfield on the podcast to talk about the recent updates to Title II of the American with
Disabilities Act (or ADA). Today, we're planning to follow up on those earlier conversations and
talk about some of the practical steps that SUNY Oswego is taking to address Title II. Meeting the
requirements of Title II can seem pretty daunting if a campus hasn't been actively engaged in
(02:30):
digital accessibility practices. So where does a campus start, what were the first steps that SUNY
Oswego took to address digital accessibility?So first of all, thanks for inviting me back
again. It's always good to talk to you two. You mentioned that I was on in 2019 which does seem
like a lifetime ago when you think of it being six years ago, but also the pandemic happened
(02:56):
in between, and this really brought, I think, a whole new vision and awareness around digital
accessibility and the role that it had in terms of helping students to navigate the teaching and
learning that we went through during that period of time. And I think the work that
(03:17):
we've done beforehand really paid off during the pandemic, and I think the work that we
continue to do really helps with students. But if we go back to your question like, where do
you start with something like this? The way that we have approached it here at Oswego is that the
responsibility for creating accessible content falls to the people making accessible content.
(03:45):
When we first had our OCR complaint, in 2017 that was, we saw just really how deep the hole was in
terms of the content that we were creating and the requirements to go in to make it all accessible.
So I think the way that we've gone and really done it is to focus on educating people on how to
(04:05):
create accessible content and making them aware of their responsibility in terms of doing it,
and trying to simplify the process as much as we can for everyone as we went forward.
I think one of the key things that we focused on was building a coalition of folks who
(04:25):
wanted to build the momentum around digital accessibility. So prior to the OCR complaint,
there was through our Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, we had a work group on
accessibility practices that had representation of constituents across campus that has greatly
grown over time. And so now there's representation from many units and now faculty, et cetera, that
(04:49):
does a lot of the professional development on our campus around digital accessibility. But
around the OCR complaint, Sean also formulated the digital accessibility steering committee,
and now those two groups are connected. When we first had the OCR complaint,
we really focused on the website in particular and having it reach standards. And I'll just
(05:12):
say we were one of 31 SUNY schools out of the 32 that had complaints against it. So everyone was
going through the same thing at the same time, but once we went and got the website up to standard,
we realized that it's an ongoing task in terms of going and keeping it that way. So really,
(05:35):
we got the group together, that started with our web services team and also included Accessibility
Services. And Rebecca was a partner, certainly, in all this work, and Rebecca has a unique skill set
in the sense that she teaches graphic design and teaches web services, but she also happened to be
working with you at the time, John, right in our Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching.
(06:00):
So it really helped that we could go and integrate these teams together and to bring the work that we
were trying to do and expand the scope as we went forward. Another important component, I think, of
it, was how we went and integrated faculty inside what we were trying to do. And started with our
(06:20):
first accessibility fellows… in 2019 I think that was. And our goal was really just to have someone
from each of the different colleges to be a part of the team and kind of look at accessibility,
particularly in their discipline, learn about how to use it, and then act as an advocate
(06:41):
inside their area of expertise. But actually the first year, we had seven people step forward,
and that was a good investment, I think, in terms of going and working with those
people. The next year was 2020, and we had four people. And when the pandemic hit, by that point,
really, we had 11 people who had gone through accessibility training and were really ready to
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step in and really acted as advocates and helped all the people inside their departments to go and
to navigate what lay ahead as we went through the pandemic and our shift to online learning
as it was for months and months to come.I think if we were to talk about what we'd
recommend for other campuses to do to start, it's really to start with the coalition of the willing,
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or the folks that are most likely to advocate for digital accessibility,
or might be in adjacent spaces focused on equity issues, for example, and to find representation
across campus. So we have folks from the library, instructional designers, the teaching center,
faculty. We have folks in Disability Services, folks in our student affairs unit as well,
(07:54):
that are doing a wide variety of work and can act as a liaison in all those different areas
to transform the practices of folks on campus. And I think that strategy has served us well.
Yes, for sure. And I think also, as we get more people involved, more people look and see other
areas that we should involve as we move forward. And I know Rebecca has done a lot of work,
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and the people in the work group in areas such as orientation and how we bring students in.
We also have the person who runs Slate on our campus, which is our enrollment application,
that we go and interact with students as they apply to college,
and then get information back and forth. But he was a graphic design graduate of our school,
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and was a student of Rebecca's at one point, and he's been able to go in to implement all
of the same principles and really go to bring this kind of technology and
this way of thinking to the way that we work on campus, and bring students in.
Just to clarify one thing… earlier, you mentioned an OCR complaint,
(09:08):
and just to make sure everyone is on the same page with us, by OCR, you are referring to…
Yeah.…the Office of Civil Rights.
That's correct, John, yep.…and then the Department of Education.
Yes, and actually, and just to go back to that, in 2017, over 2000 universities had OCR complaints
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against them, particularly around the website, and a number of them were in SUNY as well.
So, now, as we're coming up to the April 2026, or ‘27 for small communities, compliance deadline,
what are some of the concrete steps that are being taken to ensure that all digital content,
web content, and digital apps, including those created by faculty, staff and students, will
(09:51):
meet the WCAG 2.1 AA standards by that time.So one of our strategies is actually to use the
current WCAG standards, which are actually WCAG 2.2 double A in part because they include some
important guidelines around mobile technology. So we're always gonna adopt the most current
(10:13):
WCAG standards, so that we're always ahead of things, rather than adopting an older,
outdated set of guidelines. And so we have a Title II plan that we've worked on collaboratively that
has essentially four components. The first is raising awareness and making sure folks
know what we mean by digital accessibility, so defining that, and then also what Title II is,
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developing a professional development strategy, which we can talk about,
and implementing policy and procedures, especially around procurement, and then finally,
making sure that we have an assessment strategy and have a way for folks to evaluate their own
progress and know where they stand, so using accessibility checkers and things like that.
(10:56):
So you mentioned these four steps. Could you elaborate on this a little bit?
So we've really tried to think of it in these four steps. The first one is raising awareness.
And we've really been focusing, and actually, the way that Rebecca and I have got the plan here,
and the steering committee of the plan it’s like a component for each season, although we will
continue on with many components as these seasons progress. So awareness, we've spent a lot of time
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this past semester and during spring of 2025 focusing on awareness, making people understand
what Title II is. We call it digital accessibility in our campus because we've really focused on
having the digital campus as a core component of the way that we deliver education here at Oswego.
(11:44):
The second component, that we'll work on over the summer, is preparing policy and procedures,
procurement is going to be a large component, I think, as we move forward, and I know we'll talk
more about that later. But we want to go and focus and make sure that we're ready to move forward
once we hit September again. Then we're also preparing training and being aware of how we're
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going to go and develop people as we move forward once we hit the ground in the fall when school
returns. And then there's the assessment feedback, and I know Rebecca just touched on the point,
we want to be able to give people feedback so that they understand, if they're creating accessible
content, how to make it better, and whether it's inside Word, inside the Brightspace environment,
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or the digital learning environment, or whether it's on the web, people should be getting
feedback and understanding if they've created and posted accessible digital content for others.
One of the strategies that we're using for professional development, which might be of
particular use for this audience, is organizing around content types, so everyone on campus is a
(12:58):
content creator of some sort, whether you're creating emails or documents, presentations,
et cetera. And so the professional development that we're doing is largely around these kind
of content types that might have slightly different skill sets necessary to make those
types of content. So we have email, documents, slide decks, multimedia, charts and tables,
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forms, social media, kind of page layout and design, folks that are using the learning
management system, and how to navigate that and make sure things in that system are accessible.
And then folks that are editing content on the front end of the website, as well
as those that are doing more of programming or development on web or software applications.
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Well, I think what's interesting too is that the way that people create content really
isn't necessarily role based in terms of what we're doing. One item that we really haven't
mentioned up to this point around Title II is how it affects students and how students will
be required to create accessible content as well. We've really thought of this in a couple of ways.
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There's what happens inside the classroom, and faculty can be responsible for that,
but there's also the clubs and how they have students interact with one another,
and the social media, different technologies that they integrate too. So as we have this
content type of training, if you're doing social media, you could be in marketing communications,
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or you could be running the fencing club at school, and you're going to need to have this
kind of training and awareness to go and to be responsible. So the training will be good
for both of those groups of people, and it really cuts across where you are in the organization.
Remediating materials created by an entire institution would seem to be pretty much an
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impossible task, requiring a tremendous staff, unless perhaps individuals are charged with
that responsibility. So what ongoing professional development and training opportunities are being
provided to faculty and staff to create accessible content effectively, beyond that initial awareness
and beyond those initial departments that were reached by the accessibility fellows.
(15:15):
You're right. I think, in that remediation, the quantity of work makes it impossible, which is
why we took the attitude about six years ago, that we're going to go on a step-forward basis,
and this is where we're at and we're going to start creating as much accessible content
as we can. And we really started by investing in training for our staff and our trainers. If
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I go back to 2018 and ‘19, and that would have meant sending people out to the WebAIM training
out in Utah, which was a great investment, I think, for our staff and for their awareness,
and they were able to go and to bring that kind of training back and start our own programs.
But then we started a series of other kinds of trainings, which would include our CELT breakouts
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for our Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, where we would go and focus
on different accessibility items. We already talked about the Faculty Fellows in terms of
going and helping them with their training. And we have created a lot of on-demand training,
whether it be on our accessibility website, and utilization of Deque.
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So, Deque is Deque University, which is an online training platform. You can get subscriptions too.
So the SUNY system has a subscription to Deque University, and that provides really
great opportunities to learn about specific software. So if you wanted to learn digital
accessibility skills in the Microsoft suite, the Google Suite, or web platforms, etc, so everyone
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has access to that on our campus. We've also developed a Brightspace course called Access:
a Quest Toward Inclusion, that we're rolling out on our campus. We've done a couple pilots,
and that's fully rolled out as we speak right now in the summer. And in that course, not only do we
have some technical skills, but also conceptual ideas around how digital accessibility fits into
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ideas of inclusive pedagogy, diversity, equity, and inclusion, student success, et cetera, so that
it helps connect those pieces and how digital accessibility also dovetails with UDL and some
of these other strategies. That course is built upon an earlier experiment that we had on our
campus called the 10-day accessibility challenge, which we rolled out in January of 2021 to support
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faculty as they were teaching online during COVID, and that we have a whole podcast on.
We'll include a link to the earlier podcast discussions of that program and
of other related topics. How many faculty fellows have been through training?
At this point, we've had 24 faculty who have gone through the fellowship training.
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And you mentioned workshops, and those are generally taking place at least twice a year.
And there's probably eight to 10 workshops at least twice a year on all these topics.
Yes, and actually we focus on accessibility for a couple days in the January winter breakouts and
training sessions that you have, which would be the time where we bring in the new accessibility
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fellows, and they go through specialized training. But the training is really available
to everyone on campus. And, like I said, we really focus on that for a couple days.
So this is a pretty big task that you're discussing here. And how did you effectively
secure commitment from campus leadership to allocate those initial resources: the human,
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the financial and the time allocation for digital accessibility, especially when many on campus
might not fully understand the urgency or the scope of moving to digital accessibility.
So when I think of the commitment, I think the OCR complaint really opened people's eyes. And
it raised awareness in terms of what was required to go in to do digital accessibility properly,
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and we've really looked at it from two components: one is how it ties to our mission
in terms of student success, equity, fairness, and the second component of it is the risk and
risk mitigation in terms of how, if you're not going and doing this stuff, you might get sued.
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So I think both of those items really talk to two different components of the university. So around
financial components, they're really interested in mitigating the risk, and they can see where doing
this work will go and avoid any lawsuits that we might have. But I think from the classroom
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side and academic side, we really want to go and focus on why this ties into the mission, and how
we can go and really serve the students. There's a second component, I'll say, in terms of how we go
and secure commitment. So the leadership is one component of it, but I would also say there is
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this component on campus that really believes in it and will go and do the work required around it.
So when I think of Rebecca and her team and the instructional designers that she's worked with,
and really other people inside CTS, and then the faculty that we've dealt with, they're committed
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to going and doing it and providing a structure and a framework for them to, in essence, either
have extra service pay or to have time cut out of their schedule to go and to do it, was a wise
investment, and showed that the university really was serious in terms of what we're doing,
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and that's what we offer for the faculty fellows, in terms of the
structure around going and supporting it.I think one thing that Sean's not directly
addressing is his pivotal role in all of this, and someone in his position, and getting someone who
is a chief technology officer, a chief information officer, really on board is really integral to
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getting this work done. So we were doing a lot of ad hoc stuff in the Center for Excellence in
Learning and Teaching through our work group, which was kind of a grassroots group that was
just doing the work because we were passionate about it and thought it was important for our
community to be a part of, but when we brought the need to bring this work into the classrooms,
beyond just the website, which is what the OCR complaint was about, initially, Sean was really
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collaborative and wanted to work with us and provide resources and advocate for resources,
and so that digital accessibility steering committee that we mentioned at the top of
the show has become really integral as a space to discuss critical issues, to prioritize things that
might need to be funded or advocated for, so that the work here can get done. So, for example, we
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use Google on our campus, and the Google platform doesn't have built-in accessibility checkers. So
one of the things that the work group brought to the steering committee was the need to invest in
a checker. So we invested in grackle so that we have an accessibility checker for folks that are
using Google Docs and Google Slides, et cetera. So that platform has been really important for
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fellows and for our work group to raise issues, and then for that steering committee to make some
decisions about priorities, and then Sean's task is that to advocate for that and either fund it
through his budget or request funds elsewhere. Yeah. Well, I think when we have put forward a
budget and we have money set aside, I would think for our accessibility initiatives, it's less than
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you would think would be necessary. But I think when we think of what's required, it is this
investment in people and then in the technology to go and to make the work easy, and then it's also
in time. You wouldn't underestimate the amount of time that's needed to go and to provide for
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people to go and to get on training. When I think back to the time when we did the 10-day challenge
and thinking these things through, I mean, first of all, they were a lot of fun to go and to do,
but we also gained a lot in terms of going and moving our initiative forward as we went and
invested. So the time is an important component, but it really comes down to prioritization. When I
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think back to the last few years, IT departments… when I think of how we can go and be involved in
the diversity and the equity and the inclusion and the items that we were working on at the time…
this was really a key component, I think, and one of our major contributions to going and helping
largely around the equity that we provided to the students and really focused in on student success.
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So I think the initiatives really went hand in hand with what we were trying to accomplish.
Building in the 10-day accessibility challenge and our Access: a Quest Towards Inclusion Course,
are really helpful because they provide scaffolded and structured learning,
so that complements the on-demand resources that we also have available. So departments have
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advocated for their constituents to participate in these challenges or in the course, and that means
that they're prioritizing or allocating time to do that work, which I think is helpful.
You mentioned the issue of Google not providing the tools that are needed to
help check accessibility, there's also a lot of other software that's being used on campus from
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third parties. Can you talk a little bit about how procurement strategies might have to change
here and at other institutions in response to the need to make sure that mobile apps that
students are asked to use are accessible?Yeah, I think this is a large component,
and I would say, for us, kind of the next frontier in terms of going and figuring out
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how we're going to do it. So I think what makes it difficult is the testing that you need to
do on the software that you're looking to go and buy. And reading the VPATs and the ACRs,
which are the accessibility compliance reports that software developers are supposed to provide
you when you purchase software. So it takes a certain skill set to be able to go in to do that,
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and that skillset’s highly in demand and is difficult to go and to teach, but I think this is
an area that we'll focus on over the next year. So when I talked about policy before, it was around
developing this software acquisition policy and procedure that we’ll go and integrate and for us,
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it'll include all of the security work that we're doing, and it'll also include the accessibility
and compliance checking that we're looking to be able to provide to software end users.
One thing that we don't always think about when we're considering third parties is
third-party content that we might be getting from publishers or PDFs from library databases
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and things like that. So those are all materials that we're using for teaching and learning that
are coming from third parties that do need to be evaluated, that maybe traditionally,
we're not attending to in that way, that we really need to build into our practices. So
often we think about procurement as something that we're spending money on, but it also,
in the way that we're thinking about it means that anything that we're acquiring
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to share with others. So that may not cost money, but we still need to test it.
Yeah, it's a skill set that we'll really need to go and develop, but it really
is necessary to ensure compliance.Might this become a little bit easier,
though now as third-party platforms are threatened with the loss of sales, as all
public institutions are required to meet these accessibility requirements as we move forward?
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I certainly hope so. There's also a law in New York State that software developers need to
provide software that's compliant with what we're looking for around the accessibility. I will say,
though, that building software is kind of like steering a large ocean liner, and depending
on where people are, it can be difficult for them to go and to change where they're going.
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So I think I would certainly see this in the future, but we're not there now, for sure.
But as universities kind of band together and put the pressure on I think we will
see this change over time.And one of the nice things about
being part of a system is some of the work can be shared across institutions.
And I believe there are some efforts to do that across institutions in the SUNY system.
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Yes, I would say inside SUNY we've really worked together, and I give SUNY System Administration a
lot of credit for prioritizing this, and they have a core group of people that have really
prioritized it, and Rebecca and I have worked with those people, and they've really moved us forward
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a large amount. An example would be the Deque University training systems that are available.
But there's also other examples of where there's a lot of training that's provided by our Center for
Professional Development, and they've really taken on items such as Universal Design for Learning and
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provided many opportunities for faculty to go and to incorporate those practices inside the
classroom for themselves. I'll also add that they've started a new program this year on
accessibility advocates and allies that Rebecca is leading this year, and it's really to go in
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to take our accessibility fellowship program, and there's 11 accessibility and advocate ally fellows
this year, and they're working and seeing how they can go and further the work on their campuses to
get these core groups working together and move the needle forward around accessibility.
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Traditionally, when working with students or faculty with disabilities, much of this was
handled by campus disability offices, where the focus had been historically on providing
accommodations. We've been moving towards, and Title II is certainly going to reinforce,
a shift from providing reactive accommodations to a proactive inclusive design model. So this
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is something we've been doing for a while, but what strategies have you found to be most
effective in fostering a campus-wide culture of accessibility, especially for those who might be
somewhat new to digital accessibility.I think that depends a little bit on the
audience. So for administrators and decision makers, helping those individuals see how this
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work ties to the mission is really core and critical. When we're talking about faculty,
we can integrate that work into other things that we're talking about in teaching centers,
like inclusive pedagogy, evidence-based practices, Universal Design for Learning, all
of those things, with accessibility also support student success. And then, if we're talking about
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student affairs folks, who really focus on the students, the whole student… when we're thinking
about student success… that's also a way to tie this accessibility work into the mission
and goals of their division as well. So I think tying it to what people are already doing and
what they already care about is really critical in shifting the culture of access for sure.
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So you did mention, historically, when this work is done reactively, it all falls to like,
Disability Services or Accessibility Services, but I'll just say that those people are still
integrated into the work that we're doing, and are key parts of our coalition, I would say,
and of who we're working with to go and to focus on the student service, but we have
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spent a lot of time really going and developing this coalition and looking at the different roles
and responsibilities that each people has. And really, Rebecca and I have tried to go and develop
a model in terms of how we go and look at this work and what we're trying to do and how we move
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it forward. And we use an acronym called RAMPS, which is really a key set of tactics we have
developed to cultivate a culture of access.So RAMPS stands for request, amplify, model,
prioritize, and support. And you might wonder why RAMPS? Well, we associate ramps with kind of the
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sloping planes that you might use to access a building. You're on wheels, for example.
So it's already tied to the land of accessibility. So we were hoping that would make it a little more
memorable. And then, in addition, the word ramp can be used as a verb, meaning to speed up or
expand or increase quickly. And so we see this as a set of tactics that really can accelerate this
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culture of access. And so if we want to dig into each of the tactics in a little bit more detail,
requests specifically means requesting colleagues, peers and others to use a specific accessibility
practice, so use a microphone or captions or something like that. Amplify or amplify voices
and perspectives of people with disabilities, this can look like raising your hand in a meeting and
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asking what kinds of accessibility features might be built into a particular event or
software or other platform. Model is model best practices in your everyday work. So things like,
every time you create a document, you're running your accessibility checker,
you're using alt text and those kinds of things, so that people see that you care about it because
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you're doing it. This is particularly important for leadership to do. Prioritize, is prioritize
accessibility by allocating resources, and by resources, we mean time, funds, and personnel,
and then support… support others in their accessibility journey through coaching,
education, processes, and procedures, and so this can look like a wide variety of things,
but making sure that as people want to develop in the space of digital accessibility, you're
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helping support their technical skills, but also developing their workflows and other things where
they might face a few hiccups along the way.So could you provide some other examples of how
administrators, faculty, staff and students can employ RAMPS
tactics to help advance accessibility.Yeah, so when I think of administrators,
whether it be the presidents, provosts, vice presidents, deans, directors, and so on down the
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line, we've gone and developed a list of tactics. So, as an example, request units to review their
policies and procedures to ensure they're meeting the legal requirements, but looking around what
they're doing around accessibility and the content, amplify the why of accessibility
practices, and I think that's really an important component in terms of how it ties to the mission,
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because people often see it as more work than just putting material out, but remediating is
way more work than it is to go and do it right the first time. Model, model accessibility practices
on correspondence and particularly presentations that go out from your office. When we think of
prioritize, I think of team time for professional development and the resources that are required,
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and support that would be through appropriate budget and resources that can be provided for
these types of projects. I see the responsibility of CIOs, and what we do, and really around
prioritizing Title II initiatives by ensuring availability of accessibility tools, ensuring
that there's professional training and support available, and ensuring accessible procurement
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practices are developed and implemented, and then support by really partnering with the other
people on campus to ensure that we're producing the results that we're looking to produce.
We think about instructors and the role that instructors play, the tactics might look
different in those settings. So for example, instructors can request that students follow
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accessibility guidelines like the WCAG 2.2 double A standard, just like they might APA
or MLA style guides, and so that could be something that's a graded component.
We could always hope that they do better with that than they do with the citation styles.
True, but reinforcing it with grades or as a rubric component is helpful. We can also
(36:05):
model using accessibility checkers, not only by checking our own work, but showing students how
to do that as well. One way that instructors can prioritize this work is by participating
in professional development related to Universal Design for Learning or UDL and accessibility.
So, what metrics do we use here, and what metrics might other campuses perhaps
consider in monitoring the progress of meeting accessibility practices.
(36:29):
So, when I look at it from the technical point of view, I look at ensuring that we're
gathering these metrics and being able to provide people feedback. So we use tools such as ALLY,
and we also use SiteImprove. So ALLY would be inside the learning management system.
SiteImprove is an application that will go and browse your website and let you know what the
(36:52):
accessibility content is and where there might be areas that need to be improved. And then
we're able to go and provide that feedback back to people so they can understand what they're
doing. We also look at people that are requesting accessibility workshops, people speaking up about
microphones and using microphones or other accessibility practices. I'll also say that
(37:16):
we've really tried to focus on understanding where we're at, and we're going to move forward at the
fastest pace we can but this is really when you go and develop culture, it's really difficult to
go and to leapfrog from one stage to another. You really just make progress by making steady
(37:36):
progress and by doing the work that's there. So we just focus on getting better each semester.
Yeah, some of the stuff that we've done includes analyzing some of our ALLY data to see whether or
not the fellows have made an impact in their departments, to see if that's improved their
ALLY scores, and it has. So that's exciting. It means that that's a worthwhile investment.
(37:59):
Sometimes it's these really specific metrics where there's scores, but when you're really
looking at culture change, some of the things that you actually observe are spaces like our
Faculty Assembly, where maybe one person, often me in the past, would be the person saying, like,
“Please use a microphone. Please do this. Please do that.” And now I don't have to say anything.
(38:21):
And there's many other people who will speak up in these settings to request certain accessibility
features be used in a wide variety of settings, and I've seen students, faculty, and staff, all
make these kinds of requests in public settings. So that's real advocacy work that's happening,
and is a real difference from where we started.Well, I also think of people who have come to
(38:45):
training, and when you think of culture like we have people in events that have
come to our accessibility training and trying to understand better. The people running the
orientation are really trying to go and ensure that they're creating accessible
content to provide to the students. So sometimes we've recruited those people,
(39:05):
other times they've been recruited by others who are part of the culture, I guess I would say. So,
I think when you see how it's grown organically, in that sense, it's really satisfying.
I think along those same lines, we can see a wider variety of individuals offering workshops
during our Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching’s breakout sessions in the spring
(39:27):
and in the winter, and that just demonstrates how many more people are deeply engaged with
the subject matter compared to previously.So one of the things that really struck me was
the comment about using microphones. It's still an issue. We ran an AI symposium yesterday,
and we had a number of people attending remotely, and some people in the back of the room said,
(39:47):
“Well, my voice is loud enough so anyone can hear” and sometimes faculty in large classes
will still do that. And it is important to get that reminder out that while people who are near
you certainly will hear you, the people who are further away or who have hearing impairment won't,
and there's a lot of people with hearing impairment who do not necessarily reveal that.
(40:08):
Yeah, it's a real issue. Actually, one of the things I'm proud of, too,
is how we've really worked to go at big events such as graduation and commencement, which we
just hosted and brought in an application that'll go and provide real-time translation of what the
(40:29):
speaker is saying for people in the audience, and we post that on a QR code, both in the program and
on the screen beforehand, so that people can hear and understand what the speakers are saying. And
when you have an audience of over 4000 people, there's going to be a lot of people who have
(40:49):
hearing impairments who really will benefit from that kind of service that you're providing.
So what do you see as some of the biggest challenges that institutions must face in
meeting this Title II deadline? I know we've done a lot here,
but a lot of campuses are much further behind.I think even though we've made a lot of progress
(41:09):
here, we still have challenges that we're going to face, and one of them,
and I think this is true across most of higher ed, is student-generated content has not traditionally
been a focus. So this is really when students are sharing work with each other. Previously,
we've certainly focused on things when they share it more publicly, but they're sharing it with each
other in the class. That's going to be something that instructors need to think about and may need
(41:34):
to become integrated into our learning objectives through general education or some other spaces to
reinforce learning some of those skills.And that's something that can be sold to
students as a useful skill in that as more and more companies start moving towards making their
digital content more accessible, there's going to be a lot of employment possibilities there.
(41:55):
I know it's been a great benefit to a lot of my former students. Some disciplines also have
specific challenges that we need to really come up with better strategies for. Some of
this work is starting and is there, but it's not streamlined. Some software packages just don't
have accessibility features built into them. So there's workflows and habits that need to change,
(42:18):
and changing habits and workflows and anything you're used to is difficult, and people,
by their very nature resist change often. So that's something that all institutions are going
to have to work with and address. And I would say, in particular disciplines with notation,
so things like math, chemistry, music, all have some unique specific challenges. Or if you think
(42:43):
about disciplines like art history that are heavily image based, and thinking about how
alt text might need to shift depending on why you're analyzing a particular image in a course,
sometimes it might be more esthetic, sometimes it might be more important to be a more poetic
alt text to fit the needs. And so education around some of those really unique features
(43:04):
of disciplines is something that we just really need to work together on across institutions.
I'll also add, I think procurement is going to be difficult for many colleges in terms of going and
having the skill set, which I mentioned before, and also a lot of schools will have problems with
(43:25):
resources in terms of training, in terms of having people to go and to train, and depending on where
you're starting from, I can certainly see it being a challenge. It's an advantage to us to be in a
system so that we can go and aggregate some of our resources together. But I can understand how
it's difficult for many of the colleges to go.I would also add, though, that although these are
(43:48):
challenges, these aren't insurmountable things, these are all solvable problems,
but it might need some collaboration and changes of processes to make it happen.
Well, we've addressed a lot of issues related to movement to meet the Title II requirements.
We always end, though, with the question: “What's next?”
So I think the first item is, like the game is afoot now, it's time to execute on the next
(44:13):
components of our strategy, which is around training for the content providers at Oswego,
and focusing on meeting people where they're at in terms of going and both offering the training and
in terms of going and upskilling them as we move forward. And I think the second component is to
(44:34):
invoke the student clubs in the equation and the students as we move forward, and partner with them
to help ensure that they make the requirements and take responsibility for their social postings or
documents, as well as integrating where it fits into the academic side of the campus.
And I think really, one of the third parts is not to look at April 2026 as like this magic day
(45:02):
when the project is over. It's just another day, another milestone, we’ll l not be 100% perfect
at that point, and it's just a continuing project that will go on for years to come, I would think,
and to make sure that we have a solid base to constantly be building on, so it becomes less work
(45:26):
for people to go in and do, and it makes it easier for them to integrate into their workflows.
I think one ongoing thing to remember moving forward is that accessibility is not an on off
switch. So we need to remember that there's continuous improvement, and we can always
work as technology develops to make things more accessible and to keep reevaluating where we're
(45:48):
at so that we can make those improvements.I'm going to add one more component that's
what next, and it is our integration of the AI Fellows that we have on campus. So we started an
AI Fellow program early this year, but I see the AI Fellows and the Accessibility Fellows
integrating their work in the coming year, and to see how that can really go and help us to move
(46:13):
this forward. That might be an area that can help us to leapfrog some of our actions forward and
our ability to create accessible content.And I did just see an article about several
campuses introducing AI tools to read the names of students during graduation, which might actually
sometimes give better pronunciations than some of the readers might otherwise, although we've
(46:36):
had some very good readers here on our campus.Yeah, AI is going to have an impact everywhere.
So I’d look at where the intersection of these two areas is for sure.
And we've had a few podcasts where people have discussed how AI tools may help meet accessibility
and UDL requirements, and we'll share links to some of those in the show notes as well.
(47:03):
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes
or your favorite podcast service. To continue the conversation, join us on
our Tea for Teaching Facebook page. You can find show notes, transcripts and
other materials on teaforteaching.com. Music by Michael Gary Brewer.
Updates to Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act regulations require public
colleges to increase their efforts to ensure that digital content meets accessibility standards. In
this episode, we discuss strategies to foster a culture of access across an institution.``
(00:23):
Thanks for joining us for Tea for Teaching, an informal discussion of
innovative and effective practices in teaching and learning.
This podcast series is hosted by John Kane, an economist...
...and Rebecca Mushtare, a graphic designer......and features guests doing important research
and advocacy work to make higher education more inclusive and supportive of all learners.
(00:54):
Our guest today is Sean Moriarty. Sean is the Chief Technology Officer at SUNY Oswego. In
this role, Sean provides leadership for the continued development of a client-centered,
agile, robust, accessible, and secure digital campus environment that advances
the university's strategic goals. Sean and Rebecca have worked collaboratively
on digital accessibility initiatives at SUNY Oswego since 2017. Welcome back, Sean.
(01:20):
Well, thanks a lot. It's good to be back with you two.
Today's teas are:... Sean, are you drinking any tea today?
I am. I am having an Irish Breakfast tea.I almost drank that knowing that you were probably
drinking that. Yes.
And I am drinking a pure peppermint tea today.And no fear, I've got English breakfast.
(01:41):
Got the British Isles represented.So in January of 2019, we had you on to
talk about SUNY Oswego’s work to build a culture of accessibility. And five years later, in January
of 2024, members of SUNY Oswego’s workgroup on accessibility practices joined us to talk about
one of our initiatives, the 10-day accessibility challenge. And several weeks ago, we had Mark
(02:07):
Greenfield on the podcast to talk about the recent updates to Title II of the American with
Disabilities Act (or ADA). Today, we're planning to follow up on those earlier conversations and
talk about some of the practical steps that SUNY Oswego is taking to address Title II. Meeting the
requirements of Title II can seem pretty daunting if a campus hasn't been actively engaged in
(02:30):
digital accessibility practices. So where does a campus start, what were the first steps that SUNY
Oswego took to address digital accessibility?So first of all, thanks for inviting me back
again. It's always good to talk to you two. You mentioned that I was on in 2019 which does seem
like a lifetime ago when you think of it being six years ago, but also the pandemic happened
(02:56):
in between, and this really brought, I think, a whole new vision and awareness around digital
accessibility and the role that it had in terms of helping students to navigate the teaching and
learning that we went through during that period of time. And I think the work that
(03:17):
we've done beforehand really paid off during the pandemic, and I think the work that we
continue to do really helps with students. But if we go back to your question like, where do
you start with something like this? The way that we have approached it here at Oswego is that the
responsibility for creating accessible content falls to the people making accessible content.
(03:45):
When we first had our OCR complaint, in 2017 that was, we saw just really how deep the hole was in
terms of the content that we were creating and the requirements to go in to make it all accessible.
So I think the way that we've gone and really done it is to focus on educating people on how to
(04:05):
create accessible content and making them aware of their responsibility in terms of doing it,
and trying to simplify the process as much as we can for everyone as we went forward.
I think one of the key things that we focused on was building a coalition of folks who
(04:25):
wanted to build the momentum around digital accessibility. So prior to the OCR complaint,
there was through our Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, we had a work group on
accessibility practices that had representation of constituents across campus that has greatly
grown over time. And so now there's representation from many units and now faculty, et cetera, that
(04:49):
does a lot of the professional development on our campus around digital accessibility. But
around the OCR complaint, Sean also formulated the digital accessibility steering committee,
and now those two groups are connected. When we first had the OCR complaint,
we really focused on the website in particular and having it reach standards. And I'll just
(05:12):
say we were one of 31 SUNY schools out of the 32 that had complaints against it. So everyone was
going through the same thing at the same time, but once we went and got the website up to standard,
we realized that it's an ongoing task in terms of going and keeping it that way. So really,
(05:35):
we got the group together, that started with our web services team and also included Accessibility
Services. And Rebecca was a partner, certainly, in all this work, and Rebecca has a unique skill set
in the sense that she teaches graphic design and teaches web services, but she also happened to be
working with you at the time, John, right in our Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching.
(06:00):
So it really helped that we could go and integrate these teams together and to bring the work that we
were trying to do and expand the scope as we went forward. Another important component, I think, of
it, was how we went and integrated faculty inside what we were trying to do. And started with our
(06:20):
first accessibility fellows… in 2019 I think that was. And our goal was really just to have someone
from each of the different colleges to be a part of the team and kind of look at accessibility,
particularly in their discipline, learn about how to use it, and then act as an advocate
(06:41):
inside their area of expertise. But actually the first year, we had seven people step forward,
and that was a good investment, I think, in terms of going and working with those
people. The next year was 2020, and we had four people. And when the pandemic hit, by that point,
really, we had 11 people who had gone through accessibility training and were really ready to
(07:05):
step in and really acted as advocates and helped all the people inside their departments to go and
to navigate what lay ahead as we went through the pandemic and our shift to online learning
as it was for months and months to come.I think if we were to talk about what we'd
recommend for other campuses to do to start, it's really to start with the coalition of the willing,
(07:30):
or the folks that are most likely to advocate for digital accessibility,
or might be in adjacent spaces focused on equity issues, for example, and to find representation
across campus. So we have folks from the library, instructional designers, the teaching center,
faculty. We have folks in Disability Services, folks in our student affairs unit as well,
(07:54):
that are doing a wide variety of work and can act as a liaison in all those different areas
to transform the practices of folks on campus. And I think that strategy has served us well.
Yes, for sure. And I think also, as we get more people involved, more people look and see other
areas that we should involve as we move forward. And I know Rebecca has done a lot of work,
(08:20):
and the people in the work group in areas such as orientation and how we bring students in.
We also have the person who runs Slate on our campus, which is our enrollment application,
that we go and interact with students as they apply to college,
and then get information back and forth. But he was a graphic design graduate of our school,
(08:45):
and was a student of Rebecca's at one point, and he's been able to go in to implement all
of the same principles and really go to bring this kind of technology and
this way of thinking to the way that we work on campus, and bring students in.
Just to clarify one thing… earlier, you mentioned an OCR complaint,
(09:08):
and just to make sure everyone is on the same page with us, by OCR, you are referring to…
Yeah.…the Office of Civil Rights.
That's correct, John, yep.…and then the Department of Education.
Yes, and actually, and just to go back to that, in 2017, over 2000 universities had OCR complaints
(09:29):
against them, particularly around the website, and a number of them were in SUNY as well.
So, now, as we're coming up to the April 2026, or ‘27 for small communities, compliance deadline,
what are some of the concrete steps that are being taken to ensure that all digital content,
web content, and digital apps, including those created by faculty, staff and students, will
(09:51):
meet the WCAG 2.1 AA standards by that time.So one of our strategies is actually to use the
current WCAG standards, which are actually WCAG 2.2 double A in part because they include some
important guidelines around mobile technology. So we're always gonna adopt the most current
(10:13):
WCAG standards, so that we're always ahead of things, rather than adopting an older,
outdated set of guidelines. And so we have a Title II plan that we've worked on collaboratively that
has essentially four components. The first is raising awareness and making sure folks
know what we mean by digital accessibility, so defining that, and then also what Title II is,
(10:35):
developing a professional development strategy, which we can talk about,
and implementing policy and procedures, especially around procurement, and then finally,
making sure that we have an assessment strategy and have a way for folks to evaluate their own
progress and know where they stand, so using accessibility checkers and things like that.
(10:56):
So you mentioned these four steps. Could you elaborate on this a little bit?
So we've really tried to think of it in these four steps. The first one is raising awareness.
And we've really been focusing, and actually, the way that Rebecca and I have got the plan here,
and the steering committee of the plan it’s like a component for each season, although we will
continue on with many components as these seasons progress. So awareness, we've spent a lot of time
(11:22):
this past semester and during spring of 2025 focusing on awareness, making people understand
what Title II is. We call it digital accessibility in our campus because we've really focused on
having the digital campus as a core component of the way that we deliver education here at Oswego.
(11:44):
The second component, that we'll work on over the summer, is preparing policy and procedures,
procurement is going to be a large component, I think, as we move forward, and I know we'll talk
more about that later. But we want to go and focus and make sure that we're ready to move forward
once we hit September again. Then we're also preparing training and being aware of how we're
(12:11):
going to go and develop people as we move forward once we hit the ground in the fall when school
returns. And then there's the assessment feedback, and I know Rebecca just touched on the point,
we want to be able to give people feedback so that they understand, if they're creating accessible
content, how to make it better, and whether it's inside Word, inside the Brightspace environment,
(12:37):
or the digital learning environment, or whether it's on the web, people should be getting
feedback and understanding if they've created and posted accessible digital content for others.
One of the strategies that we're using for professional development, which might be of
particular use for this audience, is organizing around content types, so everyone on campus is a
(12:58):
content creator of some sort, whether you're creating emails or documents, presentations,
et cetera. And so the professional development that we're doing is largely around these kind
of content types that might have slightly different skill sets necessary to make those
types of content. So we have email, documents, slide decks, multimedia, charts and tables,
(13:21):
forms, social media, kind of page layout and design, folks that are using the learning
management system, and how to navigate that and make sure things in that system are accessible.
And then folks that are editing content on the front end of the website, as well
as those that are doing more of programming or development on web or software applications.
(13:42):
Well, I think what's interesting too is that the way that people create content really
isn't necessarily role based in terms of what we're doing. One item that we really haven't
mentioned up to this point around Title II is how it affects students and how students will
be required to create accessible content as well. We've really thought of this in a couple of ways.
(14:05):
There's what happens inside the classroom, and faculty can be responsible for that,
but there's also the clubs and how they have students interact with one another,
and the social media, different technologies that they integrate too. So as we have this
content type of training, if you're doing social media, you could be in marketing communications,
(14:30):
or you could be running the fencing club at school, and you're going to need to have this
kind of training and awareness to go and to be responsible. So the training will be good
for both of those groups of people, and it really cuts across where you are in the organization.
Remediating materials created by an entire institution would seem to be pretty much an
(14:52):
impossible task, requiring a tremendous staff, unless perhaps individuals are charged with
that responsibility. So what ongoing professional development and training opportunities are being
provided to faculty and staff to create accessible content effectively, beyond that initial awareness
and beyond those initial departments that were reached by the accessibility fellows.
(15:15):
You're right. I think, in that remediation, the quantity of work makes it impossible, which is
why we took the attitude about six years ago, that we're going to go on a step-forward basis,
and this is where we're at and we're going to start creating as much accessible content
as we can. And we really started by investing in training for our staff and our trainers. If
(15:38):
I go back to 2018 and ‘19, and that would have meant sending people out to the WebAIM training
out in Utah, which was a great investment, I think, for our staff and for their awareness,
and they were able to go and to bring that kind of training back and start our own programs.
But then we started a series of other kinds of trainings, which would include our CELT breakouts
(16:06):
for our Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, where we would go and focus
on different accessibility items. We already talked about the Faculty Fellows in terms of
going and helping them with their training. And we have created a lot of on-demand training,
whether it be on our accessibility website, and utilization of Deque.
(16:27):
So, Deque is Deque University, which is an online training platform. You can get subscriptions too.
So the SUNY system has a subscription to Deque University, and that provides really
great opportunities to learn about specific software. So if you wanted to learn digital
accessibility skills in the Microsoft suite, the Google Suite, or web platforms, etc, so everyone
(16:50):
has access to that on our campus. We've also developed a Brightspace course called Access:
a Quest Toward Inclusion, that we're rolling out on our campus. We've done a couple pilots,
and that's fully rolled out as we speak right now in the summer. And in that course, not only do we
have some technical skills, but also conceptual ideas around how digital accessibility fits into
(17:13):
ideas of inclusive pedagogy, diversity, equity, and inclusion, student success, et cetera, so that
it helps connect those pieces and how digital accessibility also dovetails with UDL and some
of these other strategies. That course is built upon an earlier experiment that we had on our
campus called the 10-day accessibility challenge, which we rolled out in January of 2021 to support
(17:38):
faculty as they were teaching online during COVID, and that we have a whole podcast on.
We'll include a link to the earlier podcast discussions of that program and
of other related topics. How many faculty fellows have been through training?
At this point, we've had 24 faculty who have gone through the fellowship training.
(17:59):
And you mentioned workshops, and those are generally taking place at least twice a year.
And there's probably eight to 10 workshops at least twice a year on all these topics.
Yes, and actually we focus on accessibility for a couple days in the January winter breakouts and
training sessions that you have, which would be the time where we bring in the new accessibility
(18:21):
fellows, and they go through specialized training. But the training is really available
to everyone on campus. And, like I said, we really focus on that for a couple days.
So this is a pretty big task that you're discussing here. And how did you effectively
secure commitment from campus leadership to allocate those initial resources: the human,
(18:42):
the financial and the time allocation for digital accessibility, especially when many on campus
might not fully understand the urgency or the scope of moving to digital accessibility.
So when I think of the commitment, I think the OCR complaint really opened people's eyes. And
it raised awareness in terms of what was required to go in to do digital accessibility properly,
(19:09):
and we've really looked at it from two components: one is how it ties to our mission
in terms of student success, equity, fairness, and the second component of it is the risk and
risk mitigation in terms of how, if you're not going and doing this stuff, you might get sued.
(19:33):
So I think both of those items really talk to two different components of the university. So around
financial components, they're really interested in mitigating the risk, and they can see where doing
this work will go and avoid any lawsuits that we might have. But I think from the classroom
(19:53):
side and academic side, we really want to go and focus on why this ties into the mission, and how
we can go and really serve the students. There's a second component, I'll say, in terms of how we go
and secure commitment. So the leadership is one component of it, but I would also say there is
(20:14):
this component on campus that really believes in it and will go and do the work required around it.
So when I think of Rebecca and her team and the instructional designers that she's worked with,
and really other people inside CTS, and then the faculty that we've dealt with, they're committed
(20:38):
to going and doing it and providing a structure and a framework for them to, in essence, either
have extra service pay or to have time cut out of their schedule to go and to do it, was a wise
investment, and showed that the university really was serious in terms of what we're doing,
(20:58):
and that's what we offer for the faculty fellows, in terms of the
structure around going and supporting it.I think one thing that Sean's not directly
addressing is his pivotal role in all of this, and someone in his position, and getting someone who
is a chief technology officer, a chief information officer, really on board is really integral to
(21:19):
getting this work done. So we were doing a lot of ad hoc stuff in the Center for Excellence in
Learning and Teaching through our work group, which was kind of a grassroots group that was
just doing the work because we were passionate about it and thought it was important for our
community to be a part of, but when we brought the need to bring this work into the classrooms,
beyond just the website, which is what the OCR complaint was about, initially, Sean was really
(21:44):
collaborative and wanted to work with us and provide resources and advocate for resources,
and so that digital accessibility steering committee that we mentioned at the top of
the show has become really integral as a space to discuss critical issues, to prioritize things that
might need to be funded or advocated for, so that the work here can get done. So, for example, we
(22:07):
use Google on our campus, and the Google platform doesn't have built-in accessibility checkers. So
one of the things that the work group brought to the steering committee was the need to invest in
a checker. So we invested in grackle so that we have an accessibility checker for folks that are
using Google Docs and Google Slides, et cetera. So that platform has been really important for
(22:30):
fellows and for our work group to raise issues, and then for that steering committee to make some
decisions about priorities, and then Sean's task is that to advocate for that and either fund it
through his budget or request funds elsewhere. Yeah. Well, I think when we have put forward a
budget and we have money set aside, I would think for our accessibility initiatives, it's less than
(22:54):
you would think would be necessary. But I think when we think of what's required, it is this
investment in people and then in the technology to go and to make the work easy, and then it's also
in time. You wouldn't underestimate the amount of time that's needed to go and to provide for
(23:17):
people to go and to get on training. When I think back to the time when we did the 10-day challenge
and thinking these things through, I mean, first of all, they were a lot of fun to go and to do,
but we also gained a lot in terms of going and moving our initiative forward as we went and
invested. So the time is an important component, but it really comes down to prioritization. When I
(23:43):
think back to the last few years, IT departments… when I think of how we can go and be involved in
the diversity and the equity and the inclusion and the items that we were working on at the time…
this was really a key component, I think, and one of our major contributions to going and helping
largely around the equity that we provided to the students and really focused in on student success.
(24:08):
So I think the initiatives really went hand in hand with what we were trying to accomplish.
Building in the 10-day accessibility challenge and our Access: a Quest Towards Inclusion Course,
are really helpful because they provide scaffolded and structured learning,
so that complements the on-demand resources that we also have available. So departments have
(24:28):
advocated for their constituents to participate in these challenges or in the course, and that means
that they're prioritizing or allocating time to do that work, which I think is helpful.
You mentioned the issue of Google not providing the tools that are needed to
help check accessibility, there's also a lot of other software that's being used on campus from
(24:50):
third parties. Can you talk a little bit about how procurement strategies might have to change
here and at other institutions in response to the need to make sure that mobile apps that
students are asked to use are accessible?Yeah, I think this is a large component,
and I would say, for us, kind of the next frontier in terms of going and figuring out
(25:13):
how we're going to do it. So I think what makes it difficult is the testing that you need to
do on the software that you're looking to go and buy. And reading the VPATs and the ACRs,
which are the accessibility compliance reports that software developers are supposed to provide
you when you purchase software. So it takes a certain skill set to be able to go in to do that,
(25:38):
and that skillset’s highly in demand and is difficult to go and to teach, but I think this is
an area that we'll focus on over the next year. So when I talked about policy before, it was around
developing this software acquisition policy and procedure that we’ll go and integrate and for us,
(26:00):
it'll include all of the security work that we're doing, and it'll also include the accessibility
and compliance checking that we're looking to be able to provide to software end users.
One thing that we don't always think about when we're considering third parties is
third-party content that we might be getting from publishers or PDFs from library databases
(26:24):
and things like that. So those are all materials that we're using for teaching and learning that
are coming from third parties that do need to be evaluated, that maybe traditionally,
we're not attending to in that way, that we really need to build into our practices. So
often we think about procurement as something that we're spending money on, but it also,
in the way that we're thinking about it means that anything that we're acquiring
(26:45):
to share with others. So that may not cost money, but we still need to test it.
Yeah, it's a skill set that we'll really need to go and develop, but it really
is necessary to ensure compliance.Might this become a little bit easier,
though now as third-party platforms are threatened with the loss of sales, as all
public institutions are required to meet these accessibility requirements as we move forward?
(27:10):
I certainly hope so. There's also a law in New York State that software developers need to
provide software that's compliant with what we're looking for around the accessibility. I will say,
though, that building software is kind of like steering a large ocean liner, and depending
on where people are, it can be difficult for them to go and to change where they're going.
(27:36):
So I think I would certainly see this in the future, but we're not there now, for sure.
But as universities kind of band together and put the pressure on I think we will
see this change over time.And one of the nice things about
being part of a system is some of the work can be shared across institutions.
And I believe there are some efforts to do that across institutions in the SUNY system.
(27:56):
Yes, I would say inside SUNY we've really worked together, and I give SUNY System Administration a
lot of credit for prioritizing this, and they have a core group of people that have really
prioritized it, and Rebecca and I have worked with those people, and they've really moved us forward
(28:17):
a large amount. An example would be the Deque University training systems that are available.
But there's also other examples of where there's a lot of training that's provided by our Center for
Professional Development, and they've really taken on items such as Universal Design for Learning and
(28:39):
provided many opportunities for faculty to go and to incorporate those practices inside the
classroom for themselves. I'll also add that they've started a new program this year on
accessibility advocates and allies that Rebecca is leading this year, and it's really to go in
(29:02):
to take our accessibility fellowship program, and there's 11 accessibility and advocate ally fellows
this year, and they're working and seeing how they can go and further the work on their campuses to
get these core groups working together and move the needle forward around accessibility.
(29:27):
Traditionally, when working with students or faculty with disabilities, much of this was
handled by campus disability offices, where the focus had been historically on providing
accommodations. We've been moving towards, and Title II is certainly going to reinforce,
a shift from providing reactive accommodations to a proactive inclusive design model. So this
(29:49):
is something we've been doing for a while, but what strategies have you found to be most
effective in fostering a campus-wide culture of accessibility, especially for those who might be
somewhat new to digital accessibility.I think that depends a little bit on the
audience. So for administrators and decision makers, helping those individuals see how this
(30:11):
work ties to the mission is really core and critical. When we're talking about faculty,
we can integrate that work into other things that we're talking about in teaching centers,
like inclusive pedagogy, evidence-based practices, Universal Design for Learning, all
of those things, with accessibility also support student success. And then, if we're talking about
(30:34):
student affairs folks, who really focus on the students, the whole student… when we're thinking
about student success… that's also a way to tie this accessibility work into the mission
and goals of their division as well. So I think tying it to what people are already doing and
what they already care about is really critical in shifting the culture of access for sure.
(30:56):
So you did mention, historically, when this work is done reactively, it all falls to like,
Disability Services or Accessibility Services, but I'll just say that those people are still
integrated into the work that we're doing, and are key parts of our coalition, I would say,
and of who we're working with to go and to focus on the student service, but we have
(31:22):
spent a lot of time really going and developing this coalition and looking at the different roles
and responsibilities that each people has. And really, Rebecca and I have tried to go and develop
a model in terms of how we go and look at this work and what we're trying to do and how we move
(31:44):
it forward. And we use an acronym called RAMPS, which is really a key set of tactics we have
developed to cultivate a culture of access.So RAMPS stands for request, amplify, model,
prioritize, and support. And you might wonder why RAMPS? Well, we associate ramps with kind of the
(32:08):
sloping planes that you might use to access a building. You're on wheels, for example.
So it's already tied to the land of accessibility. So we were hoping that would make it a little more
memorable. And then, in addition, the word ramp can be used as a verb, meaning to speed up or
expand or increase quickly. And so we see this as a set of tactics that really can accelerate this
(32:28):
culture of access. And so if we want to dig into each of the tactics in a little bit more detail,
requests specifically means requesting colleagues, peers and others to use a specific accessibility
practice, so use a microphone or captions or something like that. Amplify or amplify voices
and perspectives of people with disabilities, this can look like raising your hand in a meeting and
(32:51):
asking what kinds of accessibility features might be built into a particular event or
software or other platform. Model is model best practices in your everyday work. So things like,
every time you create a document, you're running your accessibility checker,
you're using alt text and those kinds of things, so that people see that you care about it because
(33:12):
you're doing it. This is particularly important for leadership to do. Prioritize, is prioritize
accessibility by allocating resources, and by resources, we mean time, funds, and personnel,
and then support… support others in their accessibility journey through coaching,
education, processes, and procedures, and so this can look like a wide variety of things,
but making sure that as people want to develop in the space of digital accessibility, you're
(33:37):
helping support their technical skills, but also developing their workflows and other things where
they might face a few hiccups along the way.So could you provide some other examples of how
administrators, faculty, staff and students can employ RAMPS
tactics to help advance accessibility.Yeah, so when I think of administrators,
whether it be the presidents, provosts, vice presidents, deans, directors, and so on down the
(34:01):
line, we've gone and developed a list of tactics. So, as an example, request units to review their
policies and procedures to ensure they're meeting the legal requirements, but looking around what
they're doing around accessibility and the content, amplify the why of accessibility
practices, and I think that's really an important component in terms of how it ties to the mission,
(34:26):
because people often see it as more work than just putting material out, but remediating is
way more work than it is to go and do it right the first time. Model, model accessibility practices
on correspondence and particularly presentations that go out from your office. When we think of
prioritize, I think of team time for professional development and the resources that are required,
(34:54):
and support that would be through appropriate budget and resources that can be provided for
these types of projects. I see the responsibility of CIOs, and what we do, and really around
prioritizing Title II initiatives by ensuring availability of accessibility tools, ensuring
that there's professional training and support available, and ensuring accessible procurement
(35:19):
practices are developed and implemented, and then support by really partnering with the other
people on campus to ensure that we're producing the results that we're looking to produce.
We think about instructors and the role that instructors play, the tactics might look
different in those settings. So for example, instructors can request that students follow
(35:42):
accessibility guidelines like the WCAG 2.2 double A standard, just like they might APA
or MLA style guides, and so that could be something that's a graded component.
We could always hope that they do better with that than they do with the citation styles.
True, but reinforcing it with grades or as a rubric component is helpful. We can also
(36:05):
model using accessibility checkers, not only by checking our own work, but showing students how
to do that as well. One way that instructors can prioritize this work is by participating
in professional development related to Universal Design for Learning or UDL and accessibility.
So, what metrics do we use here, and what metrics might other campuses perhaps
consider in monitoring the progress of meeting accessibility practices.
(36:29):
So, when I look at it from the technical point of view, I look at ensuring that we're
gathering these metrics and being able to provide people feedback. So we use tools such as ALLY,
and we also use SiteImprove. So ALLY would be inside the learning management system.
SiteImprove is an application that will go and browse your website and let you know what the
(36:52):
accessibility content is and where there might be areas that need to be improved. And then
we're able to go and provide that feedback back to people so they can understand what they're
doing. We also look at people that are requesting accessibility workshops, people speaking up about
microphones and using microphones or other accessibility practices. I'll also say that
(37:16):
we've really tried to focus on understanding where we're at, and we're going to move forward at the
fastest pace we can but this is really when you go and develop culture, it's really difficult to
go and to leapfrog from one stage to another. You really just make progress by making steady
(37:36):
progress and by doing the work that's there. So we just focus on getting better each semester.
Yeah, some of the stuff that we've done includes analyzing some of our ALLY data to see whether or
not the fellows have made an impact in their departments, to see if that's improved their
ALLY scores, and it has. So that's exciting. It means that that's a worthwhile investment.
(37:59):
Sometimes it's these really specific metrics where there's scores, but when you're really
looking at culture change, some of the things that you actually observe are spaces like our
Faculty Assembly, where maybe one person, often me in the past, would be the person saying, like,
“Please use a microphone. Please do this. Please do that.” And now I don't have to say anything.
(38:21):
And there's many other people who will speak up in these settings to request certain accessibility
features be used in a wide variety of settings, and I've seen students, faculty, and staff, all
make these kinds of requests in public settings. So that's real advocacy work that's happening,
and is a real difference from where we started.Well, I also think of people who have come to
(38:45):
training, and when you think of culture like we have people in events that have
come to our accessibility training and trying to understand better. The people running the
orientation are really trying to go and ensure that they're creating accessible
content to provide to the students. So sometimes we've recruited those people,
(39:05):
other times they've been recruited by others who are part of the culture, I guess I would say. So,
I think when you see how it's grown organically, in that sense, it's really satisfying.
I think along those same lines, we can see a wider variety of individuals offering workshops
during our Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching’s breakout sessions in the spring
(39:27):
and in the winter, and that just demonstrates how many more people are deeply engaged with
the subject matter compared to previously.So one of the things that really struck me was
the comment about using microphones. It's still an issue. We ran an AI symposium yesterday,
and we had a number of people attending remotely, and some people in the back of the room said,
(39:47):
“Well, my voice is loud enough so anyone can hear” and sometimes faculty in large classes
will still do that. And it is important to get that reminder out that while people who are near
you certainly will hear you, the people who are further away or who have hearing impairment won't,
and there's a lot of people with hearing impairment who do not necessarily reveal that.
(40:08):
Yeah, it's a real issue. Actually, one of the things I'm proud of, too,
is how we've really worked to go at big events such as graduation and commencement, which we
just hosted and brought in an application that'll go and provide real-time translation of what the
(40:29):
speaker is saying for people in the audience, and we post that on a QR code, both in the program and
on the screen beforehand, so that people can hear and understand what the speakers are saying. And
when you have an audience of over 4000 people, there's going to be a lot of people who have
(40:49):
hearing impairments who really will benefit from that kind of service that you're providing.
So what do you see as some of the biggest challenges that institutions must face in
meeting this Title II deadline? I know we've done a lot here,
but a lot of campuses are much further behind.I think even though we've made a lot of progress
(41:09):
here, we still have challenges that we're going to face, and one of them,
and I think this is true across most of higher ed, is student-generated content has not traditionally
been a focus. So this is really when students are sharing work with each other. Previously,
we've certainly focused on things when they share it more publicly, but they're sharing it with each
other in the class. That's going to be something that instructors need to think about and may need
(41:34):
to become integrated into our learning objectives through general education or some other spaces to
reinforce learning some of those skills.And that's something that can be sold to
students as a useful skill in that as more and more companies start moving towards making their
digital content more accessible, there's going to be a lot of employment possibilities there.
(41:55):
I know it's been a great benefit to a lot of my former students. Some disciplines also have
specific challenges that we need to really come up with better strategies for. Some of
this work is starting and is there, but it's not streamlined. Some software packages just don't
have accessibility features built into them. So there's workflows and habits that need to change,
(42:18):
and changing habits and workflows and anything you're used to is difficult, and people,
by their very nature resist change often. So that's something that all institutions are going
to have to work with and address. And I would say, in particular disciplines with notation,
so things like math, chemistry, music, all have some unique specific challenges. Or if you think
(42:43):
about disciplines like art history that are heavily image based, and thinking about how
alt text might need to shift depending on why you're analyzing a particular image in a course,
sometimes it might be more esthetic, sometimes it might be more important to be a more poetic
alt text to fit the needs. And so education around some of those really unique features
(43:04):
of disciplines is something that we just really need to work together on across institutions.
I'll also add, I think procurement is going to be difficult for many colleges in terms of going and
having the skill set, which I mentioned before, and also a lot of schools will have problems with
(43:25):
resources in terms of training, in terms of having people to go and to train, and depending on where
you're starting from, I can certainly see it being a challenge. It's an advantage to us to be in a
system so that we can go and aggregate some of our resources together. But I can understand how
it's difficult for many of the colleges to go.I would also add, though, that although these are
(43:48):
challenges, these aren't insurmountable things, these are all solvable problems,
but it might need some collaboration and changes of processes to make it happen.
Well, we've addressed a lot of issues related to movement to meet the Title II requirements.
We always end, though, with the question: “What's next?”
So I think the first item is, like the game is afoot now, it's time to execute on the next
(44:13):
components of our strategy, which is around training for the content providers at Oswego,
and focusing on meeting people where they're at in terms of going and both offering the training and
in terms of going and upskilling them as we move forward. And I think the second component is to
(44:34):
invoke the student clubs in the equation and the students as we move forward, and partner with them
to help ensure that they make the requirements and take responsibility for their social postings or
documents, as well as integrating where it fits into the academic side of the campus.
And I think really, one of the third parts is not to look at April 2026 as like this magic day
(45:02):
when the project is over. It's just another day, another milestone, we’ll l not be 100% perfect
at that point, and it's just a continuing project that will go on for years to come, I would think,
and to make sure that we have a solid base to constantly be building on, so it becomes less work
(45:26):
for people to go in and do, and it makes it easier for them to integrate into their workflows.
I think one ongoing thing to remember moving forward is that accessibility is not an on off
switch. So we need to remember that there's continuous improvement, and we can always
work as technology develops to make things more accessible and to keep reevaluating where we're
(45:48):
at so that we can make those improvements.I'm going to add one more component that's
what next, and it is our integration of the AI Fellows that we have on campus. So we started an
AI Fellow program early this year, but I see the AI Fellows and the Accessibility Fellows
integrating their work in the coming year, and to see how that can really go and help us to move
(46:13):
this forward. That might be an area that can help us to leapfrog some of our actions forward and
our ability to create accessible content.And I did just see an article about several
campuses introducing AI tools to read the names of students during graduation, which might actually
sometimes give better pronunciations than some of the readers might otherwise, although we've
(46:36):
had some very good readers here on our campus.Yeah, AI is going to have an impact everywhere.
So I’d look at where the intersection of these two areas is for sure.
And we've had a few podcasts where people have discussed how AI tools may help meet accessibility
and UDL requirements, and we'll share links to some of those in the show notes as well.
(47:03):
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other materials on teaforteaching.com. Music by Michael Gary Brewer.
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