Transcription from the session

Jill Bobrick [00:00:23]:
Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining today. We're gonna give it a minute or two for people to join the session, and then we'll go ahead and get started. Okay. It's about two minutes after, so I'm gonna go ahead and kick us off. Thank you everyone for joining us today for this, session on choosing accessible tech that delivers for every student. My name is Jill Bobrick. I'm head of product here at Concept three d, and I'm really excited to be leading us in this panel discussion.

Jill Bobrick [00:01:48]:
Before we jump in, just a quick reminder. We're about halfway through just over halfway through our summit this week. Hopefully, you were able to join us for one of our sessions earlier in the week, and thank you so much again for being here today. I wanted to give you a snapshot of the two remaining sessions we have lined up for tomorrow. We have click into community, leveraging digital tools to foster pivotal and person connections, presented by Sheena McFarland, the chief communications officer at Reed College. And then we have one more session called student conversations with personalization and AI, presented by Christopher Jester from Holy Family University and concept three d's own Travis Bondi. As a reminder, the summit was really built around the theme of creating a connected campus, whether it's through peer networking, staff retention, or leadership strategies. Hopefully, you leave this week with new resources to support your campus.

Jill Bobrick [00:02:41]:
A quick, a couple quick reminders. Auto caption should be turned on, but you should be able to manage those settings from your Zoom bar. Please don't hesitate to ask questions with the q and a feature or engage in chat. The more engaging this session is, the better for all of us. We really want everyone to leave here learning something engaging. And then this will be recorded. And along with all of our other recordings from the sessions will be shared after the summit closes at the end of the week. A little bit about us as a company, Concept three d.

Jill Bobrick [00:03:14]:
We're founded in 02/2006, which means we have almost two decades of experience in higher education. I've been with the company about a decade of that. Our suite of products really cater to the entire student life cycle, starting with sparking interest among prospective students to engaging inquiries in the pipeline and enhancing student retention by growing community all the way through graduation. Our immersive and accessible solutions are industry leading and embrace a digital first and inclusive approach to marketing and recruitment. We're very proud to share that 4,000,000 students engage with our platforms every year. We're currently working with over 700 higher education institutions, some of which I hope are here today. Our core mission is to support higher ed professionals like yourself manage the complete student journey. Obviously, the session today is focused on accessibility, which has been a big passion of mine in the decade almost decade I've worked at Concept three d.

Jill Bobrick [00:04:11]:
So I did wanna take a moment to talk about our commitment to accessibility. And there's a few ways we ensure accessible products here at Concept three d. We ensure all of our product and development teams receive training around accessibility. It's really important to us that every single member has a high level of expertise to ensure that they're integrating accessibility in all of our processes. We do rigorous testing on all of our releases, including support for screen readers, color contrast, things like that. And we have automated tests and scanning tools in our system. We really try and invest in cutting edge technology and resources to include our products and services. We genuinely believe that everyone, regardless of their ability, deserves to access and engage with the services we provide.

Jill Bobrick [00:04:55]:
The amount of investment this takes is not trivial, but it's a core value here at Concept three d. Okay. Onto the good stuff. We have three amazing panelists here for us here with us today, all with a unique perspective. I wanna let them introduce themselves. John, why don't you kick us off?

Jon Avila [00:05:15]:
Hi. I'm John Avila, chief accessibility officer at Level Access. I've been in the field for about, twenty five years. Level Access is a digital accessibility solutions provider that we we assist, organizations in, creating digital experiences, the tooling, and the people to, help make sure, experiences are, usable by a wide range of people. Some of the things that I do, I'm involved with digital accessibility standards creation, the w three c on the accessibility guidelines working group. I'm also involved at a level access in the work we do to build and create, procure things that are accessible to our customers and employees as well. Nice to be here.

Jill Bobrick [00:06:05]:
Thank you, John. Hadi?

Hadi Rangin [00:06:07]:
My name is Hadi Rangan. I'm a member of I of IT accessibility team at University of Washington. I have been in this field a little longer than John over thirty years. And then I have experienced accessibility as a student, faculty, staff. Now I think with the purse as a person, you you the accessibility specialist, various problems. I have been involved in many accessibility project, but the the main focus of my job in the past twenty years have been, working with various company on accessibility and collaborating with them and then educating them about accessibility and making their products more accessible. So I had, hundreds of, working experience with hundreds of companies, software companies that, we are using on daily basis or or higher education. You don't see our names there, but you see our fingerprint set.

John Avila [00:07:27]:
Thanks.

Jill Bobrick [00:07:27]:
Thank you, Hottie. Very impressive. And, Abigail, over to you.

Abigail Bradshaw [00:07:31]:
Good morning. Thank you for having me. My name is Abigail Bradshaw. I am the assistant director of the accessibility resource office at my alma mater, Westmont College. We're a small liberal arts college in Santa Barbara, California. On top of that, I also oversee all of our assistive technology at Westmont College. I'm the founder also of my own consulting company, Consulting Beyond Inclusion, and a JD candidate at Loyola Law School. This all is a really important topic to me, because I'm disabled myself with a variety of invisible and chronic conditions and got involved in disability advocacy just over a decade ago.

Abigail Bradshaw [00:08:07]:
We do use concept three d at Westmont College and recently used it to, start to create an accessibility forward map that looks at all of the accessibility features on our campus.

Jill Bobrick [00:08:18]:
Thank you, Abigail. As you can see, we have three amazing panelists here for us today, so don't hesitate to ask questions. We have some great questions lined up. We're gonna cover topics like the importance of vendor evaluation, how to utilize platform testing, and bringing accessible practices to your campus. But once again, if you have questions relevant, we would love to hear them and engage together. Before we kick off, you can't really talk about accessibility these days without acknowledging the elephant in the room, the Department of Justice ruling. As a reminder, this past April, the DOJ issued a new ruling for title two, the Americans with Disabilities Act around web and accessibility requirements. The ruling states that all content needs to meet WCAG 2.1 level, double a standards by either April 2026 or 2027, depending on the size of your local government.

Jill Bobrick [00:09:11]:
While two while 2026 may seem far away, it's good to take a proactive approach to reaching compliance so that date doesn't sneak up on you. Leading with accessibility is not just the right thing to do for your students, but it also keeps you clear of legal ramifications that can be costly and timely. So with all of that background, let's go ahead and kick off our first question. This is for all of you. How does embracing digital accessibility practices as a camp

Abigail Bradshaw [00:09:38]:
as an organization create a more connected campus? Abigail, do you wanna answer first? Absolutely. So I think the key when we're working, together as a campus is that we're all stakeholders in accessibility, and so community buy in is essential in accomplishing anything. Really, we're moving from what I like to call a model of inclusion to a model of belonging, when everyone on campus is invested. We're not just focused on these individual accommodations for students with disabilities, but embracing digital accessibility practices creates a sense of belonging for those students, because it's accessibility first. It's belonging first.

Jill Bobrick [00:10:23]:
Adi?

Hadi Rangin [00:10:27]:
As a person also with a disability online, I I would say that that is really important because we live in this society that is not not necessarily optimized for us. And then then, in, colluding accessibility in, in in, in this realm, it is, necessary. Otherwise, we will be disconnected, isolated, and we won't be able to function that. So, there are full opportunity. There are a lot of entities that are paying serious attention to accessibility. And then, I am, I think, I'm personally very thankful for all the efforts that people are putting into this space.

Jill Bobrick [00:11:22]:
Thank you, Hadi. John.

John Avila [00:11:26]:
So there there are three areas that come to mind. The reason we're doing we do accessibility is to make sure that, people with disabilities, whether they're public or students or, staff, can, engage, can participate, can access things in a private and independent manner, which creates more, openness and fosters more collaboration and creativity. Second would be, accessibility and, inclusive experiences, foster people to communicate and interact in different ways, the ways the ways that may work better for them. And this includes lots of different forms of interaction through different technology, remote, in person, with the things that work best for them. And that leads into the third thing, which is a lot of the things that we do for accessibility benefit many users or, I would say, even all users to different degrees. As we make things more, accessible, those those things have benefits. So what may be, beneficial to one person is, is is maybe necessary for someone else. As we need to address those accessibility issues, we're creating more opportunities for other people in different situations.

John Avila [00:12:55]:
So if you think about things like captions, and, speech recognition and other, supports, as we, have, diverse cultures and, different ways that we are, engaging with each other and collaborating, those things will allow more opportunity for everybody, to participate.

Jill Bobrick [00:13:18]:
Yeah. That's a great point. That's something we talk about a lot internally in our product and development team as a reminder that we're we're really helping the entire community. That's great. Okay. Let's move on. John, this question is for you. How are changes under the new federal administration shifting the way institutions should approach vendor evaluations and accessibility standards?

John Avila [00:13:42]:
Yeah. That's that's a good question. So, yeah, I think Abigail earlier mentioned accommodations. So what's really different now is that there's a specific set of technical standards that's required in order to comply with title two of the ADA. In the past, many things around accessibility, were met through different types of accommodations and different processes. Those come accommodations will still be there, but, now there's a specific set of standards. So 88 title two has, turns 35 this year. Those requirements for, accessibility, and nondiscrimination have already existed, but the specific rules and how you measure, the conformance to the standard is what will, is new and will be in force, in a year, for, many organizations.

John Avila [00:14:41]:
So that just means that we need to sort of step up the work that's been done. And, typically, the one of the first steps is to make sure that you pull in the right stakeholders within an organization your organization, so your institution, making sure that you have the right inventory of different digital properties, and that you prioritize those. Especially in a decentralized environment like, many institutions are, you do have a lot of different stakeholders who use different processes and work independently. And so it's really important to do that inventory, pull the right people in together, and then set up, the right infrastructure to, to monitor and track that accessibility so you can be able to meet the compliance obligations. There certainly are going to be other things that will need to be done as well from a process standpoint within the organization. This will require some level of maturity to those processes, but, typically, that will include, evaluating accessibility, to the technical standards for more of your, digital properties and will also likely mean more engagement and work with vendors to make sure that vendors are providing you, with accessible things that, help you comply.

Jill Bobrick [00:16:05]:
Great. Abigail or Hadi, do you have any thoughts on this? I know it was for John, but it seems like it might might, you guys might have good thoughts as well.

Hadi Rangin [00:16:13]:
I think he provided a very comprehensive response.

Abigail Bradshaw [00:16:18]:
You know, I would add, that oftentimes our folks in higher ed forget that we are legally responsible for even the accessibility that our our vendors hold. And so if we're if we're using a vendor, and it's not accessible, we're we're gonna end up, hurting because of that, and we're hurting our communities. And so, yeah, like John says, there's there's a really important vetting process, but just remembering that that we are, that first line of defense.

Jill Bobrick [00:16:49]:
Great point. Okay. This next question is for Hadi. What are the most common and most frustrating accessibility issues that you see that could be easily avoided if vendors involved testers earlier?

Hadi Rangin [00:17:04]:
Great question. Thank you. As a person, as I mentioned earlier, I worked with so many, software company. They don't like we call them vendors. They call they like to pick a software company. Especially Microsoft colleagues, they don't like that terminology. So many years ago, we decided, to change our approach from reactive response to proactive response. So we ran into a lot of accessibility problem with the software that we were using at that time.

Hadi Rangin [00:17:43]:
I was with the University of Illinois working with doctor John Gunderson. And, we saw that, you know, here we cannot just complain. We decided to get involved and help them to understand accessibility and and show them and help them to provide accessible solution. Note that accessibility is not something people are trained into, and then, people with, you know, to graduate from, schools with almost no exposure with accessibility, accessibility problem. So how should we expect the software developer, for example, at Blackboard at that time, or, you know, other other software companies, you know, they they they knew about accessibility and accessible design. Back to your question, testing, you know, involving tester is an important part of the accessibility or delivering accessible product. But prior to that, you know, the the the software needs to be design need to be designed with accessibility in mind. So accessibility should be part of the development process from the design through implementation and testing.

Hadi Rangin [00:19:04]:
And then, you know, some some organization, they think, you know, they have to necessarily use people with disability, which I commend them for that. But, you know, QA quality assurance company, they can also learn about the at least about the basics of of testing, for accessibility. One thing that people sometime when when the companies, they come to me and then they tell me about, you know, who we don't have the resources to test it. Actually, this is not it is not correct. The base of many, not all many accessibility problem is keyboard accessibility. So, and the keyboard accessibility is something that everybody can do that. You just need to put the mouse aside. Until I have a mouse here at my desk, but I don't use it, the, put the mouse aside and try to follow the, we call that functional task, the task that you have designed for that application and go through that test completely.

Hadi Rangin [00:20:16]:
From a to Z, you have to be able to navigate to every corner of the application with a keyboard and then also the, interact with it If you can succeed. Very likely you, meet most of accessibility requirement. Yes, testing with, dedicated, or or with the, the the the user with disability definitely is recommended, but it is not a knowledge that QA department, at least big QA department cannot develop. So, yeah, that that is what I was saying, Adi, when this is that I wanted to just say about it. You know, testing is, in summary, testing is part of the equation. But prior to that, you know, design and implementation must be, must go into a consideration.

Jill Bobrick [00:21:21]:
It's a great point. Thank you, Hadi. John, you might have, some good experience on this too. Any anything to add?

John Avila [00:21:28]:
Sure. Yeah. So so building on, testing with users with disabilities, it's important to also think about how people use technology. So whether people use assistive technology or they use different features like large text on the iPhone or browser Zoom, it's important to be, testing with some of those, ways that users with disabilities, people with disabilities will be using technology. And so because if you if you're not checking and thinking about those ways, those are easy things that might get missed. So you understand from that perspective of, of the needs. I also mentioned that, accessibility testing and and is something that can can be some aspects of it can be complex. Other aspects are very straightforward.

John Avila [00:22:18]:
So it's it's always good to work with, third party organizations, who who do this on a regular basis, that can help you with the tooling, etcetera. One thing last thing that comes to mind is, automation. It can't. You can't rely solely on automation as a way to check or test for accessibility. There's definitely, manual testing that needs to be done in addition to automation. But you can automate many things, and that can help you, find some of those easy easy things and give you some good data to understand how you're, making progress towards being more, accessible.

Jill Bobrick [00:23:03]:
Yeah. Both of those really resonated with me. I I work hard in our organization to get everyone from even our sales organization to learn. Look at a site. What happens when you just start tabbing through it? Can you can you see your focus? And then, obviously, you know, we work with level access at Concept three d because we do want that third party expert to to get on the deeper level and make sure we're not just checking boxes, but we're creating usable products. So both of those, comments really resonated with me. Thank you. Okay.

Jill Bobrick [00:23:32]:
This next question is for Abigail. What's one practical example where choosing or not choosing an accessible technology made a measurable dis difference for a student or group of students at Westmont?

Abigail Bradshaw [00:23:45]:
Yeah. This is a really important question. So when I began in my role just about two years ago, we were using a certain text to speech software for students with learning disabilities. And I would say at least once a week, I was having a student come to my office who just couldn't figure out how to use it. It was so not user friendly, it was not accessible. And so, you know, I stepped in, did some research, and ended up procuring a new text to speech software that we've just been absolutely thrilled with. Choosing that accessible technology has opened the door for a lot of our students with learning disabilities. Now I have students once a week coming in to tell me how much they love that product, and that they want to make sure we're renewing it for next year.

Abigail Bradshaw [00:24:29]:
The the central difference really for for students with this type of disability was usability. And, you know, these students are already facing so many barriers in their day to day life in the classroom. And if there's not use ability, if there's not ease of use, the product's not gonna get used. It's just another barrier. We also wanna make sure that we're we're procuring things that are centering our students' agency. And so making sure that our students can use them on their own independently. We procured a a new note taking software recently that's that's encouraging this this student agency, that's essential. And, you know, we'll talk more about this later, I believe, but it's really hard to oftentimes get get buy in and get stakeholders when when we're procuring new technology.

Abigail Bradshaw [00:25:16]:
But you can demonstrate through through different procurement processes the ways that access accessible technology that you've purchased can improve enrollment and retention, and that is that is the keywords for for our folks in admin. The ways that then or also intangibly supporting neurodiversity, in our colleges as as diversity, equity, inclusion efforts are are still important, as well as GPA, watching GPA improve. And so those are some some measurable outcomes, that we've we've seen through, procuring a specific assistive technology and that that has helped us, be able to procure future assistive technologies through through getting buy in.

Jill Bobrick [00:25:59]:
Awesome. I'm sure some people are wondering what that text to speech software was. Okay. Alright. This question is for all. Why don't you start we start with Hadi. What does a productive collaboration between a vendor and an institution look like when accessibility is done right?

Hadi Rangin [00:26:25]:
Okay. I I can write a book about it. Can't I get it? Five minute summary of it. Generally, it depends on your, the the software company that you are working. There are throughout my my my career, I have seen only one company that I'm not going to mention here that they they they clearly said to my face that they don't care for accessibility, and they did that because they wanted to keep the customers for for money. And then, the but every company that I worked had the chance to work with, I mean, they were eager to learn about accessibility and improve use accessible product. But their level of interest and then the the answer priority, is also is very different. This is a, large a very big spectrum.

Hadi Rangin [00:27:26]:
You know? Some people there are so eager to extract the the beat of of the accessibility information and then apply to the software. And there are people that you have to knock at their door or kick them sometime, you know, to to, to, pay more attention or change the priority. So what I am saying that they are we cannot say that some companies, they do not care for accessibility. I just wanna say that they have too many competing products, and accessibility is not as high as some other priorities that they have. The, I had the chance to work with many software company to build their accessibility team. When I started, for example, with Blackboard, I am not working with them anymore because our institution is not using Blackboard. But they didn't have any person who knew anything about accessibility. When I start working with Zoom, they didn't have any, company any person either.

Hadi Rangin [00:28:34]:
Microsoft is I mean, is use have a large team of accessibility, in their campus, and they have various, respond with various responsibilities. But the infrastructure is so that I personally think they are not using them effectively. Workday, another big company that I worked, I had the chance to work with them for almost eleven years. Some of the collaboration can go that long. They had only one person that they just was, responding to accessibility questions, but mostly, you know, finding work around solutions. And that person didn't have any connection to the software development team to ask them to change anything in the implementation or the design. So, once again, it did with every company is different. One of the long journey that we had, it was that, you know, we practically, started with one or two people who were dedicated, for accessibility, but accessibility was not their job.

Hadi Rangin [00:29:56]:
And then, you know, we trained them into accessibility. And then company, you know, sometime they, realize that, other customers are asking for accessibility. They, they realize this, which is a strategic decision. They made a strategic decision and created that accessibility company. They trained them. We went I went oh, the my our team went sometime to this company for training. They came to University of Washington, for for training. So we you every software company is different.

Hadi Rangin [00:30:34]:
And as I said, there are people that are eager for every bit of the information. There are people that you, you know, you have to push them to, you know, apply those accessibility lessons learned. I think after all these years, if I want to mention, a bit the best model, at least for the midsize applications and then, and then enterprise solution, I would say that having a pack is a product accessibility council. The building that and bringing their customers on board with that pack. And then those people can, resonate the access become the accessibility voice. So those accessibility people in charge can sell, can communicate better with the higher management, and sell the accessibility feedback to them. So because sometimes these, accessibility teams are so, narrow, so small that they don't have very strong voice. But over time, they they can become big, And then we got some time, you know, to some companies that, you know, that they have in their the the there's a policy of the company.

Hadi Rangin [00:32:05]:
No software will be released if accessibility team has not approved it. So, I I don't know. I I can't mention those companies or not, but, but some of some of these company have gone that far that they do not, release any component or the software upgrades if accessibility team has not approved it. But the most successful, companies in with accessibility are those companies that they are running actively, they pack their product accessibility council. And then, and even better, they have they engage people with disability in the I call that DPG development product group. So develop the DPG group usually are the the the team that, you know, they discuss the new things that they are considering to, introduce to this company to the software or redesign that. So why including actual people with disability or or knowledgeable person with disability in that field, in the the the the design process, you make sure that accessibility goes into that process right at the beginning. So I think I, I used my five minutes.

Jill Bobrick [00:33:40]:
That's those are great points. Thank you, Hadi. Abigail, how about over to you?

Abigail Bradshaw [00:33:45]:
Yeah. So, you know, Hadi really touched on what it looks like on the organizational side, and I'd like to talk about, you know, on the higher ed side. I think a productive collaboration for us between a vendor and an institution often involves a lot of patients. Our procurement process is really, really lengthy, and thorough. And so, you know, we've gotten stuck in procurement processes before with, vendors that we're really excited about, that are accessible. And if they are not patient with us, then it it's just impossible to work together. And so that is that is a key part of it. It's just patience on all side.

Abigail Bradshaw [00:34:25]:
Also through the procurement process, it's really important that we're not just involving the ADA office. And so it's, you know, in our work with concept three d, it's been our, our ADA five zero four coordinator. It's been the accessibility resource office. It's been our IT department. It's been campus planning and, enrollment marketing and communications, and, admissions. We really wanna involve as many departments as possible, because all these departments will be using this, using this software. And so, you know, we wanna make sure that, as we're procuring something, a vendor is is not just working with one individual, but is willing to, meet with a lot of individuals, a lot of the different stakeholders, and answer the questions that we have, and make sure that that all sides of accessibility are are being met. And so, we really wanna make sure we're looking for vendors that aren't just meeting this this floor level of compliance, but that are really looking at user accessibility in mind.

Abigail Bradshaw [00:35:28]:
And so that's that movement from inclusion to belonging. We're not just we're not just merely making sure that people are included, but we wanna make sure that, they're they're at at the forefront of our mind, and that all all people have full access, to something like a a map for campus, that should be a a basic human right and resource, but oftentimes wouldn't be accessible to people.

Jill Bobrick [00:35:54]:
Great. Thank you, Abigail. John, over to you.

John Avila [00:35:58]:
Sure. So, yeah, to sort of summarize, some of the the things that Abigail and Huddl said, I think there's the relationship needs to be ongoing between the software companies and the the institution. Accessibility isn't just something you do, during procurement because you need to make sure it's an ongoing thing that, agreements are followed through, things are monitored There's collaboration. So the second thing I would say is collaboration is really important between the organizations to make sure you have agreement on what are the timelines for things to be addressed. What does the road map look like, when can you expect that updates are not going to break accessibility. And then the last thing I'd say was we would be that documentation. So that's that making sure that the appropriate contract language is in place. The appropriate, documentation, whether that be an accessibility conformance report in VPAT format, that's available.

John Avila [00:37:04]:
Typically, a conformance report is not going to provide enough information for decisions, around accessibility, so there's certainly gonna be other accessibility documentation that will likely be needed. And so that's a process where there's a set of of questions that institutions should be asking their their vendors around, accessibility to make sure that they can make the right decisions. So the idea is that you wanna do market research to determine the most accessible product that meets your needs as an institution, and to understand what's out there, and to help move the needle. Lastly, I would say it's really important to collaborate if you can with other institutions because you can't do everything yourselves, and there's a lot of things that can be shared and collaboration collaborated between institutions and states and other places where you can, share information as as as allowed, and and benefit from the other work that, that others have done.

Jill Bobrick [00:38:16]:
Great. Thank you, John. I think I'd I'd add just one thing I think has really resonated with, with institutions that I've worked with on accessibility is transparency. I I find that, you know, delivering a perfect VPAT, probably is not not what our institutions are looking for. They're really looking for honesty on where our products are, what we're doing to keep our products accessible, what kind of you know, understanding. I think anyone that really understands accessibility understands it's a journey, and it's you know, compliance and perfection is is, you know, an ambiguous term around it. And so I think being really transparent about that and and how we are working through all that has been really, really resonated for me when I work with with our institutions. Okay.

Jill Bobrick [00:39:04]:
Moving on to the next question. This is another question for all of you. What strategies help institutions secure funding and buy in for accessible tech, and how can they ensure the right resources are in place? I think you touched on this a little, Abigail, so I think I'll I'll head over to you first.

Abigail Bradshaw [00:39:20]:
Yeah. Absolutely. So, you know, as I was previously saying, interdepartmental partnerships are essential, making sure that we have buy in from lots of different departments. We may have a limited budget resource in the accessibility resource office, but maybe, our folks in enrollment marketing and communications have a bigger budget, and they can they can partner with us. I think in terms of a broad buy in institutionally and building into a budget, accessibility, I think looking at a cost analysis and really leveraging legislation, I think, you know, accessibility is expensive. Lawsuits are more expensive. And so, making sure that we we leverage the law that that is there, to, you know, convince folks that might not otherwise be convinced. Also, it's it's looking at, okay, are we gonna do the work now and to make this successful, or are we gonna, yeah, have to do it later? Are we gonna do it in in house or out of house for compliance? And so really looking at all of those different things.

Abigail Bradshaw [00:40:20]:
So presenting accessibility not not as the the option whether it's be accessible or not, but looking at okay. Are are we gonna do it now, or are we gonna do it later? We need it in house, out of house. There also has to be a really a really clear chain of of command and point of contact. If there isn't someone in charge of this, in charge of a certain initiative, it might get lost. And so making sure that there's a sense of, okay, who who's the key point person here, for this specific software? Okay. Who are the partners? Who's involved in making sure that there's a clear a clear structure there? And making sure that all of those those departmental partnerships are a part of the procurement process from the beginning, like I was saying before.

Jill Bobrick [00:41:05]:
Great. We go over to you, John.

John Avila [00:41:08]:
Yes. All excellent points from Abigail about the roles and responsibilities and accountability. I would I would add that you really you really need the buy in from senior leadership, but you you also need, everybody who's involved, whether you're creating content or an instructor or an IT. There needs to be folks, the ground level who are also committed to accessibility. Certainly, having community as a practice where people can reach out and have questions and and collaborate is, is great. I think, ultimately, institutions will need some level of accessibility program, and it goes back to what Devika was saying. There's a program, someone needs to ultimately track the progress that's been made, the return on investment. Anytime when you're talking about budget, you really do have to show the work that has been done, how it's been beneficial to students, how it's reduced risk or increased in compliance, and those different factors, to continue to get that support, from from the organization.

John Avila [00:42:20]:
And then I think, lastly, it's just making sure that people have the right tools to be access successful. And so whether that's tools for folks who are creating content or posting stuff on this on the, the, LMS, the learning management system, being able to check accessibility as you're creating things, giving people the sort of the, the capabilities to the the training when it's allowed and the and the tooling to, to create accessible content from the start. That's really, really important in a kinda decentralized environment.

Hadi Rangin [00:42:59]:
I would like to add also that, first, I am delighted to say that we have solid accessibilities, support throughout the chain. And that makes the life really easy, at the University of Washington, we have a large, team. I didn't never counted them as six seven people working full time for access and accessibility on different area, working with faculty, working on document accessibility, working with the the, being procurement, software evaluation as well as, you know, my my job that working, mostly with vendors. Not every institution has that luxury. I call that really luxury. So we are very blessed with it, but it didn't come, easy. We work toward that. So the way that we approach that, we made accessibility part of everybody's responsibility.

Hadi Rangin [00:44:04]:
He said that, hey, we are just subject matter expert. You can only help if you are, you know, purchasing a product. Yeah. Accessibility is important, because you can save a lot of accessibility from, right up up front. And then, you know, then then then you can, you know, come up with the road map, accessibility road map with the software vendors that you choose choose that we can help you. But we made everybody responsible who contacted us. We, as as, everybody knows that for big software that at least is used in higher education, we have a software owner and software manager. Software owner is in charge of, making sure they all the updates are, you know, applied and and product is used, as as expected.

Hadi Rangin [00:45:01]:
And then software managers in charge of, you know, running day to day, you know, a job and making sure the user are using that. So when when we are contacted about accessibility or when we ask about accessibility of a product, we engage those people, in the discussion. We said, hey. We are we can help. Only help. Because there are thousands of thousands software used in different corner of the university. And there are, and and, we there is no it doesn't make sense that we, as an accessibility expert, know every software, how they are used, and then how what they do. So we help them to become accessibility liaison by engaging them and educating them about accessibility.

Hadi Rangin [00:45:52]:
At least they can talk about the basics of accessibility. I'll do some basic stuff. And then, that way. They see the need that accessibility needs to be promoted and sometime, you know, by educating themselves or sometime by hiring new, access of the people. So we have, for example, you know, accessibility people in different departments that they are just, taking care of our accessibility at least for the basics, or basic accessibility problem. And then we get engaged when we, when when it is a little more, you know, challenging question. You know? Like like, in a a good example, you know, work day, it's a as is, HR and then finance product has been apply I mean, has been implemented. It's a huge product.

Hadi Rangin [00:46:49]:
There's no way that we could answer all those accessibility question after deployment. So but we trained their Tier, I think, no, one, two, three, but I don't know. So some of those standards support team into accessibility, and then so they could answer accessibility related question. So, and it was so demanding. So much request that they build that position. So, this is similar for the library or other, bigger entities or or departments, in to summarize what what I. Some of the things that the colleague colleagues also mentioned that, I mean, to from my perspective, when you make accessibility, everybody's responsibility, and they see the need and they. You know, dedicate resources.

Hadi Rangin [00:47:48]:
Mhmm. Because they are involved.

Jill Bobrick [00:47:52]:
Great. Thank you. K. We have one more question, and then we did get a couple q and a questions. So the last question is what one piece of advice you would give to higher ed institutions just beginning their digital accessible journey? John, let's go to you.

John Avila [00:48:12]:
Yeah. That's a good question. So I I think the key here is, is the journey, and, it may be overused. But I I think you you've gotta start somewhere with accessibility. And, I would say, it's accessibility isn't just about compliance. I know compliance is is part of it, and that's, often what motivates organizations to put in place programs. But, I I would, think, you know, it's the benefit of being inclusive and, creating that belonging, that Abigail discussed. That is really important, to the organization.

John Avila [00:48:58]:
And so, as you go along that journey, you want to, make sure that you take feedback, that you look at the things that have been successful, and improve upon those and, increase your maturity over time. It's not something that'll happen overnight, but, ultimately, you know, you want to be working towards a goal of a very mature institution. But you need to sort of put realistic processes in place so you can achieve that goal with, while providing an inclusive experience but not, turning people away or burning people out over, over this. You you know, you don't wanna cause people to get fatigued, on accessibility, but, so it's a it's sort of a a fine path between, the supporting folks and, helping to foster, that sense of awareness and then taking action.

Jill Bobrick [00:50:10]:
Sorry. Did you have more to add?

Hadi Rangin [00:50:12]:
That's it.

Jill Bobrick [00:50:13]:
Okay. Great. Over to Hadi.

Hadi Rangin [00:50:16]:
We have, started thinking about that, about, the new ruling, the DOJ ruling, shortly after they announced that. I thought, or we were doing great, but, we were far from the, ultimate, place that we wanted to be. Many, people, many entities got engaged from provost office up to, you know, our IT department as well as, you know, ADA coordinator office, compliance office. So we created an ADA digital accessibility, initiative. And then where we created, let let me share let me see that if I can share my the link. No.

John Avila [00:51:24]:
Okay.

Hadi Rangin [00:51:25]:
I I I do that maybe later, but we have created many, action teams and then, these action teams are responsible in the identifying the issues and coming with potential solution. We have. Where we have, for example, an action team for academic course content. In for the innovation and then research procurement. And then the UW Medicine has, they they they build their their own, action teams. And then web, and mobile, action team that they are in charge of, accessibility of the software that we have. So these action teams are very active, and they are meet meeting, identifying the issues, and coming up the solutions. And then, I think soon, we will be publishing, the report each action team will be, the publishing their results.

Hadi Rangin [00:52:39]:
And then those decision maker, they can, you know, decide how to do it. But, I am a member of at least one of them, which is procurement, and I I can say that we have developed the process, how to handle incoming, or, you know, their software, the license renewal or buying a new product. And it seems everything is under control. And then I am very optimistic, you know, that, we will be in a good position by next April. We might not be. We we there's I'm not saying that we will be accessible % by then, but we will have our processes, and procedures, in place. So but but then that is how we have approached that.

Jill Bobrick [00:53:35]:
Great. Thank you. And over to you, Abigail.

Abigail Bradshaw [00:53:38]:
Don and Hadi, I I loved what you guys said. And I think, yeah, having those those partnerships, like I've been saying, is is essential and having spaces for feedback, having those working groups. We have an accessibility advisory board that that oversees a lot of this and and gives us frequent feedback, and that's really essential. At our institution, we really did start from ground zero. So when when I came in, it was not nothing was very accessible. We're actually on the side of a mountain. So physically, we are a very inaccessible campus. And so we had to start using a model of of how to work from Ground 0.

Abigail Bradshaw [00:54:17]:
And so we have a five step pyramid model, that we use that's kind of where to start and and what our end goal is. And so the bottom of that pyramid is essential services. We wanna make sure that, you know, just at the bare minimum, the needs of our our students are being met and our community members. The second is policies and procedures. And so, yeah, making that plan for accessibility, is essential not only to make sure we get there, but also it is a really good way to protect your institution against liability is is that you have a plan. Even even if it's you're not you're not done with the plan yet, you have that plan there. The third one is relationships and boundaries, making sure you know who is in charge of what. The fourth one is is partnerships, and so we've been talking a lot about that.

Abigail Bradshaw [00:55:01]:
And then the fifth one finally is advocacy. And so the goal is to move from essential services to advocacy, through through these steps. But just know that, yeah, it's it's a multi multi stage process, and you're not gonna get there, right away. And so, it is gonna be through phases over time that, yeah, even institutions that aren't super accessible can can move into that.

Jill Bobrick [00:55:27]:
Great. Thank you, Abigail. I think the, one of the questions is a great, tangent from our next follow-up from that is, are there any accessibility related communities that you recommend that have been helpful along the journey?

Abigail Bradshaw [00:55:42]:
I can definitely speak to that. You know, we're a part of the AHEAD, conference, so the Association of Higher Education and Disability. And, you know, I I probably go on their community boards at least twice a day to to, read what people are up to and and get feedback on really hard situations. All of our you know, most of the softwares that we've procured, they're accessible. I've gotten from friends that I had that recommended them. And so, that's certainly what I would most recommend.

Jill Bobrick [00:56:12]:
Great. Adi or John, do either of you have thoughts?

John Avila [00:56:20]:
I would just add, a couple different things maybe. There there's also the International Association of Accessibility Professionals. And while it's not higher ed specific, they they do have certification for practitioners in accessibility. And there's also, an accessibility Slack group for people who are technical, have technical questions, but it goes beyond that as well. That's an invite only, group, but, anybody can get invited if you know someone on that. And then, just even starting a place within your own institution or maybe if you're part of a system of of colleges, just being able to, place on your own Slack or Microsoft Teams or whatever you're using as a collaboration space, creating a community of practice where within your institution, people can ask questions and share information, can be really helpful.

Hadi Rangin [00:57:16]:
I I highlight the last point that John mentioned that, you know, build the community within your own, college or entity. You will be surprised how many people are, are sharing the same issues, and then how many people know the answer to your questions. And then and then, additionally, the I mean, the IAP community as well as the AT and T pro, community that, Abigail mentioned that are, the resources that I always recommend.

Jill Bobrick [00:57:50]:
Great. Thank you. And we we are coming up on time, but there was one other really great question I wanna sneak in. What is the biggest evolution you've seen over the last five years in terms of thinking of campus leadership? Of the thinking of campus leadership when it comes to accessibility and accessible design? Abigail, if we're if anyone wants to jump in, Abigail Yeah. I'm gonna put a poll while Abigail is answering. If you want to get more information, feel free to fill it out. But, yeah, please, Abigail, go ahead.

Abigail Bradshaw [00:58:22]:
Yeah. I think the biggest thing would be seeing disability as part of diversity. I think it it previously wasn't included in that. And so, we're now we're now seeing, you know, in DEI or whatever they're being called at this current moment, initiatives, disability is is included in that neurodiversity, physical disability, chronic illness. These are all taken into consideration when we think about, a diverse campus.

John Avila [00:58:50]:
This is John. I'd also add that, accessibility isn't just an accommodation. It's something that that you need to think about accessibility during design as you're building things, as you're purchasing something. It's not an afterthought. And we've made a lot of progress on, changing that notion.

Hadi Rangin [00:59:10]:
And I wanted to say that, you know, I am not, expecting any magic will happen. This trend will continue that moving from reactive job to proactive, jobs. Let me, finish my statement with a joke. I had a colleague, at the DRS disability resource services, when I started here at UW. She was wonderful and then very engaging. And then, and then, created a lot of, talk. It was before pandemic. She met with a lot of, faculty, and she invited me to talk about also accessibility.

Hadi Rangin [01:00:00]:
And then I, by the I made all of the joke. I'm able I can't tell you who who the name was. A crystal Greer. She, my statement I started my statement. My job is to put Krista out of job. So meaning that, you know, we did document the information are so accessible from beginning that there is no need for Krista to make them accessible. So I hope we will have job for forever. There will be always people who will meet the, the accommodations.

Hadi Rangin [01:00:40]:
But, I hope that we can, move the community to that, direction that, we will need less accommodation. So they can engage. We can, they can get engaged in the course activity and other good stuff that, it is running in this, in this school.

Jill Bobrick [01:01:03]:
Great. Thank you, Fadi. Thank you to all of our panelists. You were wonderful today. All with such with such great unique perspectives. I learned some new things. Thank you so much, and thanks to everyone for joining.

Hadi Rangin [01:01:16]:
Thank you. Thank you.

Jill Bobrick [01:01:17]:
Thank you. Have a great one.