Re: reasonable accomodation? (was Re: single browser intranets)

At 04:19 PM 10/26/1999 -0500, David Poehlman wrote:
>just to add to this.  if you think for a second that scanning hard
>copy and performing ocr on it is an ideal, think again.

I'm always amazed by companies that don't provide electronic copies
upon demand -- because in this day and age, ALL documents are, in
their original formats, electronic!  You don't _have_ paper-only
documents being created anymore; everything is done in Word or
Excel or some other electronic format.

Recently the HWG received a proposal via fax from a potential strategic
partner.  The fax was clearly a powerpoint presentation that was
"printed" -- as I needed to distribute the proposal to my board, and
we "meet" via email, I asked for a copy of the PPT file.  It was
denied -- instead he wanted to fax it to all of us!  Why, I'm not
sure -- but I still stand by my conviction that since documents are
natively electronic, there's no reason NOT to provide them electronically.

A nicer story from the HWG relates to the book we use in our HTML
4.0 online class, written by Ann Navarro and published by Sybex.  One
of our students is blind and thus can't just use the printed version;
we contacted Sybex and found that for the same price as the printed
book, an electronic version on disk could be purchased, as long as a
non-disclosure agreement (NDA) was signed.  The reason for the NDA
is that it's easier to create a new version of the book from the
electronic copy than the dead tree version.

This was a fortunate surprise for us in the Guild, because now we can
feel a little better about offering online classes and knowing that
there are alternatives to our required textbook that can be used by
students who require electronic copies.

--
Kynn Bartlett <kynn@hwg.org>
President, Governing Board Member
HTML Writers Guild <URL:http://www.hwg.org>
Director, Accessible Web Authoring Resources and Education Center
  <URL:http://aware.hwg.org/>

Received on Tuesday, 26 October 1999 16:58:02 UTC