Re: Web Accessibility Education

Kynn,

Thank you for the reminder about the next upcoming HWG online class on Web
accessibility, but in leaving out the second half of my comment about
training, you imply I stated that WAI has _no_ responsibility to educate
people, where I was in fact countering the implication elsewhere that WAI
somehow had _sole_ responsibility to train people people who us the W3C/WAI
guidelines. 

The rest of my comment read: 

>While I think
>WAI has some useful support materials available and many more on the way,
>and many people involved in WAI do many presentations and trainings, I hope
>I'm misreading the intent of those earlier comments. WAI can help --
>hopefully greatly -- with creation of re-usable training resources, but
>training activities can and should be shared among many organizations,
>including, in the case of US federal agencies, by (US) FedWeb which has
>already been conducting trainings for federal agencies on this topic for
>the past two years to prepare them for their obligations under US Section
>508. And yes, WAI must be prepared to deal with potential backlash from
>individuals or organizations that react in any of many possible ways to
>these guidelines; however, the responsibility for responding in a
>clarifying and constructive way is also, I hope, something to be shared by
>the many organizations involved in trying to make the Web more accessible
>for people with disabilities.

- Judy

At 06:13 PM 7/20/99 -0700, Kynn Bartlett wrote:
>At 05:54 PM 7/20/1999 , Judy Brewer wrote:
>>Regarding responsibility for training, there appears to be an undercurrent
>>in some of the comments earlier on this thread that if W3C publishes a
>>guideline explaining how to make Web sites accessible, as a reference for
>>those who would chose to make them accessible or to be referenced by
>>organizations setting requirements on particular entities to make their
>>sites accessible, then somehow W3C/WAI must assume responsibility to train
>>any entities that have obligations to make accessible sites.
>
>I for one am glad that the responsibility is not on the W3C/WAI
>to educate people, because that means more potential income for
>those of us who teach this kind of stuff. :)
>
>BTW, next HWG online class in web accessibility starts August 2
>with info at http://www.hwg.org/services/classes/d201.6.html
>Tell a friend!
>
>--
>Kynn Bartlett                                    mailto:kynn@hwg.org
>President, HTML Writers Guild                    http://www.hwg.org/
>AWARE Center Director                          http://aware.hwg.org/
>
----------
Judy Brewer    jbrewer@w3.org    +1.617.258.9741    http://www.w3.org/WAI
Director, Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) International Program Office
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
MIT/LCS Room NE43-355, 545 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA,  02139,  USA

Received on Wednesday, 21 July 1999 02:35:12 UTC