Re: Section 508

At 04:07 PM 10/19/2001 , Asif wrote:
>I work at a State University. We had a discussion today whereby our IT dept. said that Sec. 508 does not apply to faculty creating web based class notes. They felt it only applied to a researcher that received a federal grant. I have always thought that all State Institutions were obligated by now to comply (since they are inevitably tied to federal resources), "unless they could prove undue burden"

I have talked to people at California state universities who
feel that Section 508 _does_ apply to them, even though it is
not at all obvious from reading that this is absolutely the
case.  (I believe that "recipient of federal money" is NOT a
valid test for 508 compliance.)

What does appear to be indisputably true is that public
universities have _some_ sort of burden to be accessible; it's
a legal matter -- which I don't feel qualified to speak on -- to
say whether that comes from 508, ADA, or simply common sense.

Now, things get trickier when it comes to individual professors;
I know this, because I used to work at a university myself as
the web coordinator, and some profs can be ornery. ;)  It can
be politically difficult to impose these standards, especially
as most professors receive little training or assistance from
the university in creating class web sites.  If this is not
true at your university, then hurray! :)

Universities must provide instructors with the resources they
need to make accessible web sites.  Of this I have no doubt.
The exact details -- such as "what's the legal reason" and
"where does the money come from" -- I will leave to those more
skilled with the law and economics.  I am just a web guy. :)

--Kynn

--
Kynn Bartlett <kynn@reef.com>
Technical Developer Liaison
Reef North America
Accessibility - W3C - Integrator Network
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BUSINESS IS DYNAMIC. TAKE CONTROL.
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Received on Friday, 19 October 2001 21:28:58 UTC