Marty: Good afternoon and welcome to this, the first in a series of webcasts sponsored by the national center on disability and access to education, which is located at the center for persons with disabilities at Utah State University. The national center improves educational services for all students through distance learning technologies and the activities include policy monitoring and development, research on distance education and technology based programs and policies, and policy monitoring and dissemination.
I'm Marty Blair, I am the policy director for the national center, and I will be the moderator for today's session. Today we are joined by more than 70 participants from throughout the United States. This web and those that will follow in the coming months is a direct outcome of the national summit on disability and access to education that sponsored by the National Center in may of this year.
Our purpose today is to further a discussion on how to affect policy change in education, government, and business with respect to accessible electronically mediated education. Our invited panelists today will share their perspective regarding the possible points of influence in education, government, and business and the participating audience will have an opportunity to ask questions via e-mail. If you would like to submit a question during this webcast, we ask you to please go to the bottom of the tune-in page. There's a section there that will enable you to identify with yourself, then submit a question.
We’re delighted with our three panelists today, they include Mark Schneiderman, Jessica Brodey, and Deborah buck. Mark is the director of education policy for the software and information industry association, a principal trade association of the digital code and content industry that represents the interests of more than 600 leading high-tech companies that develop software and electronic content including for education and internet. Mark we welcome you today, thank you for being here.
Mark: Thanks.
Marty: Jessica Brodey is an attorney and public policy advocate with more than 10 years of experience. Her practice focuses on internet, communications, technology, education and disability policy. She has significant experience in coalition building and organizational research. Most recently through her work with the technology, education, and accessible media coalition, or the team coalition, a group of disability rights groups, educational organizations, and technology companies working to increase the access of students with disabilities to education technologies. Welcome, Jessica.
Jessica: Thank you.
Marty: And our third panelist is Deborah buck, who has more than 20 years' working experience working in the field of disability and technology. She currently serves as the executive director of the association of tech-act programs or ATAP. Prior to joining ATAP, Ms. Buck was director of state information technology accessibility initiatives at information technology, technical assistance and training center, ITTATC, and was the accessibility program manager at the New York state office for technology where she was responsible for information technology, accessibility-related policy and program development. Deborah we welcome you.
Deborah: Thanks Marty.
Marty: We have a number of things that we're going to discuss over this next hour. Each of our panelists is prepared to spend a few minutes talking about their perspective with regard to accessible education policy, points of possible influence. And we will hear from our panelists in the order that they were introduced. We'll start with you, Mark.
Mark: Great. Thanks Marty. And thank the National Center for inviting me to participate today. As Marty indicated, the Software and Information Industry Association is the principle association of the software and digital content industry. As director of education policy I work most closely with our education division companies, some 150 publishers that provide educational software, digital curriculum, online learning computer based assessments and other technology tools to the nations educational institutions and others in education. And of course all of our companies do look to the nations educational institutions to ensure a strong workforce as well. I’m involved in both the educational and workforce development sides of things. I should preface my remarks by making it clear that I’m surely not a disability expert. My experience is largely in working at the K-12 level and with our educational software and digital curriculum publishers. Also, my experience is not great in terms of distance learning, instructor led online courses, but more on the software and application and content side.
SIIA and our member companies have long worked with educators and state officials to assure delivery of innovative educational technologies that meet educations evolving needs. And we believe that accessibility is certainly one of the many important issues requiring partnerships between education and industry, between the public and private sectors.
As you all know, certainly better than I, software, electronic curricular materials, assistive technologies, etc. are critical to meeting the needs of learners with disabilities, both physical and learning disabilities. This includes adaptive software that presents content and information, the different modalities includes computer based assessments which allows inclusion for disabled students in testing, includes administration and communications applications that enable all stake holders to better track and administer student’s individualized education. That includes, of course, distance learning that provides access to many who would not otherwise have access due to geographic issues or other limitations, etc.
There are many specially designed products and assistive tools out there that allow learners with a variety of disabilities to access instruction and contents through the online and at their desktop, and in other, through other technology. At the same time, the question comes, how do we make all materials, not just those specially designed for disabled learners, but all materials, all software, all technologies available to students with physical and even learning disabilities?
Before I get to the primary question we're going to cover, which is how to encourage the accessibility of education-related technologies in terms of how you can influence business, let me just touch on a few prospectors from the developer's point of view, a few issues from the developer's point of view. There are a number of challenges, as I’ve said, to making software and technology accessible. Instructional design. Many-- and again I’m speaking largely from the point of view of developers of content and instructional software and courseware. Many of the applications incorporate visual, tactile, auditory, or other physical senses into the software design as a key means for speaking to an individual learner's abilities and strengths. Making this content accessible, for example, to a blind or physically impaired student, in other modalities can sometimes undermine its very value to that learner. For example, content that's about the visual representation of information cannot always be made accessible without undermining its instructional purpose. Issues perhaps even more complex with regard to learning disabilities. In some cases, I think we have to look at whether alternative resources, rather than accommodations to the actual resource, may be needed. Accessibility standards, while progress has been made in developing technical standards and evaluation standards, we still have a ways to go. There are still a lack of standards in many areas critical to education, and especially when it comes to the very interactive multimedia, multi-sensory content. For example, screen readers cannot necessarily make sense of math formulas or maps.
Section 508, as an example, which many are looking to, was not necessarily designed with the complexities of education, pedagogical, instructional issues in mind. It may not go far enough in terms of representing the true issues that need to be dealt with in education. There often exists also incompatibility between assistive technologies and enabling applications, as well, that still require work. In terms of costs, many cases, standards do exist, but cost may be prohibitive, in light of the current dynamics of supply-demand, and price point, quite frankly. This is especially the case with retrofitting, since a lot of educational software and applications are not necessarily completely retooled but they're updated on the margin, and experience from some publishers has shown that retrofitting existing products can be very costly.
We don't want to limit the ability of curriculum designers to create the most effective content, and so we need to be wary of those costs. When simulations, for example, become more prevalent, these challenges may be even greater in education. The flip side of that is that education is facing serious budget challenges at all levels, and schools themselves, in addition to facing potential higher costs from vendors that they may buy from, may face similar costs when it comes to developing their own web sites, their own online instruction, their own curricular materials, et cetera.
One last challenge I want to point out is just that balance that we have to reach here in terms of accessibility. And while terms of the lowest common denominator which is that we don't want to artificially force all content, all applications, all technology to be accessible, necessarily, to all learners, if that comes at the cost of discouraging development and adoption of high-quality, innovative learning resources to all, to others who perhaps do not have a disability. The result may be that developers and educators will be forced to adopt only the most basic software and curricular materials because those are the ones most easily made accessible. Such a lowest cost denominator certainly is not in the best interest of students, including the majority who do not require such accommodation.
Let me, in the next minute or two, turn to the question of how you all, as stake holders, as disability advocates, as program administrators, et cetera, can influence business, and how we can develop those partnerships that I talked about to reach some sensible solution, to reach the common goal that we all have, which is to make technology and technology-delivered education as accessible as possible to all students and take advantage of technology to reach the unique needs of disabled learners. Number one is procurement, whether it's an RFP, whether it’s local decision criteria that your institution or community may have, and making purchasing decisions, make sure that vendors understand that their product will be evaluated in part based on its accessibility. I think we probably don't see that nearly as much as we should to enable to truly influence developers and industry publishers, et cetera. In doing so, make it as clear as possible the specific criteria upon which your evaluation of a product or service will be based. Developers will ultimately meet the demands of their customer if they hear that this is a need and that they'll be judged on that point. Flexibility. At the same time, educators, and you all must understand the development cycle. Developers are facing multiple demands from various types of standards, platforms, it's just a large number of factors that they weigh when developing a product. At the same time, they need to be realistic, keep costs down, and therefore prices down to be able to meet the needs and capacities of their clients and their customers. Therefore, I think it is important that we try to meet half way and take the easy steps first and build up from there. Development partnerships is a very important opportunity for all of you. Educators and officials can help developers understand the importance of accessibility, to help them incorporate accessibility into their products. Partnerships can include acting as pilot sites, being part of a company development team, explaining how accessibility features can also enhance the product for all learners in terms of universal design issues, and also help vendors better articulate the accessibility features within their products. All of this is an important part of the development process and important for you all as customers to work with the vendors toward that goal.
Two last points. Common standards, the second to the last point here. Developers cannot build a separate product for every client and I’m sure you all recognize, sort of agree that there are common standards, accessibility criteria, more than developers will be able to meet them. As you know, a single customer will seldom be able to truly drive a product design. Standards should be national, but not federal. It’s important for education, disability, and the publisher community to come together toward this goal.
And that leaves the last point in terms of avoidance of prescriptive government regulation. You know, I think we all understand the interest and desire for mandated standards and requirements to come down from the federal or state level. But we have concerns that this could ultimately undermine the common end goal. Some of these regulations often are not sophisticated enough to recognize evolving technologies, evolving needs. They often force everybody simply into a compliance, check the box mentality that may undermine the ultimate incentive for quality innovation and can be counterproductive in terms of meeting education needs. The result could often be to drive the market to a lower common denominator as I’ve reference before, rather than encouraging innovation and quality. So those are just a few of the point I have in terms of how you all can help to encourage the industry community to better meet the needs of the accessibility community. Thanks Marty.
Marty: Thanks. Jessica.
Jessica: I’m going to focus a little bit on the policy arena and kind of going to do a broad stroke highlight of what’s happening with respect to accessibility in education and how that comes back to the actual distance learning and what we can do to improve accessibility for students. Right now there does seem to be a very big trend in improving access to education for all students with disabilities. Right now, with the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, there is significant language in that bill to try and improve access to technology. There’s also some language in there that would create a new way to improve access to all instructional materials through a new universal format being called the national instructional materials accessibility standard. And it’s a way to sort of expedite the process for making educational materials accessible for students. And what’s happening right now is that this process is currently being done on a volunteer basis across the country, and many states are going ahead and adopting new standards and creating new policies, trying to improve access for all students to new educational materials.
Along the way, there are a number of other state laws that are happening at the same time to include access to technology, not just to the instructional materials themselves. And what’s happening here is that we have a new environment and there’s a lot of questions that are out there and there’s a lot important things. And in order to really service our students and improve access in our system, we have to have a better grasp of what’s happening policy wise, what the legal requirements upon us are, and proactive steps we can take to try and improve accessibility throughout our decision making processes – that this does not become a burdensome process or expensive or inefficient in any way.
I think that I would suggest that one of the most critical components in this process is cooperation. Our current system is very disjointed. We have mainstream student in the general education classroom. We have general education students. We have special education students. And there’s different people responsible for purchasing the technology, the tools, the resources, and the instructional materials and creating the curricula for each of these different groups of students. And often times, we fail to sufficiently communicate between these different groups of people. Our policies and our procedures in our school systems are just not set up that way. And often times the monies coming from the federal government or coming from the states is also set up to not encourage cooperation between these different groups. However, with the changes in no child left behind, which are requiring that students with disabilities to be held to the same high standards as the other student in the classroom, and with upcoming changes in idea which place an importance on improving accessibility to assessments and the testing processes, we have a new dilemma. How can we have our students with disabilities being held to the same standards as other students with disabilities if we don’t have the same accessibility materials to give them so that they can follow along in the curricula?
One of the things that we need to start looking at is how we can best go about dealing with that issue, and I think that this applies very much so in the distance learning setting. We’re creating new technologies; we’re creating new materials, new courses, new patterns of doing things and from the outset, we need to look at accessibility and the big picture. We need to make sure that the people purchasing technology are talking to people that need to provide accessibility on the other end. Often times, we have many different versions of the same technology that’s out there, but one of the four types of technologies that are out there are compatible with the wide range of assistive technologies, and the other three may not be.
The main thing when making purchasing decisions, it is important for those technologists to understand what choices they’re making, what other expenses they could be incurring later by making one technology purchase over a different technology purchase. The critical component here is to have the policies and procedures in place to know that there is a system, to make sure that the right people are asking questions about accessibility early on.
So, in terms of what it is we can do to try and change and influence policy and improve it and make accessibility happen more efficiently and quickly and effectively, we need to start having these procedures in place that encourages the dialog, that presents a set of questions for the technologist to be asking in purchasing. Perhaps your state needs to have standards in place for what types of technologies they will or will not purchase, and when they will purchase it. In the procurement process, at the outset, trying to look at and assess the accessibility of materials that are being purchased for all students. These are the kinds of things that are absolutely critical in moving forward and the communication and the interwoven relationships that need to be developed between the different classes of education are critical.
As we’re moving forward to distance learning, are there things that distance learning is going to do that are going to be of benefit to typical classroom. What other steps to we need to take to ensure that that happens? What things can distance educators learn from what’s happening in the classroom when you’re doing an assessment of technology and other things that are out there? It’s very, very critical to look at each of these little steps along the way.
It’s also important to have a strong knowledge of the laws and what is going to be happening. There are copyright questions that come up in instructional materials through distance learning and these standards that are out there for what you can do in general for distance learning and what things you can do as an added incentive to help with respect to accessibility are two different things. And as we’re moving forward and getting into the distance learning arena, people making the decisions, the people in charge have to have a firm understanding of what those laws are and how it affects their ability to buy materials. Additionally, having a sense of what the upcoming changes are and how it’s going to alter the landscape of acquiring these materials. What other rights and questions come into play? That’s why policy issues of what’s happening on a federal and state level are still critical and it’s still why it’s so important to look to your internal policies and make sure that they’re in compliance and that steps you’re taking to set up a new program or execute a program will put you in compliance with the laws, and perhaps beyond that to make sure that you can maximize accessibility for all students.
Marty: Thank you. Deborah.
Deborah: Thanks Marty. I think it’s the perils of being the last person to go, a lot of what I will say will support what Mark and Jessica have already said, but from a different perspective. But what it clearly shows is that regardless of who your target audience is, whether its policy makers, educators, business and industry, or government officials, many of the strategies and key factors will prevail.
I want to focus on two points in terms of influencing government and that is looking at who are the decision makers, how are decisions being made, and ensuring that there is a coordinated approach with many stakeholders involved. And secondly, that issue of standards and that has come up consistently in both Mark and Jessica’s comments.
Let me come back to the coordinated approach. There is a lot of things happening in terms of accessibility to educational materials on the federal level, on the individual state level, and frankly, it’s complicated further by the fact that it’s even happening on individual school district levels. One of the key issues you need to be aware of is that there are different focuses at the different levels in terms of at the school district level. In some states it’s a very coordinated approach, for example the education department may fall under the authority of the governor and they make a very consistent, coordinated approach in terms of the policies, you know, rolling out services, etc. In other circumstances, the education department may be separate and distinct from the governor and operate as an independent entity. They are certainly influenced by the governor and other governor’s executive branch agencies, but are not necessarily held to them. An example of that is in terms of information technology. For example, in some states the school districts fall under the governor and their choices in their services or information technology, be it for the administration of the program or computers in the classroom are determined or affected by the office of the chief information officer of that particular state. They’re making policies. They’re making determinations about technical standards for the state and that may have a direct impact on school districts. In other states, they may have 700 school districts and each of those school districts may, in fact, have the authority to make their own independent decisions. What that can result in is a fragmented approach to technology, be it for administrative purposes or instructional technology purposes.
What we need to do is, as advocates or people looking to improve access on a local level or through your government, is figure out what is going on in your state. Who is actually in charge of making the decisions? And how do you become involved in that and make sure that it is a coordinated approach?
The bottom line is that, you know, and a perfect example is state government and their approaches to information technology. 10 years ago, in most states, independent state agencies made their own decisions about information technology, they decided what platforms they were going to have, what software tools they were going to use, and government quickly found themselves in this position of not even being able to communicate with one another in a seamless manner. And so what has happened, there has been a merge towards developing coordinated policies that will, I’m sorry, I lost my train of thought--coordinated policies that will affect the whole structure. And everyone can benefit and have the same platform, communicate seamlessly, and it has long-range benefits because you're getting a more economy of scale. If you're looking at a state structure and what they're purchasing, they can purchase bulk items that supply across the board.
The other issue is a key issue, related to standards. Standards are critical. As Mark said, you know, there is the 508 standard, and many people are promoting those as applicable to instructional technologies. That may not necessarily be the case. 508 may apply very well in terms of administrative technologies for the educational setting, but may not be appropriate in the instructional setting. And what we need to look at is, what are the right standards? There is a trend of late promoting universal access, as Jessica said. The challenge with that is universal access, universal design, is currently a concept, or it's based on principles. It is not necessarily based on clear-cut criteria or standards. If you are lacking clear-cut standards, and if an entity, you know, as Jessica said, the national instructional materials standards are coming out, but if an entity does not necessarily adopt those, and they are clear standards that can be implemented, it poses a challenge on two levels. It poses a challenge for the schools in terms of procurement because how you purchase items is very, has to be clearly tied to standards and clear criteria. The entities making decisions about procurement are often held to, and have to substantiate why they made those decisions. Sometimes in a legal action. And they've got to be able to point to what standards they used, and how they determined whether or not the items that they chose actually meet those standards or not. The other area where standards come into play is in terms of the actual instructional environment, and making an assessment on whether or not schools are actually complying and providing students with the access to the universally designed products that they need. The challenge is, again, if there are no standards, how do you determine whether or not you're actually providing those products, the right products for that person? Without standards, it becomes a subjective determination, and that's very risky from all points of view. I guess that the key is, is that looking towards coordinating with entities, see what is going on in your state, and see how you can influence that, what is the influence? What is going to be the influence of idea, and the requirements? And push towards the development of very clear policies, implementation practices, and standards. And when you're looking at procurement and standards, you need to go beyond asking questions. You know, just having a list of whether or not the product meets certain things. You need to often ask for documentation to substantiate that the products can do what they're supposed to do, and/or ask the person, the vendor you're buying from, to demonstrate that it can actually do it. So, Marty?
Marty: Great, thank you very much. I just received a note, for those of you who are joining us through the captioning tool, the phone line went down temporarily, but the captioning is back up. The archive that will be available tomorrow morning will have all of the content. We apologize for that but we have the technology taken care of. We think. We hope. Very good presentations of some very different perspectives on accessibility of electronically mediated education. One of the questions that has come up has to do with, in a business setting, what are the top motivators? Mark, you talked about some things that we should avoid doing with business, but what would be some top motivators for industry to want to develop products in an accessible format?
Mark: Well, you know, the top motivator for doing that is having customers that are asking for that, and helping them understand what that means. You know, a second, and I suppose an ideal world the top motivator is the desire to do what, you know, is believed to be the right thing, and the thing that students need. But companies are facing very challenging times in terms of educational technologies, and we need to find a point where those two sort of balance each other out. We've had cases where companies have gone perhaps moved more aggressively towards accessibility and universal design, than perhaps the market had called for, and ultimately there hasn't proved to be a demand from educators for that. And that's, you know, ultimately creates a disincentive center for companies to move in that direction.
I think the universal design type concepts, I think there's good, you know, fairly wide agreement that that, you know, ideally is a place to strive towards, but there may be cases where doing that can't be justified, and based on the primary need, which is that you're not going to be there to meet the needs of your education customer if you put yourself out of business because your costs and your development costs and such are higher than what you're able to sell, and that's just, you know, the cold, hard facts I guess of business. But I would hope that, you know, the educators and advocates on this phone recognize the importance of industry, and that we need to move sort of down that road together.
Marty: Great, thank you. Our other presenters, how would you address that question? What do you think would be the most motivating factor? Would you agree with the perspective Mark just put forward?
Jessica: This is Jessica speaking. I think one of the critical elements is market demand. Right now it's difficult to develop a product if you're not sure that there's a demand for it on the other side. And I think that part of this process is educating the purchasers here about what kinds of things it is they want to be looking for so they can turn around, often times, and ask for these things. And that is not something that is going to have an immediate response, but within a period of time, if there's enough requests for particular types of materials, of standards, of formats, that sends out a message to the people developing the products and the services to provide those types of services and materials
Marty: Thank you. Deborah, you talked a little bit about finding decision makers, and who are making the decisions. That would certainly be different. There's state government, school districts, universities, and now we're seeing a trend to regional education compacts and consortia. How do you think we could best influence, in the example, this latter example the regional educational compacts, groups of universities or groups of school districts, what do you think would be the best way to impact their decisions on purchasing and using accessible technologies for distance education?
Deborah: I think part of it is the strategy, is sales. And sales of their products, which is education. Because if you're looking at higher education, or even K through 12, education is one of the commodities of individual states. And in order to make it the most useable and most desirable, that's a strategy to work with people and to let them see the long-range benefits of accessibility and that it benefits a wider group, and it can open up a number of people who will want to be able to utilize that, whether it be people within their own state or out of states, with other communities, and looking at cross-consortium in other states and in other countries
Marty: How would standards fit into this? We've heard from each of you a brief discussion about standards. What are the pros and the cons of those standards, and are there certain standards that we should be looking towards? And what effect might those have?
Jessica: This is Jessica. I would say that the pros to standards really focus on the fact that you know what you're getting, that there's one way of doing things, you can be assured that if something meets a particular standard it's going to be compatible with a particular product you have. And that makes the process easier for determining what you need to get, and how it needs to work, and with what it will work. What's been mentioned before about the down side to standards, that sometimes the standard sets the bar too low. It's a minimum level, particularly with respect to accessibility; it's a minimum level of accessibility. And often that is not sufficient. It's a great starting point but not enough to get you all the way there. One of the things, when we're talking about standards, it depends on what kind of standard we're discussing. If you're talking about instructional materials, the new trend right now is towards the national instructional materials accessibility standards. That is the standard that is getting endorsement from federal law, it is getting endorsement from many state laws right now. The benefit to a standard like that is that, particularly for the publishers, they were under the demands of so many different states with so many different conflicting standards, that this makes it more possible for them to provide what the states need, in a way that is comprehensive and in a way that states can ensure is reliable and they can do what they need with those files that are being provided to them. With respect to software accessibility and web accessibility, we have lots of different competing standards out there. The lead standard with respect to web accessibility is W3C but it is not the only one, and even within the W3C standard there are different tiers of accessibility. You have the minimum level, the second level, the top level. There's a lot of different ways that you can go about making something accessible, and there's still, then, internal decisions that immediate to be made to determine how accessible do you want to get? Which level of the standards do you want to follow? With respect to a lot of information technology, there is not the same level of standards out there. There are many different standards, and many new standards that are emerging and a desire to create even more and newer standards. So we sort of have this competition going on right now where there's a sense from many businesses that they want to get together and create standards to make it possible to use technologies across multiple platforms and in a variety of contexts. But we have to have to be careful that we don't mandate standards so low and set the bar so low that those standards are really a burden, and don't let us move on in improving technology.
Mark: This is mark. I agree with what Jessica has stated. Just a couple of additional or clarifying points. One is that the file format that she referenced for instructional materials was designed specifically for the accessibility, the digital accessibility to printed textbooks for blind and visually impaired students. So it may grow into other things, but at this point it was designed for a relatively narrow purpose, and specifically, you know, to make a printed textbook available in a digital form, as opposed to content that was originally designed to be in a digital format and is therefore perhaps more interactive, more adaptive, more multimedia based. The second thing is, you know, in terms of the standards, there are definitely a lot of different types of standards out there. There's the technical standards that you would need to worry about if you're actually building to a certain need or specification, and that need or specification is really sort of the functional or educational standard that perhaps this group, I think most of the folks on this call, would be more interested in, is helping the developers understand from a functional or usability point of view what is needed. Now, there's certainly a lot of need for involvement on the technical side, as well, but I would think this group may be better served by thinking about those functional standards, those evaluation standards, Section 508, I think in my mind, anyway, I would put in that category, it doesn't tell you, it doesn't give you the code or tell you how the technical specs for accomplishing functionality. It gives you the criteria with which to evaluate whether something is accessible. And again as I think all of us have stated the challenge there is that it doesn't take into account, in that case, some of the unique issues around instruction and instructional material
Deborah: this is Deborah. I think that we're really on the cusp here, of some major changes, and the fact that we do have, there are some standards, and some of them may be viewed as minimum, that can be viewed both negatively and positively. You know, on the negative side, it may not go far enough, but we are still moving forward on that. Part of it is still a learning process for those in the field to see, you know, what are the other criteria and functionality that is needed to make instructional technologies most accessible. On the other hand a set of minimum level standards has real benefits when you have had nothing before, or you have contradictory standards or different standards across the nation. Because, as has been seen with web accessibility and 508, if you've got, you know, one entity adopting one standard, another entity adopting another, or modifying it significantly, it's very difficult for industry to be able to respond to those needs across the board. And what they end up doing is, you know, putting their hands up in the air and walking away from it saying it's not a viable option for us, because we just cannot produce 56 different products, if you will. But minimum standards will allow you to start at a base line and give us the opportunity to move forward and refine it and build upon it as we go.
Mark: Marty, this is Mark. One thought that I don't know whether it's truly come out here because we've talked a lot about the vendor-industry side, but much obviously of what goes on in education is developed internally, whether those courses that professors are putting on line, or what have you, and so I think you know it's just as important for educational institutions to look internally, and make sure that professors that developers and staff, et cetera, are asking of themselves what the same thing they're asking of vendors and publishers.
Deborah: and mark, to add on to that is the fact that instructors need to be doing it themselves, but it also needs to be embraced within a university's curriculum so that we are training as new people are going through and learning, they're learning these strategies and techniques at the front end, rather than, you know, learning generic IT technology, et cetera, and then learning after the fact how to retrofit it or adapt to these standards. It's got to become a comprehensive approach right at the front end for everyone.
Mark: Yeah, and I’m not sure if this is exactly where you're going, but as you were talking, it led me to think that, you know, often universities have instructional design programs, if that's what you're getting at, where developers are being trained in the designing educational content, and so certainly that's the place to really look internally and make sure, just as we talk about, I know at least through the K-12 level we talk about wanting educators to come out of their schools of education and learning how to use technology in their class room, we want those designers to come out of their programs, understanding how to make products accessible and understanding the importance of that. I think that's something that may take a few years for those designers to be running the shop, but it won't take that long.
Marty: That brings us to another question that has come up, and this was partly from the national summit that the national center held in May, but it's been suggested that for K-12 and higher education that there should be accreditation standards at those levels, and that those accreditation standards should include accessibility of electronically mediated education and an accreditation standard. The southern regional education board which is comprised of 16 states that has begun this discussion on technical guidelines for digital learning content, which deals with development, evaluation, selection, acquisition, and procurement of digital learning content. Among those draft standards are issues related to accessibility, going back to the standards of W3C and Section 508. Any thoughts about accreditation standards as a point of possible influence?
Deborah: This is Deborah. I definitely think, you know, accreditation is an area that needs to be examined, and not only for accessible technology, but just the technology in general. The fact is that technology has become a comprehensive tool in the educational class room. There are many people who, less so now I think a lot of new students going through are more familiar and comfortable with technology, but a lot of existing teachers, et cetera, professors, may be less comfortable. And you know, it's that group that we still need to get to. So accreditation is going to target those new people coming through, but we still have a large group of people who are out there working in the field, who may not have access to the kinds of training or exposure that they would like to have to be able to build the skills they need and adapt their curriculum and incorporate technology to the level that's most effective for all the students in their classroom, whether they are identified as having disability or not.
Marty: Good. Any thoughts from Jessica or Mark?
Jessica: I think that Deborah really covered it.
Marty: Good. Let's go to another question. What are some of the legal pressure points? Is it even appropriate to discuss legal pressure points with respect to accessible technologies in schools?
Deborah: Well, this is Deborah, I’m a lawyer so I thought maybe I'd take first crack at this question. There are a lot of different legal pressure points. There's pressure points from parents who feel that their children aren't getting appropriate access and appropriate technology, and often times they put pressure on by filing complaints or suits or going through the appellate procedures or through the alternative dispute resolution process. With respect to school districts, there are often contractual legal pressure points. If you have contracted for certain services and you're not getting them, or if there are certain- if you are liable under certain statutes and you can't get a copy of the documents that you need in an accessible format, this is mostly what with instructional materials I’m talking about, there are ways for you to turn around and enforce that and a way to protect yourself. With respect to some of the other standards that are out there, about information technology, many states now have laws that are like the federal 508 law, which require states to purchase the version of information technology. There are many legal pressure points that come from within state employees that are working in educational settings, who feel that the equipment being purchased is not accessible. That can turn around and be sent up the ladder. So what we're really talking about, here, is that there are so many different laws out there that are really putting pressure on the system overall to change, to improve accessibility for employees, for students, getting teachers to think about this, to change the practices and procurement. And there are so many people that see these accessibility issues as ripe, and in many cases they are, and there are legal remedies if those rights aren't satisfied. There is a need to be aware of all the different ways that the legal system could be putting legal pressure points on and try and act proactively to avoid the potential for a lot of unnecessary litigation.
Deborah: Marty, this is Deborah, just to support some of Jessica’s statements. There are the legal pressure point it’s always got to be an option. Hopefully, it's your last option and you can get resolution and get movement before having to turn to that. But it is always there, there are a number of avenues that can be used in terms of advocating, but there are other avenues prior to that. Jessica did mention that a number of states have adopted section 508-type laws. There are 22 states that have something on the books. Some have laws, some have executive orders, others have incorporated this into their technical standards. This is the key point that I was addressing before, is that in some cases those laws or policies do not apply to the educational system. That may be a separate entity within that state government. And the school district or the educational department may decide voluntarily that they will comply as well, but in some cases the state laws do not apply to them, and in some cases might exempt them. So you need to be careful and look at that very clearly before you turn to states' 508 laws as a legal option.
Mark: This is Mark. Taking it from the flip side, and use from the flip side, and using interpreting legal pressure points as broadly as possible, you know, you could include under legal pressure points funding programs, incentives, research and development, other government initiatives that would give incentive, I guess, is the bottom line, for moving in this direction, and that may be another avenue that folks want to explore. You know, there's certainly at the federal level there's a lot of research and development, funding that is in place. Perhaps so there aren't some creative incentives in place, such as setting aside perhaps certain funds that would specifically be competed for instructional development of accessible course, or for purchase by an institution for accessible materials, things like that, that will incentivize the market to respond.
Marty: Great. We are closing very quickly on the hour, but one last question, if we can try and address this in the next minute or two. One frustration that many web developers face is that we follow the standards set out by W3C and section 508, but popular web browsers in use do not implement all those standards. How can we make a difference in getting browser manufacturers understand the need to have browsers that implement the standards? Anyone want to take that? How can we make a difference with browser manufacturers or developers?
Mark: Well, this is Mark I guess perhaps that's aimed toward me. You know, in principle, the issues with the browser developer wouldn't be different than the other pressure points, and things we've talked about before. You know I’m not sure exactly what you're referring to, but if we're talking in terms, you know, Microsoft or the basic browsers that often times we have little choice in, it's certainly more challenging to do that, because ultimately the large majority of customers of such products don't have need for this accessibility. But I think, again, the goal would be to, as much as possible, incorporate strict criteria into procurement policy at, you know, if it's a state level or an institutional level, or at a regional level, if there are purchasing consortiums, and you know that's one way to hopefully drive better recognition and response from those developers.
Marty: Well thank you. We have about three and a half minutes left. We'd like to give each of our presenters about 30 to 60 seconds to make some final thoughts. We do have a number of questions that we were not able to address, but they will be posted on a forum that will be listed on the ncdae.org web site. Please look for our forums they will be coming soon and we can discuss these questions more in depth. Our presenters, Deborah buck, Mark Schneiderman and Jessica Brodey, in that order. If you would make your final comments.
Deborah: Sure, this is Deborah. What I would like to impart in closing is that you've really looked at what is going on in your particular environment, not just within your back yard, but within your state or your region as a whole. Look to who the decision makers are. What are the plans for technology? Build up your stake holder environment, look for people who may not have the same issue you do, but who you can band together to promote common issues and things that will support one another. And clearly you need to promote the adoption of clear standards and policies and processes so that you can be sure that when you reach the implementation stage, you actually are implementing. There are far too many laws on the books at the federal level and at the state level that look really good on paper and that's as far as they go because there has been no additional work in terms of developing implementation policies and processes. Thank you processes. Thank you.
Jessica: I guess I would say that the most important thing to focus on is interoperability and communication. What we really want to see here is a concerted effort between all different sections of educators, whether it's in distance learning or outside of distance learning, but in the educational system, to try and start that dialogue. What Deborah had to say about advanced planning and looking to the environment around you is critical. We need to make sure that the people making the decisions have resources available to them, that they know who it is they can turn to, who can provide them information about accessibility. And that they know to bring those people into the room during the planning stages. One of the most critical things we can do is to bring in discussions about accessibility and the decision making into the early planning stages, and to not wait until after the fact, when it's much more difficult to try and increase accessibility.
Mark: And this is Mark. I would certainly echo what Deborah and Jessica stated, there. I agree completely with that. Representing, you know, again, the industry perspective, they will respond to a demand from their customers, whether that's authoring tools, browsers, publishers of instructional content, deliverers of online courses, what have you. The key is to make sure that those purchasing criteria for accessibility become the standard, become the norm, and are not simply something that a company may hear once in a while from a special educator. And so looking internally to your institutions, making that policy, and then working collaboratively with other institutions and national organizations to as much as possible rally around comments, functional criteria that you will use to evaluate your purchases, I think is what will move things forward. And then the technical design and standards will evolve with that, to meet that demand. Thanks.
Marty: Great. And thank you, to our three presenters. We really appreciate your time and those of you joining us from throughout the country. We're glad that you're with us. We remind you that our next web cast will be on Wednesday, December 1st at the same time, 3:00 p.m. Eastern. The topic will be research and development of accessible technologies. If any of our participants would like to share something that they are doing or something they have seen that works well please contact us on our web site at ncdae.org. This web site will be archived and available on our site tomorrow morning. We also remind you of an in-face, in-person meeting in collaboration with the Assistive Technology Industry Association meetings that will be held in Orlando, Florida on January 19th. If you're interested in participating in that, please visit our web site and contact us, and visit our web site for additional information and daily updated news regarding accessibility and technology mediated education. Thank you very much, and have a great afternoon.