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NCDAE: The National Center on Disability and Access to Education

Template for Institutional Web Accessibility Activities

Institutions who wish to document web accessibility efforts as part of continuous improvement for reaffirmation may benefit from a template to collect institutional data and information. This template provides a guide for doing so. This template can be used in conjunction with the Best Practices for Institution-Wide Web Accessibility Document to help provide a structure for including web accessibility efforts in reaffirmation reports or quality improvement outlines.

Ensuring that your institution's web presence is accessible to all, including those with disabilities, is not only the right thing to do; it also provides a number of benefits to your institution:

While each institution is different and you will have to look at your web accessibility efforts in terms of your own academic venue, you may find a multitude of opportunities to use your digital accessibility efforts as evidence of compliance for your regional accreditor or as part of your quality enhancement schemas.

These templates are provided to help you to organize and outline your evidence. Some examples of evidence are provided for each benchmark. However, they do not represent the full spectrum of evidence that may be appropriate for your institution. For more detailed examples, please review our Web Accessibility Template Examples.

Please feel free to use and adapt the templates to best suit your institutional needs. Depending upon the conventions of your accrediting agency, you may choose to highlight your web accessibility efforts as a whole, describing how each benchmark is applicable to the requirements of your agency; you may choose to embed specific benchmarks into the narrative of your evidence for a given principle, criteria or standard; or, you may adapt the template in any other way that makes sense for your venue. Samples of how the templates can be incorporated into reaffirmation materials will be presented in next month's newsletter. You can cut and paste the pieces into other reports, add additional columns and outlines, mix and match, or consolidate the information as you see fit. The template is available as a Word Document to make it easier to incorporate into your existing documents.

Download the Template for Institutional Web Accessibility Activities

Please note: Below are two example sections of the template. The template format is the same for all benchmarks except the templates for Indicator 2, Benchmarks B and C: (An Accessibility Policy and A Written Accessibility Plan). These templates are set up to indicate the robustness of the documents based on important components that should be included in comprehensive policies or plans. To see the whole template, download the word document.

Indicator #1: Institutional Vision and Leadership Commitment

Benchmark A: The Commitment of Administrative Leadership

Evidence of Administrative Leadership can include:

  • A posted statement of vision or commitment
  • The creation and maintenance of a web accessibility task force or institution-wide accessibility group
  • An official institutional policy on web accessibility
  • An institution-wide accessibility action plan
  • Resources that are available for web accessibility efforts
  • Activities to promote the visibility, endorsement and communication of web accessibility efforts

This benchmark specifically supports requirements or plans by:

Evidence

Description

Supporting Documentation

Additional Notes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Describe any evidence that is currently in development

 


Indicator #2: Planning and Implementation

Benchmark C: A Comprehensive Written Accessibility Plan

Written Accessibility Plan Checklist*:

This benchmark specifically supports requirements or plans by:

Plan Element

Yes/No

Key Points

Supporting Documentation

Additional Notes

An executive summary of the plan or statement of concept

 

 

 

 

A provision for benchmarking and market evaluation

 

 

 

 

A provision to gather baseline information

 

 

 

 

Identification of existing institutional challenges and risks

 

 

 

 

Identification of existing institutional priorities

 

 

 

 

A process to communicate and market the accessibility plan to the campus and other communities

 

 

 

 

A provision for budget items appropriate to accomplish the plan

 

 

 

 

Metrics, milestones and measurable steps

 

 

 

 

A comprehensive timeline

 

 

 

 

Assignment of specific responsibilities

 

 

 

 

An education plan for staff, faculty and students

 

 

 

 

A plan to obtain and use feedback institution-wide

 

 

 

 

A plan to monitor the progress of accessibility outcomes

 

 

 

 

An explicit strategy to evaluate and revise the plan in an ongoing way

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Describe any work that is currently being done to develop a Comprehensive Policy

 

*Put any additional elements of the plan in the spaces provided