Can you define the Web accessibility issue?

On Sept. 30, 1999, the New York State Office for Technology issued Policy 99-3, entitled Universal Accessibility for New York State Web Sites http://www.irm.state.ny.us/policy/99-3.htm, which requires that "persons with disabilities have access to information—via the World Wide Web—which is equivalent to that available to persons without disabilities." As its standard, the state has adopted the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/. The W3C has as one of its three long-term goals to "make the Web accessible to all by promoting technologies that take into account the vast differences in culture, education, ability, material resources and physical limitations of users on all continents." The concept underlying that goal is known as "universal accessibility."

How do these guidelines affect UB?

SUNY system administration has determined that-at least for the purposes of Policy 99-3-SUNY institutions are state agencies and must, therefore, comply. I have been designated the person responsible for implementing the policy at UB. Our plan is to make steady progress toward compliance. In order to make that possible, we formed the Web Access Subgroup, which I chair, and charged it with leading the university's efforts to make universal accessibility an institutional norm. The subgroup has, in turn, formed three work groups responsible for information and education, technical standards and instrumentation, and consultation, respectively. Most of the members of the work groups are not drawn from the subgroup. Altogether, we have about 30 faculty and staff members contributing to our efforts.

Will the university meet the state's deadline?

Policy 99-3 allowed state agencies one year to apply the W3C guidelines to all affected Web sites. If possible, we would have met the deadline-Sept. 30, 2000-but it wasn't feasible. There are at least 150,000 catalogued pages on university Web sites and an estimated 300,000 other pages. We couldn't have ascertained the accessibility of even a fraction of those pages in the year we were given, much less reconfigured the inaccessible ones. This is one of those unfunded mandates that we hear so much about. Everything we've accomplished so far has been the product of the voluntary efforts of information-technology professionals and other interested and concerned members of the university community who already carry considerable workloads. Our strategy is to lay down a foundation of knowledge, insight and technical expertise on which we can build widespread commitment to the principles of universal accessibility. We're convinced that once university faculty and staff members who sponsor and develop Web sites understand the need for, and benefits of, universal accessibility, they will work hard to comply with the state's policy-especially if we offer them technical assistance in the form of tools, guidelines and prototypes. We've already developed some of those resources and are working on others.

What is the gain in complying with the mandate?

The principles of universal accessibility serve more than the needs of persons with disabilities. For example, a universally accessible Web site can be read and comprehended by a person who may not speak or understand fluently the language in which it is written or by someone using an emerging technology such as handheld Internet devices. What's more, attention to universal-accessibility design principles helps developers focus on the primary purpose of most Web sites: effective and efficient information exchange.

How far down does the responsibility go? Are personal Web pages affected?

Because there are so many pages on university Web sites, we've taken the approach that the responsibility belongs to the university faculty and staff members who sponsor and develop Web sites. Realistically, only they can and should respond to the state's policy. It's not practical to have a single designated group of information-technology professionals attempt to address the accessibility of all of the university's Web sites. Aside from the sheer magnitude of such an undertaking, it wouldn't work from a service perspective. Only the sponsors and developers of the sites understand the information needs the sites are intended to fulfill. Only the sponsors and developers can and should modify the sites, if necessary, to make them accessible. Personal Web pages are not affected-if you mean those pages that serve no educational or administrative purpose.

What is the University doing to help departments and individuals meet the mandate?

Appropriately, we've launched a Web site http://wings.buffalo.edu/it/webaccess that comprises information about our universal accessibility initiative, links to tools and other useful resources, training schedules and relevant news items. The Web site will be continually enhanced and updated. Mark Greenfield of CIT (Computing and Information Technology) and Stacy Person of the ETC (Educational Technology Center) are offering a total of five Web-accessibility workshops during the Fall 2000 semester. We expect to continue offering training opportunities for the foreseeable future. One of our work groups is documenting a prototype site-development project that illustrates the ease and advantages of accessible Web design. Once it's done, the narrative will be added to our Web site. It's taken some time, but we've developed—and will continue to develop—a substantial set of resources that will help departments and individual users meet the mandate.

What question do you wish I had asked, and how would you have answered it?

I wished you'd asked whether there is any way your readers can participate in our work. My answer would have been, 'If you're interested in this issue and want to advance the cause of universal accessibility, please contact me at prittner@buffalo.edu.