Abstract:

Demonstration Projects to Ensure Students with Disabilities Receive a Quality Higher Education Program--CFDA 84.333
Electronic Accessibility For All--Failure Is Not An Option

An electronic revolution is transforming postsecondary education--faculty in all fields of study are integrating a myriad of Web pages and electronic documents into their courses. As electronically mediated instruction transforms higher education, the need to ensure electronic accessibility for all learners becomes an ever increasing practical, moral, and legal obligation. Unfortunately, this instructional revolution is rapidly outpacing higher education's ability to meet the accessibility needs of their growing number of students with disabilities. For example, a recent Web site accessibility study of Wisconsin's 13 four-year public institutions using BOBBY 3.2 found that only 53% of the campus homepages were accessible to learners with disabilities (Schmetzke, 2002). Worse still, Schmetzke also discovered that fewer than 4% of the pages located only one level beneath the showcase homepages were accessible. The implications are both profound and troubling. Learners who lack electronic accessibility in a twenty-first century classroom are no better off than their earlier counterparts who confronted steep staircases that barred their entry to university buildings. Despite current federal laws and regulations, electronic accessibility for learners with disabilities remains a chronic and growing problem in the nation's postsecondary institutions.

The project's ultimate goal is to ensure equitable and effective Web-mediated instructional opportunities for students with disabilities throughout Wisconsin's and the nation's postsecondary institutions by building higher education's organizational capacity to attain the required level of Web accessibility and maintain that high level of accessibility as instructional use of the Web increases and the inevitable turnover in faculty, staff, and students occurs.