William Erickson
Sharon Trerise
Camille Lee
Sara VanLooy
Susanne Bruyère
This research is supported by a Field-Initiated Development grant from the U.S. Department of Education National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) to Cornell University, Employment and Disability Institute entitled Web-based Student Processes at Community Colleges – Tools for Ensuring Accessibility (Grant No. H133G040255), Susanne M. Bruyère, Principal Investigator. The contents of this paper do not necessarily represent the policy of the Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government (Edgar, 75.620 (b)).
The Internet has become an
integral part of our society. Web-based technology can open doors to education
for students with disabilities, but inaccessible web sites can pose significant
barriers to people who are blind or visually impaired, people who are deaf,
people who have mobility impairments that limit their use of a mouse, and
people with some types of learning disabilities or other cognitive impairments.
Community colleges are vital
and committed providers of post-secondary education for students with
disabilities and a crucial link to better employment opportunities. According
to the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), the 1,171
Colleges and universities are
making extensive use of the Internet for collecting admission and financial aid
applications. Benefits from online application services are enjoyed by both the
educational institution and the prospective student who applies online. It is
vital that these sites are accessible to persons with disabilities.
Web pages that do not meet
accessibility guidelines can create a significant and often insurmountable
barrier to students with disabilities. Inaccessible web pages greatly increase
the potential for discrimination against students with disabilities in
situations where college admission and financial aid depend on student access
to this function. It is imperative that web sites offering these services be
made accessible so that students with disabilities are afforded the same
benefits of online applications as their non-disabled peers.
Cornell University’s
Employment and Disability Institute was funded by the U.S. Department of
Education’s National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research
(NIDRR) to conduct a project with the following three objectives: 1) survey student
services professionals at community colleges to examine the extent of use of
the internet for providing services and the awareness of internet accessibility
issues, 2) evaluate a sample of community college websites for accessibility
and usability by students with and without disabilities, and 3) develop a
toolkit for improving access to internet-based services at community colleges.
In June 2006 a survey was
conducted of top Student Services personnel in 885 public and private 2-year
degree-granting institutions. A total of 696 valid responses were received
– an overall 79% response rate. The purpose of the survey was to collect
information about college policies and practices regarding web accessibility
and online student services.
The survey covered topics
including the colleges’ use of the internet for providing 7 types of
student services, awareness of web accessibility issues for students with
disabilities, the existence of college policies and/or guidelines regarding web
page design and accessibility, enrollment of students with and without
disabilities, institutional barriers to creating accessible web sites, and
resources that would be most helpful in addressing web accessibility issues at
their college.
Approximately 93% of the
responding colleges were public, with the remainder being private institutions.
The student enrollment numbers of participating colleges varied in size, with
36% having less than 3,000 students, 44% having 3,000-9,999 students, and the
remaining 20% being large colleges with more than 10,000 students enrolled.
Slightly over half of the schools (57%) had a student diversity plan and about
half (48%) of those with a plan included students with disabilities in the
plan.
The number of students with
disabilities served by the college was 335 on average, ranging to upwards of
5,000 credit students in one of the larger colleges surveyed. On average,
approximately 5% of the students enrolled in the responding colleges had a
disability.
Job roles of respondents varied
somewhat, with approximately a third of survey respondents describing
themselves as a Director or Coordinator, a quarter were deans, another quarter
were Presidents/Vice Presidents, Provosts or Vice Chancellors, about 4% were
officers, managers, registrars, administrators and the remaining 13% were in
other positions. More than half of the respondents had held their positions for
five years or more.
As can be seen in Figure 1, the
vast majority of community colleges are taking advantage of the Internet to
provide some of the most important student services. Virtually all (99%) of the
participating colleges provided at least one type of student service online.
Over 90% of the colleges surveyed currently offer online access to course
catalogs, class schedules and online courses. Between 80 and 90% also offer
financial aid applications, admissions applications for the college, and course
registration online. Six out of ten offered bursar billing services online.
Many of the colleges that didn’t currently offer a specific student
service online planned to do so within the next two years.
Begin Figure 1:
Online Services offered by community Colleges:
Data presented in a bar graph will be included in the table below:
|
|
Currently Online |
Planned within 2 years |
No plans/don't know |
|
Bursar billing |
60% |
11% |
28% |
|
Course registration |
81% |
10% |
9% |
|
Financial aid |
84% |
5% |
10% |
|
Admissions application |
85% |
10% |
4% |
|
Online classes |
93% |
1% |
6% |
|
Class schedule |
94% |
1% |
5% |
|
Course catalog |
95% |
2% |
4% |
End Figure 1
Respondents were asked if any of
the online offerings of their college were only available online. Of the
colleges that currently offered these services online:
• 11% offered course
registration exclusively online
• 9% offered financial
aid applications only online
• 5% made course catalogs
available only online
• 5% had only online
class schedules
The majority of respondents
(72%) said that their college had guidelines governing web design. Of those who
didn’t currently have guidelines in place, 70% were planning to implement
some guidelines within the next year. Approximately half (51%) reported that
their college had requirements regarding web accessibility. Approximately half
of those who didn’t have an accessibility policy currently in place said
that the college had plans to implement one within the next year.
The colleges that had some type
of web accessibility requirement were asked what types of pages were covered by
that requirement. Seven out of ten colleges (71%) with requirements said that
all the college pages were covered. Most said that the Student Services pages
were covered (84%). Three quarters of responding colleges said that faculty
course pages and distance learning pages were covered and two thirds (66%) said
that department and faculty pages were covered. Six out of ten colleges said
that the college webmaster or someone else actually checks the student services
website for accessibility to persons with disabilities.
Colleges were asked about three
specific potential barriers to creating accessible websites for their college.
As can be seen in Figure 2, all three barriers were seen as an issue on their
campus by about half of the participants. Although lack of knowledge and
concerns about cost and time were slightly more likely to be seen as a barrier,
no single issue clearly stood out from the others.
Figure 2: Barriers to creating accessible web
sites
Lack of awareness about need
for web accessibility: 48%
Costs and Time involved: 53%
Lack of Knowledge about what is
required to make websites accessible: 54%
End Figure 2
To evaluate the accessibility
and usability of online student services, tasks and processes were selected that
prospective students are likely to perform, noting the need for institutions to
make the experience positive for prospective students if this is to be a key
tool for recruiting students as well as providing important services to
enrolled students. The goal of the evaluations was to identify potential
barriers to accessibility and usability for all users. Usability tests were
specifically focused on getting an in-depth look at the barriers encountered by
the target group — people with visual disabilities and reading-related
learning disabilities.
The four methods used to
evaluate a sample of community college websites were:
• Automated
(software-based) Section 508 Evaluation
• Manual Section 508
Evaluation
• Target Group Usability
Testing
• Simulated Target Group
Usability Testing
Thirty community college
websites were initially evaluated for compliance with the web accessibility
standards found in Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 U.S.C.
794d). Ten of those sites were selected for Simulated Target Group usability
testing, and two of those ten were tested for usability by individuals with
visual impairments, individuals with reading-related learning disabilities
(LD), as well as a control group of individuals without disabilities.
The specific pages evaluated on
each site included the college home page, the Student Disability Services page,
the online admissions application page(s), the Financial Aid information page,
the Academic Programs information page (for automated and manual Section 508
review), and the Class Schedule (for usability testing).
Figure 3 shows the results of
the Section 508 evaluation. None of the 30 colleges’ home pages,
financial aid pages, academic programs pages, or disability services pages
complied with all the Section 508 Accessibility Standards when evaluated using
the Manual Section 508 evaluation procedures. The admissions application pages
fared only slightly better; 91% of the 78 pages containing on-line forms failed
to meet one or more criteria for accessibility.
Figure 3: Section 508
Accessibility Checkpoint Review
Data from
graph in paper presented in tabular form below.
|
508 Criteria |
No
Implementation - significant barrier |
Partial
Implementation |
Full
Implementation |
|
a)
Images (n=136) |
35 |
42 |
23 |
|
b)
Multimedia (n=0) |
NA |
NA |
NA |
|
c)
Color (n=142) |
4 |
|
96 |
|
d)
CSS (n=132) |
1 |
2 |
97 |
|
e)
Image maps: Redundant Links (n=0) |
NA |
NA |
NA |
|
f)
Client-side image maps provided (n=0) |
NA |
NA |
NA |
|
g)
Data table Headers (n=6) |
100 |
|
|
|
h)
Logical Level Headers (n=0) |
NA |
NA |
NA |
|
i)
Frames (n=4) |
100 |
|
|
|
j)
Flickering (n=137) |
4 |
|
96 |
|
k)
Text-Only (n=5) |
|
20 |
80 |
|
l)
Scripts -- Asst. Tech Equivalent (n=60) |
87 |
5 |
8 |
|
m)
Scripts - Link to accessible version (n=11) |
100 |
|
|
|
n)
Forms (n=78) |
91 |
4 |
5 |
|
o)
Skip Nav Links (n=136) |
97 |
|
3 |
|
p)
Timed Response (n=1) |
100 |
|
|
End Figure 3
Usability testers included individuals who were blind and using screen reader software
to access web content, individuals with low vision who used some type of
software-based screen magnification, individuals with reading-related learning
disabilities using no assistive technology and non-disabled individuals.
Testers were asked to perform four tasks on each of two Community College
websites:
• Task 1: Finding Contact
Information for the Disability Student Services Office (DSS)
• Task 2: Finding Meeting
Times for a Specific Class
• Task 3: Completing the
Online Admissions Application form
• Task 4
: Finding the link to the Federal Financial Aid Form (FAFSA)
Across all tasks, visually
impaired persons using either screen magnifiers or screen readers were more
likely to have difficulties on both colleges’ websites
than users with LD or the control group. Practically all users,
including those without disabilities, encountered some difficulties
accomplishing certain tasks. Finding the link to the Federal Financial Aid Form
was fairly straightforward for most users. Finding the meeting times for a
specified class was difficult for testers in all four test groups, with
individuals in each group requiring assistance to
complete the task.
Completing the online
admissions form was by far the most difficult task for all users (see Figure
4). Nearly all of the testers with disabilities required assistance in
completing the task, as did the majority of control group (without disablilities) on the College 2 website. Nearly all of the
screen magnifier and screen reader users, as well as a sizable majority of the
LD testers required assistance, and several were unable to complete the task
even with assistance.
All of the testers, regardless
of disability type, encountered similar usability obstacles. Figure 5 shows the
major issues and the percentage of those who encountered each issue. Control
subjects are included in this figure as well, since they encountered the same
problems as the target tester groups.
Figure 5: Completing Online
Application Form – Percentage of testers able to complete task at each
site
Data from bar chart in original
are presented in tabular form below
|
Task: completing
online application form |
Users with Reading Learning Disability |
Screen Magnifier Users |
Screen Reader Users |
Controls |
|
Completed without
assistance – College 1 |
29 |
0 |
25 |
80 |
|
Completed without
assistance – College 2 |
33 |
0 |
0 |
20 |
|
Completed with
assistance – College 1 |
43 |
75 |
75 |
20 |
|
Completed with
assistance – College 2 |
67 |
67 |
50 |
80 |
|
Unable to complete
with assistance – College 1 |
29 |
25 |
0 |
0 |
|
Unable to complete
with assistance – College 2 |
0 |
33 |
50 |
0 |
End Figure 5
Participants using screen readers
were impacted most significantly by accessibility problems such as unlabelled
form fields, missing alternative text, and auto-refreshing form fields.
However, the majority of the problems participants experienced during testing
were usability issues, not accessibility problems. Usability issues, such as
the use of unfamiliar terminology, unintuitive navigation schemes, unclear
content headings, link text and instructions, large quantities of unorganized
data, and the use of hard to read design elements such as low contrast colors
(e.g. gray text) and small type, were found across all tester groups, including
the control group.
These issues reveal a systemic
problem with website design. Many colleges appear to use the
institution’s existing administrative and academic structure to inform
the website’s design. Unfortunately, this structure is not intuitive to a
naïve user who has never interacted with the college before and may likely
be new to the postsecondary environment. Since in general, community colleges
cater to students directly out of high school, adults seeking continuing
education and individuals with disabilities who do not necessarily have
experience with higher education, these results reinforce the recommendation
that user testing is a critical first step in creating websites and design
based on actual user perspectives, rather than institutional perspective.
The survey of community
colleges clearly points out the extensive use of the Internet for providing
student services. A number of colleges have even made some of these services
available only on the web. This fact has serious implications for
students with disabilities who will encounter barriers if web pages are not
designed in an accessible and usable way, as was frequently illustrated in the
project’s accessibility and usability testing phase.
The survey identified several
positive signs regarding web accessibility:
• High participation rate
in survey shows interest in the topic.
• Most decision makers
are aware of accessibility issues.
• Half of the colleges
surveyed currently had some type of web accessibility requirements and half of
those that didn’t planned to within the next year.
• Many of the colleges
check web accessibility of their student services sites.
However, there is clearly more
work to be done regarding web accessibility as is evidenced by the results of
the accessibility and usability evaluations of community college websites.
Virtually all of the Community colleges’ websites examined performed
poorly on both the Section 508 accessibility evaluations and the usability
testing. Accessibility barriers existed on many college websites that may well
have prevented users from being able to even complete an admissions
application. Additionally, usability issues were frequently encountered not
only by testers with disabilities, but also by many of the control group
testers as well.
Although awareness of web
accessibility issues and a web accessibility policy are clearly a step in the
right direction, accurate testing and thorough understanding of the challenges
created by inaccessible and unusable content are needed to create truly
accessible web pages. Our usability testing illustrates how critical user
testing is in web design for all users, not just users with disabilities.
The Web Access Toolkit
(www.webaccesstoolkit.org) provides community colleges with resources and a
process for achieving long-term accessibility and enhanced usability of their
college’s website. Because an abundance of resources already exist to
address the technical aspects of accessible and usable web design, the toolkit
is designed to meet the needs of college administrators and staff members
who have responsibility for oversight of web content who wish to address
the broader campus issues of web accessibility. The major components of
the Toolkit are:
•
Getting
Started - basic information regarding accessibility and our research findings
•
6
Steps to Accessibility
•
and
extensive Annotated resource database
•
Straightforward
procedure for examining the accessibility and usability of web pages
•
Quality
indicators addressing five primary areas: Raising awareness, Identifying stakeholders,
Evaluating web content for accessibility and usability, Developing a
policy, and Providing training and support
•
Sample
forms for documenting your process and progress.
•
Please
visit www.webaccesstoolkit.org to access the free toolkit and more information.
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation
Act as amended in 1998; Electronic and Information Technology Standards
www.Section508.gov
W3C Web Accessibility
Initiative
http://www.w3.org/WAI/
AccessIT (
www.washington.edu/accessit
WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind)
www.webaim.org
EASI (Equal Access to Software
and Information)
www.rit.edu/~easi
NCAM (
For more information about this project, contact:
Susanne M. Bruyère
Employment and Disability Institute
201 ILR Extension Building
Tel 607.255.9536
Fax 607.255.2763
TTY 607.255.2891
Email smb23@cornell.edu
Web www.edi.cornell.edu