Electronic doors to education: study of high school website accessibility in Iowa

Abstract

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and Sections 504 and 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities in all aspects of daily life, including education, work, and access to places of public accommodations. Increasingly, these antidiscrimination laws are used by persons with disabilities to ensure equal access to e-commerce, and to private and public Internet websites. To help assess the impact of the anti-discrimination mandate for educational communities, this study examined 157 website home pages of Iowa public high schools (52% of high schools in Iowa) in terms of their electronic accessibility for persons with disabilities. We predicted that accessibility problems would limit students and others in obtaining information from the web pages as well as limiting ability to navigate to other web pages. Findings show that although many web pages examined included information in accessible formats, none of the home pages met World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards for accessibility. The most frequent accessibility problem was lack of alternative text (ALT tags) for graphics. Technical sophistication built into pages was found to reduce accessibility. Implications are discussed for schools and educational institutions, and for laws, policies, and procedures on website accessibility.

Homepage not enough when evaluating web site accessibility

“…These results demonstrate that evaluating the homepage alone is not sufficient when evaluating web pages for accessibility. Previous studies using only the homepage in the analysis (Davis, 2002;Flowers et al, 1999;Lazar et al, 2003;Lazar and Greenidge, 2006;Loiacono and McCoy, 2006;Klein et al, 2003;Paris, 2006;Spindler, 2002;Yu, 2002) may not have shown the whole picture of accessibility. However, the WAB scores for levels 1, 2, and 3 of these web sites are highly correlated and previous Homepage not enough studies that included more pages than just the homepage (Diaper and Worman, 2003;Sloan et al, 2002;Thompson, 2003), if even a limited number of deeper pages (Jackson-Sanborn et al, 2002;Hackett et al, 2004), may have provided better estimates of the accessibility of the web sites under evaluation.…”

Pembuatan Website dan Sistem Informasi Pembayaran SPP sebagai Pendukung Kompetitif dan Eksistensi Madrasah Aliyah Abadiyah Gabus-Pati

“…Beberapa komunitas lokal sekolah juga bergantung pada informasi dari website sekolah (Klein et al, 2003). Dalam penggunaan website pemahaman konten merupakan salah satu komponen yang penting.…”

Web accessibility and technology protection measures: Harmonizing the rights of persons with cognitive disabilities and copyright protections on the web

“…Public and private sector service providers have yet to ensure that persons with disabilities have full and equal access to web content (Bertot, Jaeger, & Hansen, 2012;De Andrés et al, 2010;Green & Huprich, 2009;Jaeger, 2004aJaeger, , 2004bJaeger, , 2008Johnson & Ruppert, 2002;Klein et al, 2003;Kuzma, 2010;Lazar et al, 2010;Olalere & Lazar, 2011;Ritchie & Blanck, 2003;Rubaii-Barrett & Wise, 2008;Stewart, Narendra, & Schmetzke, 2005;Tatomir & Durrance, 2010; R. Williams & Rattray, 2003;Yi, 2015;Yu, 2002). Web accessibility research has focused on the application of antidiscrimination laws (Blanck, 2014b;Easton, 2012Easton, , 2013aEaston, , 2013bNoble, 2002;Schaefer, 2003;Wall & Sarver, 2003;Wentz, Jaeger, & Lazar, 2011).…”