DO-IT Scholars is a college preparation program for teens with disabilities. Originally funded by the National Science Foundation in 1992, DO-IT Scholars was institutionalized with Washington state funds in 1998. The program also receives funds from Microsoft and Boeing.
In 1988, the United States Congress designated October as National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM). The Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) was selected as the lead agency to provide training and promotional materials to help individuals across the country plan local disability awareness events.
There are a growing number of tools that allow web developers to evaluate the accessibility of their web pages and sites. Many tools also prompt the developer to make specific repairs. Some tools automatically follow links to evaluate multiple pages within a site or within an entire domain. The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI™) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C®) maintains an extensive list of such tools in their document Complete List of Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools.
For individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing, telephone communication involves communicating by text rather than by voice, typically using a teletypewriter (TTY), also known as a TDD (Telecommunications Device for the Deaf). A basic TTY consists of a keyboard, a display screen, and a modem, which operates over standard telephone lines. If a deaf individual is communicating with another TTY user, both users send and receive text. If a deaf individual is communicating with a hearing individual who doesn't have a TTY, they will use the Telecommunication Relay Service (TRS).
There are many things that students with disabilities might want to know about a career in computing. This includes:
In short, no. There are many reasons why individuals with disabilities choose not to use disability services. Some do not need accommodations (for example, a student who uses a cane for mobility but can independently climb small flights of stairs may be fully independent in her mobility on campus). Some may not want to identify themselves as having a disability. And some students may be unaware of the availability of disability services.
There are many individuals and groups who share responsibility for making web content accessible. Standards organizations such as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C®) and the federal Access Board have developed web accessibility guidelines and standards. But in order to be effective, these standards must be supported by web browsers, media players, and other user agents, as well as by web authoring software tools and assistive technologies. Accessibility-focused organizations and advocacy groups are working diligently to educate these groups.
As people create websites or electronic documents, they should consider whether their use of color will prevent some users from accessing their content. Any information that is communicated using color should also be communicated using some means other than color. For example, if color is used to differentiate link text from other text on a page, users who are unable to perceive color differences will be unable to spot the links. A solution in this example would be to underline the link text or provide some other cue other than color alone.
People with disabilities face many accessibility barriers when they try to access websites. One common barrier is a lack of meaningful text descriptions for graphical elements on a website, which affects individuals with visual impairments who use screen readers. Another common issue is related to the use of keyboard versus mouse controls. If website content is only available via the computer mouse, people with physical disabilities may not be able to access it.
My name is Sheryl Burgstahler, and I work at the University of Washington in Seattle. I wanted to develop an Internet-based course offered through the Department of Education and the Department of Rehabilitative Medicine. I wanted to coteach the course with a colleague who is blind and who was a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. I wanted to know how we could efficiently collaborate and share the workload. We had delivered similar content many times in on-site courses and presentations.
