BizTech Accessibility Award: A Promising Practice in Promoting Information Technology Accessibility

Increasing numbers of postsecondary institutions are exploring ways to promote the procurement, development and use of accessible informative technology (IT) on campus. Most efforts have focused on the creation of policies and guidelines for web accessibility. One promising practice that has been implemented by the University of Washington (UW) is to give an IT accessibility award as part of an annual collection of campus-wide awards on outstanding efforts in the development and use of IT to support academics and administration. Integrating this award among others promotes the position that accessibility is one factor among others that defines a successful implementation of IT.

The 2004 winner of the BizTech Accessibility Award is the UW Distance Education program, which is also a featured practice of the Sloan-C professional organization. For more information about the accessibility efforts of the UW Distance Education program, consult Practice: Making Distance Courses Accessible to Students with Disabilities.