Lessons Learned Building an Internal Digital Accessibility Consultancy at Yale Michael Harris, Accessibility Engineer Michael Vaughn, Associate Director of Digital Accessibility Michelle Morgan, Digital Accessibility Specialist

Agenda Overview of Yale’s journey to build a consultancy Describe the role and scope of the ITS Digital Accessibility team within Yale Explain approaches to supporting staff in roles including developers and content creators Explain approaches to supporting faculty and students Challenges we’ve faced

Why take action? Opportunity to determine your institution’s process and timeline Commitment to diversity and inclusion Manage risk

Areas of Focus Fixing things in priority order (Remediation) Building a procurement process (Procurement) Governance, decision making, and policy (Governance) Building a sustainable program (Program)

Timeline FY15 Investigate how others address the challenge, reach out to peers, release a survey, and begin to grow expertise. Start working with OGC and Provost’s Office. Do initial review of scope. Begin to form governance groups. FY17 Engage with vendor for significant discovery exercise, ramp up remediation, and grow expertise. Begin working closely with Procurement. Write policy. FY13 Create a user experience team, including a leader with some experience with accessibility FY19 Finish hiring team, continue remediation, mature training and support program to be fully operational. FY14 Grapple with and estimate the scope of challenge and start to build cross-campus connections. FY16 Propose a 3 year funded project. Get started with high- priority remediation using operational capacity. Formalize governance. FY18 Release policy. Begin to hire team, continue remediation, spread expertise beyond the core group. Finalize Procurement process.

Areas of Focus 1 Remediation Procurement Governance Program

Areas of Focus 2 Remediation Procurement Governance Program

Areas of Focus 3 Governance Remediation Procurement Program Policy Roles & Responsibilities Information Technology Services and other Yale website development providers: Assure that University Websites they develop or procure comply with this Policy. Lead Administrators: Help promote awareness of and support for this Policy. Resource Office on Disabilities: Facilitate individual accommodations for current or prospective Yale students with disabilities. Office for Equal Opportunity Programs: Facilitate individual accommodations for current or prospective Yale employees with disabilities. Office of Procurement: Assure that contracts with Suppliers seeking to develop or provide University Websites hold Suppliers accountable to the Standards. ITS Digital Accessibility Team: Provide information on accessibility standards and best practices. Track remediation of reported accessibility problems. Track accessibility language in contracts, including roadmaps and dates for follow-up with suppliers. Track accommodation plans for University Websites that do not comply with the Standards. Accessibility Steering Committee: Provide oversight of accessibility efforts, including ongoing review of the Policy and procedures and any proposed updates or revisions. Review requests for Policy exceptions and determine appropriate disposition. Site Owner: Assure that University Websites for which they are responsible comply with this Policy. Remediation Procurement Governance Program

Areas of Focus 4 Remediation Procurement Governance Program

Agenda 1 Overview of Yale’s journey to build a consultancy Describe the role and scope of the ITS Digital Accessibility team within Yale Explain approaches to supporting staff in roles including developers and content creators Explain approaches to supporting faculty and students Challenges we’ve faced

Client Expectations What Content Editors Ask For: “Is there any training for this? What are the steps as we create new content?” “I was asked to change the link text on [website] … I don’t believe [it is] accessible… Please let me know if my thinking is correct.” What Developers / Site Owners Ask For: “We have a couple apps … ready for review … when would be a good time to meet and review the site?” “Could you do a quick ADA review on the page and let us know if anything needs to be modified?”

Setting Appropriate Expectations for Developers / Site Owners When someone asks for our help: “What is your plan to manage accessibility risk?” “Who maintains the product’s front-end? When does development and maintenance happen?” “What front-end expertise does the maintainer have? What accessibility expertise?” “What accessibility work have you already done?”

Helping Developers Help Themselves Before coming to us, developers should have resolved everything from an automated scan. Developers should fill out an accessibility QA checklist themselves.

Support for Content Editors Already Present: Half-day training workshop: headings, reading level, links, images, tables Best Practices on Accessibility Website In Progress Video version of training Enterprise Scanning

Support for Developers / Site Owners Already Present: Monthly Trainings Best Practices on Accessibility Website Checklists / Self Service Evaluation In Progress Developer and Designer Bootcamp Style / UI Guide (Bootstrap 4) Enterprise Scanning

Agenda 2 Explain approaches to supporting faculty and students Overview of Yale’s journey to build a consultancy Describe the role and scope of the ITS Digital Accessibility team within Yale Explain approaches to supporting staff in roles including developers and content creators Explain approaches to supporting faculty and students Challenges we’ve faced

Diversity & Inclusion Web Accessibility Policy April 10, 2018 Statement from President Peter Salovey, “Creating a More Accessible Yale” Office of Diversity and Inclusion “The Office of Diversity & Inclusion (ODI) collaborates with departments and individuals across the Yale campus to promote a respectful, accessible and inclusive community for all Yale employees.”

Yale by the Numbers Number of faculty and staff: 14, 159 School Number of Students Number of Faculty Yale College 5,446 1,092 Graduate School Arts & Sciences 2,890 Share with Yale College Medical School & Public Health 844 2,574 School of Management 826 94 Divinity School 351 81 Art & Architecture 316 151 Drama 199 92 Forestry & Environmental Science 302 74 Nursing 356 88 Music 193 73 Law 684 164 12,407 4,483 Staff Position Number of Staff Managerial & Professional 4,589 Clerical & Technical 3,923 Service & Maintenance 1,164 9,676 Number of faculty and staff: 14, 159

Building a Distributed Support Network Train-the-Trainers Model Workshops Updates and Communications Monthly Best Practices Meetings Building roadmaps to accessibility that are general enough to offer guidance but tailored to local needs Meeting Faculty Where They Are

Collaborations with Other Stakeholders Libraries Scanning services Course Reserves Resource Office on Disabilities-ROD Student Accessibility Aide Partnering with Student Tech Collaborative for AT needs Center for Teaching and Learning Graduate Teaching Fellows and Postdocs New Faculty Orientation Faculty Course (Re)Design Institute Graduate Writing Center Academic Strategies

Faculty Engagement Canvas Drop-In Hours and LMS/Course Site Accessibility Syllabus Workshops “Beyond” Accessibility- ESL, Research and Grant Requirements Roundtable Discussions

Agenda 3 Overview of Yale’s journey to build a consultancy Describe the role and scope of the ITS Digital Accessibility team within Yale Explain approaches to supporting staff in roles including developers and content creators Explain approaches to supporting faculty and students Challenges we’ve faced

Challenges We didn’t know what we were doing We ruffled feathers We dealt with many, many stakeholders Trying to be helpful without owning the problem

Questions?