1. Accessibility and Captioning at UNM
Dean Bernardone, IT Academic Technologies
Joan Green, Accessibility Resource Center
Heather Jaramillo, Extended Learning

2. Accessibility Resource Center
Website: arc.unm.edu
Office phone: (505) Campus Location: 2021 Mesa Vista Hall

3. Accessibility Resource Center Oversight
Verifying disabilities and need for accommodations
Recommending reasonable accommodations
Informing students of their rights and responsibilities
Advocating program access
Problem-solving with student and, if necessary, the instructor, in response to student concerns regarding the implementation or consistency of reasonable accommodations

4. Types of Disabilities Cognitive Disabilities Orthopedic Disabilities
Psychological Disabilities
Deaf and Hard of Hearing
Visual Impairments

5. Who do we assist? Students previously receiving accommodations
in high school or other post-secondary
Institutions under IDEA or Section 504.

6. How To Establish Eligibility
Submit documentation of a disability to verify eligibility under the
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Amendment Act of 2008 and
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
Request for services must be initiated by the student
The student must schedule an intake appointment with Accessibility Resource Center

7. Academic Accommodations
Extended time on exams
Alternative furniture
Conversion of textbooks
Sign Language Interpreters
Note taking

8. Assistive Technology
Dyslexie: a special font developed and designed for people with dyslexia to make reading, learning, and working easier
Read & Write Gold: provides reading, writing, studying, and research support tools within familiar applications (e.g., Word, Google Docs, IE, Chrome, Firefox, Adobe Reader)
JAWS: speech to text synthesizer
Dragon Natural Speaking: eliminates the need to use keyboard or mouse
ZoomText: enlarges and enhances text

9. Accessibility is NOT Optional
Public spaces must make reasonable accommodations for disabled and handicapped persons.
Increasingly, this includes virtual spaces for students, which would include websites, learning management systems, and publisher materials.
Approximately 35 universities and college systems have been sued or investigated for violations of accessibility laws in the past decade, including Harvard, Berkeley, and MIT.

10. Common Campus Accessibility Oversights
Use of inaccessible devices in classrooms (clickers, electronic readers)
Use of inaccessible websites and apps for course instruction
Failure to caption educational videos both limited to students and openly available to the public
Use of technologies and materials that are not accessible to screen readers

11. Common Accessibility Misconceptions
“Accommodations really only benefit physically handicapped students.”
“Providing an accommodation for learning disabilities gives those students an unfair advantage.”
“AI is making the need for captioning and transcription services obsolete.”

12. YouTube Caption Fail

13. What is UNM Doing?
ARC is the frontline of accessibility compliance at UNM
Extended Learning and IT Academic Technologies are working on making virtual and technological tools accessible to students
Extended Learning websites are fully accessible for students and the public
Captioning RFP and captioning implementation for Managed Online Programs and select online courses

14. UNM Captioning Solution
RFP process to meet online learning needs and accessibility requirements
Cielo24 was chosen to provide the service
Service is available to all departments on campus at a discounted rate under volume pricing contract (expires June 30, 2019)

15. Captioning Request Process
For specific student accommodation, work directly with ARC, and ARC will coordinate with my team
For other captioning requests, send an to detailing the request
At some point, this service will appear in the help.unm.edu service catalog.  Some may still prefer to communicate via .

16. Possible Next Steps
In Fall 2018, an RFP process to select the next generation media solutions  for UNM will be made public with a go-live with the new service offerings in Fall 2019
Since the Cielo24 contract runs through June 2019, a new captioning vendor may be selected to better align with any changes that result from this RFP

17. Possible Next Steps (cont'd)
Blackboard Ally is an application that integrates with the Learning Management System and systematically and proactively assesses accessibility compliance for all content, including video.  Unfortunately, it is not free. 

18. Possible Next Steps (cont'd)
Please consider the model at UCLA – Accessibility Everywhere
Blackboard Ally for pro-active prioritization
Tool that contextually allows users to flag content that is not accessible
An army of students and a few statisticians