Local Resources
Are there any local resources that are specific to Texas A&M? Yes, there are actually several offices on campus that are devoted to accessibility issues. They have various technology packages that could be useful in having a hands-on experience with the tools that people with disabilities use. Below are links to several listservs on campus where you can keep up with the web-based discussions that are happening, blogs, training centers on campus, and you can always contact the web accessibility committee – your resident accessibility gurus.
Adaptive Technology is the use of technology to provide equal access to information. The Adaptive Technology Services lab is a computer laboratory (a.k.a. Open Access Lab) just like any other on campus. ATS offers adaptive support services for students with disabilities such as audio books, textbook scanning, adaptive software/hardware, and many others.
Disability Services (DS) provides services to students with disabilities to insure accessibility to university programs. DS offers accommodations counseling, evaluation referral, disability-related information, adaptive technology counseling and equipment, and interpreter services for academically related purposes.
Some content on the Texas A&M University web site links to files that require an applet, plugin, or another third party application to view and render the file's content. This page links to common useful plugins and helper apps to open these files.
Created by the Texas A&M Web Accessibility Team, this page takes webmasters through all of the federal, state, and university mandates and shows all required elements for creating an accessible page from the ground up.
According to Texas TAC 206, a Key Public Entry Point is defined as "a Web page that a state agency or institution of higher education has specifically designed for members of the general public to access official information (e.g., the governing or authoritative documents) from the agency or institution of higher education." These sites have additional requirements as to links and META tags that are required to be included.
Learn basic concepts related to the design, color coordination and flow of Web sites in this course. Other topics that will be addressed are: practices regarding image use and file types; incorporating Web site accessibility in your designs; and issues regarding Cascading Styles. This class is taught "on demand."
The university webmasters in the Division of Marketing & Communications produce this blog as a means of keeping the campus community informed of campus-wide web projects and initiatives, and as a way of offering feedback from webmasters across campus.
The University Web Group is the webmasters' guild of Texas A&M University. It is not an officially recognized campus organization; it is a grassroots project by and for all web developers, designers and managers who are responsible for the A&M System's web identity. They seek to create a collaborative web development community for Texas A&M and associated agencies to exchange ideas, resources and best practices.
This is the primary method of communication between webmasters on campus. The mailing list reaches approximately 200 people ranging from webmasters to application developers to communication specialists.
The Texas A&M Web Accessibility Project provides resources, guidelines and information to help campus Webmasters, developers, and designers with issues of best practices and compliance.
The Web Access listserv mailing list is available for the university webmasters community to communicate about matters of web accessibility. The list is unmoderated and open for anyone with an interest in the topic to join.