Many of the official campus web pages are authored by faculty, staff or hired students, who, quite often, have acquired the respective skills through on-campus workshops, courses, or some form of computer-based instruction. It can be safely assumed that, for many budding web authors, the degree of awareness of and concern for barrier-free design is strongly influenced by what is taught in these workshops, courses, etc. Consequently, the content of web authoring training and recommended instructional resources is a crucial factor in determining campuses' web accessibility. Web authoring training is thus an important aspect of any web accessibility study. The following ranking, which is based on information available on campus web sites, is just a humble beginning at best. For a more detailed and accurate picture, a study would need to include the analysis of syllabi content and information solicited from instructors.
The type and content of web authoring training and recommended instructional resources varies as widely from campus to campus as the web policies discussed in the previous section. I have grouped the content of training and recommended resources in categories similar to those used for the classification of web policies.
- Training which focuses on the production of accessible, barrier-free web pages.
- UW-Madison (Jan. 1998): World Wide Web and the Classroom: Solving the Access Problem for People with Disabilities (workshop); Trace Research and Development Center and its Unified Web Site Accessibility Guidelines, World Wide Web Consortium, Yuri Rubinsky Insight Foundation, and Bobby (referrals from the Policies: Accessibility Guidelines for WWW Homepages page to external information sites)
- UW-Stevens Point (March 1999): Starling Access Services' Accessible Web Page Design, Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) and Bobby--Center for Applied Special Technology (all referrals from the UWSP Guidelines for Accessibility of UWSP Web pages on the Internet to external web-based training sites)
- UW-Milwaukee: Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines and Viewable
With Any Browser Accessible Site Design (both referrals from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Web Page Standards page to external web-based sites) - Training which embraces universal accessibility as an important issue and incorporates many aspects of barrier-free design.
- UW-Milwaukee (Spring 1999): I&MT Non-Credit Short Course: Departmental Web Pages- UWM Guidelines
- Training which includes some accessible design features, such as multi-browser compatibility, but does not reflect an overall concern for barrier-free accessibility.
- UW-La Crosse: Page Guidelines--Creating Your Web Pages (web-based resource)
- UW-Oshkosh (Spring 99): Creating a Web Page (six-hour workshop)
- UW-Eau Claire (April 1997): Tips for Well-Designed Web Pages
- Training which includes but a few accessible design features (excluding broad-range browser readability) but does not reflect an overall concern for barrier-free accessibility.
- UW-Superior: Design Tips (very brief web-based resource)
- UW-River Falls (May 1997): Web Developer's Corner--Tips (web-based resource)
- Training in which accessibility for people with disabilities does not seem to be much of an issue at all.
- UW-Madison (Spring 1999): DoIT Internet Skills Workshops
- UW-River Falls (Feb. 1998): Web Design Tips (web-based resource)
- UW-Whitewater (Sept. 1996): UW-Whitewater World Wide Web Publishing Hints (web-based resource)
- UW-Platteville (Aug. 98): Web Training Center (web-based resource)
- UW-Parkside: Certificate Program in World Wide Web Publishing (15-credit program)
- UW-Stout (Jan. 1999): Web Developer's Resources (starting page for a variety of internal web-based resources)
- UW-Stevens Point (n.d.): Developing a Web Site … (web-based resource)
- No training provisions found or no sufficient information on the training content available.
- none
Go to the Contents/Overview page of the Web Accessibility on University of Wisconsin Campuses Study.
Created by Axel Schmetzke, Library, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.
Last updated 7-8-99.
Comments, corrections, updates, etc. are welcome! aschmetz@uwsp.edu
