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Accessible IT Technical Bulletin: August 2006
The Northeast ADA & IT Center at Cornell University provides training, technical assistance and materials on the ADA and accessible information technology throughout New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. This monthly technical bulletin is part of our dissemination efforts and if you do not want to receive this document or would like others from your organization added to our list, please call 1-800-949-4232 or reply to this message. Thank you U.S. Department of Education Announces Final IDEA Regulations The U.S. Department of Education announced the final regulations to implement Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA). An official copy of the final Part B regulations of the IDEA will be published in the Federal Register on August 14, 2006. So that members of the public will have the opportunity to immediately review the new Part B regulation of the IDEA, the Department is temporarily posting an UNOFFICIAL copy at: http://www.ed.gov/policy/speced/guid/idea/idea2004.html#regulations. For more information, visit the U.S. Department of Educations IDEA 2004 web site at: http://www.ed.gov/policy/speced/guid/idea/idea2004.html#regulations Design Guidelines for Electronic Publications, Multimedia and the Web (published by WGBH National Center for Accessible Media) These guidelines, providing step-by-step solutions for making a variety of electronic media accessible to users with sensory disabilities, are now available free of charge. The guidelines can be found at the WGBH website at http://ncam.wgbh.org/publications/adm/. Google for Screen Reader Users Google has created a search engine that prioritizes search results based on which sites are the most accessible to screen readers, after finding the most relevant pages. You can test the search engine at http://labs.google.com/accessible/. Background: "Accessible Search is an early Google Labs product designed to identify and prioritize search results that are more easily usable by blind and visually impaired users. Regular Google search helps you find a set of documents that is most relevant to your tasks. Accessible Search goes one step further by helping you find the most accessible pages in that result set." From http://labs.google.com/accessible/faq.html NCDAE Webcast: Accessibility and Open Source Content Management Systems The National Center on Disability and Access to Education (NCDAE) will host another in their series of webcasts with a focus on the accessibility of open source content management systems. Join them Wednesday, August 30th, 2006 for the live audio Webcast. The broadcast will begin at 3:00PM Eastern. Visit http://www.ncdae.org/webcasts for more details and to register for the webcast. NCDAE has also created a fact sheet with the following resources: * Advantages and disadvantages of open source vs. commercial Content Management Systems. * General principles and techniques that may help improve the accessibility of your CMS. * A list of popular Content Management Systems with links to their accessibility statements, resources and/or communities. For more information visit http://ncdae.org/tools/factsheets/cms.cfm Accessibility Video As part of the Successful Web Communications in NYS Government project, a short video clip was produced to introduce accessibility concepts to those who are not familiar with them, and to advocate a standards-based, inclusive design approach to web development. A captioned QuickTime version is now available as streaming video. To view the video, go to: http://homepage.mac.com/cerasunvideo/nysforum2/. For those of you who cannot use QuickTime, there is a downloadable Windows Media version of our accessibility video available at: http://homepage.mac.com/cerasunvideo/nysforum3/ The Web Accessibility Toolbar The Web Accessibility Toolbar for Opera is now available at http://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/wat-about.html. Northeast ADA&IT Center MissLiz
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