A web accessibility report card for top international university web sites

Submitted by mlb78 on Fri, 09/16/2016 - 17:24
TitleA web accessibility report card for top international university web sites
Publication TypeConference Proceedings
Year of Publication2007
AuthorsKane, Shaun K., Shulman, Jessie, Shockley, Timothy, and Ladner, Richard E.
Conference NameProceedings of the 2007 international cross-disciplinary conference on Web accessibility (W4A) - W4A '07
Pagination148-156
ISBN Number159593590X
Keywordsacademic libraries, disability, evaluation, international, Section 508, WCAG, Web accessibility
AbstractUniversity web pages play a central role in the activities of current and prospective postsecondary students. University sites that are not accessible may exclude people with disabilities from participation in educational, social and professional activities. In order to assess the current state of university web site accessibility, we performed a multi-method analysis of the home pages of 100 top international universities. Each site was analyzed for compliance with accessibility standards, image accessibility, alternate-language and text-only content, and quality of web accessibility statements. Results showed that many top universities continue to have accessibility problems. University web site accessibility also varies greatly across different countries and geographic regions. Remaining obstacles to universal accessibility for universities include low accessibility in non-English-speaking countries and absent or low-quality accessibility policies.
NotesThis study examined the accessiblity of 100 international university library websites. The tested iterms included accessibility standards, image accessibility, alternate-language and text-only content, and quality of web accessibility statements. the results indicated that accessibility still remained as a major issue for many top universities. Accessibility for non-English-speaking countries and absent or low-quality accessibility policies were the main obstacles found.
URLhttp://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1243441.1243472
DOI10.1145/1243441.1243472