Taking Web Accessibility to the Next Level with an Accessible Internet Rally (AIR) program Presenters: Sharron Rush, Knowbility; and Len Pokryfke, University of Houston - Clear Lake April 21, 2004 WENDY: Hello, and welcome to today's Web cast, on taking Web accessibility to the next level with an Accessible Internet Rally program. My name is Wendy Wilkinson and I'm with the Disability Law Resource Project at ILRU, which is a program of TIRR and our sponsor for today's event. I'll be moderating the Web cast and voicing your questions to the presenters. Before we get started, I wanted to tell everybody about how you can submit questions. In order to submit a question, you can click the submit question button which you're going to find at the bottom of your RealPlayer screen or you can simply address it to Webcast@ilru.org. Please put it all in small letters. You can also send questions any time during the presentation and I will pose your questions to the presenters as they pause for questions. Additionally, please, if anyone has technical difficulties, call us at ILRU at (713)520-0232 and press 0 in order to get the operator. Again, today's topic is on the Accessible Internet Rally (AIR) program. Today I'm excited to have two presenters. First Sharron Rush who is co-founder and executive director of Knowbility, and also the organizer of the first Accessibility Internet Rally in Austin which was in 1998 and Len Pokryfke who is an AIR alum. As a matter of fact, he's participated in three AIR events. First I want to introduce Len. He is the lead trainer for Accessibility and Distance Education at the University of Houston in Clear Lake. Currently he's on the advisory board for AIR-Houston, an Accessibility Internet Rally for Houston, Texas. Len has also taught Web design and accessibility as part of a program for students with disabilities in Austin, Texas. He's also served as mentor to students with disabilities entering the workforce in high tech and Internet positions. He's also an accomplished Web designer and engaging speaker for KLRA and he also has a passion for accessibility and the Web, which you're going to find evident in his presentation today. Next I want to introduce Sharron. Sharron has been leading the effort to start the AIR program in many cities. And because of that hundreds of workers, from over 60 companies have learned about the benefits, tools and techniques of accessible Web design. They've used their accessible Web site skills to create sites for more than 100 nonprofit groups across the country, thus affecting the lives of thousands. In 2003, she has developed and is delivering the training to prepare nonprofit agencies for their participation in AIR-Houston and other events throughout the country. All right, Sharron, I'm going to turn the program over to you so you can talk a little bit about Web accessibility and the AIR program. Please go ahead, Sharron. SHARRON: Thanks, Wendy. Hi, Len, how are you? It's great to be with you all today. I'm really excited to be able to talk about one of my most impassioned subjects, which is access to technology and particularly to the Internet for people with disabilities. And when we were preparing for this broadcast, I was asked, "Well, can you tell us a little bit about Web accessibility and what it is? And actually, my definition of Web accessibility is really pretty brief because I think that you can say that a Web site is accessible if a person with a disability can get on to that Website, get the same information and perform the same functions as a person without a disability. So that would seem to be fairly self-explanatory. But it's really very often not the case that Web sites are that way, and if I can just give you a few examples. One thing that is often a barrier if someone is a blind user of technology, there are wonderful assistive technologies there, speaking browsers and screen readers, but that technology can only be effective if the designer, the developer, the programmer allows access to the information through a few very simple coding techniques that permit the assistive technology to do its job. And the same is true for spoken information that many -- in many cases we have news broadcasts or like the example where we're speaking right now over the Web. If that information is not captioned or made accessible to people with hearing impairments, then, again, you have information that's not accessible. So the techniques are not -- they're not very difficult and they're not advanced programming, but they make all the difference in terms of access for people with disabilities. And I really -- in this current marketplace where information is the key to participation in employment, in education, in many consumer activities, entertainment, you really can't over emphasize the importance of accessibility for people with disabilities. If we expect them to participate as consumers and producers in the information marketplace, we must make that marketplace accessible. And I think there are many, many examples of how this is good business, too, because when you talk about people with disabilities in the United States, you're talking about 55 million Americans. Worldwide there are 750 million. Kids with disabilities in schools, there are at least 6 million students with disabilities. So we don't want to overlook the human potential there that could not be realized if we don't make all the tools of our society available. So that's in a nutshell my ideas about accessibility and what it is and why it's so important. Our Accessibility Internet Rally program that we began in 1998 started as a community collaboration among a number of people from community leaders, academic leaders, business leaders who understood the importance of accessibility but were looking for an effective way to talk about it to the community at large, to the tech sector in particular, the people who create technology, and one of the things that occurred to the group that was pondering how do we get the message out about this, we need to reach the tech sector, so what would -- what's going to grab their attention? And one of the things are the founder of Knowbility, the founding chairman of the Board of Directors, a fellow named Steve Gingrich who is a technology entrepreneur, and he told me that if you want the tech sector to pay attention, Sharron, you need something that's competitive. So we thought, oh, well, we'll make an accessible Web design contest. And once we put it in that context of this is a contest. We want you to learn all about this and then use your creativity and build an accessible Web site. Suddenly the idea took hold in a way that we -- that really we didn't even anticipate. People became very energized around the idea and the entire Austin community -- one of the things that we did I think that helped that is that the laboratory that we had the tech sector teams work in was the nonprofit sector. You're going to design a simple site for a nonprofit organization and you're going to make that site as accessible as possible. Now, what happens is that technology teams from companies like IBM has participated, Dell, HP is going to have a team here coming up. So companies participate, Web design companies, professional Web developers put teams of three or four or five people together and they go through the training. They learn about accessible design, and then they put those skills to work by building an accessible site for a non-- a local nonprofit organization in their community. After our first AIR in 1998, people came back for more, and we found that we had advocates then inside the companies, inside the technology sector, people who understood accessibility, knew what the problems were and how to solve them and they were then part of the people creating the solutions. So it became an idea that spread very quickly among other sectors. We began in the community AIR with the nonprofit groups and then within a couple of years, the University of Texas decided, well, we're going to hold a contest for our college and university departments, and so AIR-University came into being and we had actually replicated AIR in several communities now and different formats for various purposes, but the underlying passion that it ignites in the technology sector for accessible design remains the same wherever it goes. People become energized about the potential and they see accessibility not as a series of mandates where, oh, you have to do this or you have to do that. Instead, it's a challenge to their creativity. They say, oh, okay, these are the parameters. Here are the things I'm going to be judged on, let me have a chance to excel, and we've come up with just some incredible solutions to accessibility problems through different AIR programs in different locations. So in that way, we think of AIR not as an event, which, you know, in some ways it's this one day, eight hour intense rally experience where people are building Web sites, but because of the series of training activities that go before and the way that it creates a network of accessibility experts and advocates within a community, we really think of the whole AIR program as this series of activities culminating in the one day rally and it leaves in the community accessible Web sites for the nonprofit groups, for the schools, for the agencies who have participated and also a community of experts, advocates and colleagues in the cause of accessibility. Wendy, I think that's enough of an introduction. Maybe -- are there questions? Hello? LEN: I think we might have lost Wendy. This is Len, Sharron. SHARRON: Len was a participant in AIR. LEN: Let me talk about that for a couple of seconds while we're waiting for questions to come in. SHARRON: Great. LEN: I am basically the type of person that Sharron was talking about coming to these rallies. I was a professional Web developer in Austin in the late '90's. When it came to learning about Web development and the best practices, everybody was pretty much self-taught and I was fortunate enough to be teaching at Austin Community College and working as a professional Web developer and heard about the Accessibility Internet Rally, AIR-Austin that was going on and got a team together with some other teachers in Austin and the three of us participated and had a blast. I couldn't have expected a better experience in terms of the rally itself. Sharron had talked about the competitiveness, the competitive edge to working with other teams on the day of the rally. That was fantastic, but it was really the entire AIR program, the training, the access to these accessibility experts that are judges and trainers and working with Knowbility to promote this program. And that was the amazing part. At the time, you know, people were just beginning to talk about accessibility for their Web sites, for the Web in general, and breaking down some of these barriers to people with disabilities trying to reach information on the Web. And there weren't any books; there weren't any classes at the time. There was nothing to match the experience of going to one of these training sessions for the AIR event and being exposed to all this. It was just really an amazing experience to have these world renowned experts in accessibility teaching hands on these simple techniques, what needed to be done to ensure that your Web content was more accessible. And for me, it was really the first time I was exposed to the various adaptive and assistive technologies. I was Web developing on my own. I didn't have a huge budget to go out and buy a bunch of these different pieces of technology to test some of these things for myself. So the AIR program and this training was really just a great awakening to see how some of these pieces of equipment, pieces of technology helped someone with a disability access information on the Web. And I know at -- I've been an alum at three AIR events. I think they mentioned that in my biography one of which was AIR-U, but in all of these events they made great efforts to make this adaptive technology available as part of the training. I know IBM has donated free trial versions of their IBM home page reader and there has been demo versions of JAWS and whatever Web developer or team would need to actually test some of their pages for accessibility. SHARRON: And I think actually that's one of -- this is Sharron again -- that's one of the ways in which AIR is a very useful laboratory because it gives developers the chance -- maybe they've heard about accessibility, maybe they've read it, but as Len said, you don't have the budget to go out and buy all the tools. So through this program you actually have the opportunity to try out a few and there are different tools that might be appropriate for different applications. And so that's one of the things that we try to do is to give people an overview of the various testing tools that are out there and really -- really give people access to some resources that will help them as they go forward and apply the accessibility lessons that they learned through AIR to the work that they're doing in the private sector or in the academia. And I had a question for you, Len, if they -- when you first heard about AIR and were willing to get involved, how had you been approaching accessibility up to that point at your community college job? LEN: That's a really good question. Up to that point I was approaching it solo. I mean, it was something I had read about. I had been exposed to very briefly and not in any detail, and so the AIR event was amazing because of just getting to meet and network with all these other people that were there to do the same thing with these professionals that were there to judge or to train. It just -- I was no longer out there on my own trying to stumble along and do something. I could actually talk to other people about it, run things by them, hear what they had tried and, you know, the mistakes they had made when they were starting out. So as a Web developer, that was so important because a lot of times you're not working with a huge team of people, and you don't really have access to not only the technology because the expertise or the extra set of individuals that will look at something for you or comment on something. So that was so important to me. On my own, I was able to do something, but once I became part of that team, that's when I could really excel. SHARRON: Let me ask you something else about -- this is really good for me to get this immediate kind of ability to talk to a participant in the AIR program, too. Because the program has been modified over the years in terms of what communities say they want and what they need. And after three years in Austin of giving the same basic accessibility training and tools overview and we look at the judging form and the criteria, so people have participated. I mean we were surprised that SBC for example, they came back in year two with two teams. IBM came back with three teams and they would bring other people to train and to get this information, but after a couple of years, we got feedback that, okay, we really appreciate this introduction, but we need a higher level of training now. We need to know how to work with some other tools. We're going to make our Web site more interactive; maybe we want to caption some video. Maybe we're ready – we think we're ready to tackle some of the -- some of our formatting problems with style sheets, with cascading style sheets and they were looking to us to help them with some more advanced problems. And so we developed an advanced training for the community AIR program. So we gave -- everyone took the basic class and then the advanced was an option. And then with the university -- the needs of the university were very, very diverse. And so they were actually asking for classes on how to -- how to use forms effectively. They had -- they had some very specific needs for online education, and so we developed the AIR-University training, which rather than just being a half day accessibility introduction, was actually a three days of seminars. We'll do the second annual one of those coming up here in May, toward the end of May where we have three days of seminars which include, of course, the basic class, and the basic introduction, but then you can take a class specifically on the PDF and maybe JAVA scripting or style sheets or take an entire afternoon to look at different testing tools and how you work with them. And I know that last year when we did the first one of those three day seminars, you came from the University of Houston and brought an entire team of people, and I wonder if you could speak to the listeners about that level of training and how that might have been -- you know, was it everything that you expected? What else might you want out of it and how did it affect your ability to work with your team in the work that you do? LEN: That's a great question. To tie that in with sort of my professional progression from a Web developer in a small company or self-employed to working at a university, as large as the university is and all the diverse offices and schools involved, it was really hard to network with the other Web developers, let alone the other people that were passionate or advocates for accessibility. SHARRON: You mean because of the size of the school? LEN: The size of the school and then just the nature of everybody sort of doing their own thing. SHARRON: Oh. LEN: And not really communicating with each other as far as what Web sites they were building or what steps they were taking to make it accessible. And having come from two previous rallies and AIR, being an alum of the AIR program, it was right there on my mind. Wow, these people need to go to Knowbility and to an AIR event to really learn some more, to take this up to the next level. And it just so happened that you were doing the AIR-University and I was fortunate enough that the university actually flew ten people from my school out for the day for AIR-U training and got us to participate. And that really was just amazing for getting all those diverse individuals that were working on Web stuff for the university together to get some similar training and then to carry that back to the people they worked with. So that was really the start of helping us make our University of Houston-Clear Lake Web sites and online classes more accessible. SHARRON: Maybe you could give the listeners some-- some specific examples of the kinds of things that people got to learn during that seminar and then how it made a difference in the work that they did when they got back. Is that possible? LEN: And some sprung to mind just when you were talking a couple of minutes ago about Adobe Acrobat and making PDF files more accessible. A lot of people in the university -- a lot of people in the country use PDF files, put them up on the Web and they're not always the most accessible. So for the AIR- University training, they actually had someone from Adobe fly in to give the training on how -- just the simple steps it takes to make your PDF files more accessible and that was hugely popular. We had people, you know, even from our library back at the university that wanted similar training or wanted me to take them through some of those steps to help with that. Captioning was a big deal -- a lot of our online courses use bits and pieces of video and we hadn't really sat back and looked at the best ways to caption those or what we needed to do to make them more accessible. So several people that had gone out for the AIR-U training were actually working on online courses using video and were able to come back and start captioning that. SHARRON: So if we went to the library at U of H now, would we see the use of PDF in a way that -- the ones that have been made since then -- I think one of the things that often happens is that people feel, well, I have hundreds, if not thousands of PDF documents linked from my Web site. I'm not able to go back and make all of those accessible. So did the policy then become a from this time forward policy of making accessible PDF or has it been -- is it at the policy level yet? LEN: No, and that's maybe a topic for another Web cast. SHARRON: Is how to develop that accessibility policy. That's actually a class that people asked for after the last AIR- University training. People asked, you know, okay, I have this information, but even so, even if ten or eleven people come from a major university, that's a small group. That's a small number of people, and so they -- we had requests for how do you make this into something that is systemic then throughout your organization? So this year-- again I'll repeat the dates for those that are listening-- it's Monday, May 24th, Tuesday, May 25th, and Wednesday, May 26th. We will have three days of topics. We have Macromedia is participating. They're going to teach Accessible Flash, accessible use of Dreamweaver and there are other tools. We're going to have a testing tools seminar. We're going to teach people how to be judges for AIR. We're going to have an accessibility forum where we invite people to bring their accessibility problems and barriers, but some of the things that came out of last year that people asked -- you know, you didn't address this and could you address it the next time you do this -- one is going to be effective writing for the Web. Dr. John Slatin who's head of the accessibility institute at the University of Texas at Austin said many people were coming to him asking, you know, for the fact that my Web site is often translated into other languages through those language translators -- online language translators and what comes out on the other side is just nonsense. So what do I do to make the language work in those translators? And so he actually -- he saw that as another accessibility topic and he's going to teach a class on effective writing for the Web. And then Jerry Johnson of the department of information resources is going to teach a class on developing accessibility -- accessibility policy, and talk about the state of Texas, which, you know, talk about managing a number of disparate agencies and people with different missions, but they all have the responsibility to communicate with Texas citizens with disabilities, right? So he's going to teach a class in developing accessibility policy as part of that AIR-U, AIR-Texas seminar in May. And I think that's one of the ones that I'm really looking forward to seeing how that's received and what the results of that are because in many cases I think we get this information as isolated advocates within an organization, but are not able then to translate it into system-wide policy and it sounds to me like maybe you had that experience in both cases when you were talking about when you participated in AIR- Austin originally and even after participating in AIR-Houston, the idea that, you know, you have to work this information up through the policymakers in order to -- for it to really take hold and be effective across all the schools and all the departments. LEN: Exactly. And giving them the right information. The policymakers are usually aware of things like the law that they're required to be making their Web sites accessible, but it's really the next step. You know, how do they do that? A lot of the policies I look at just simply state, yes, we're going to follow these standards and make our Web sites accessible, but that's not enough to trickle down to the different Web developers, the different areas that are actually doing the work and creating that. And especially a lot of the conferences I go to in education, you have educators and people working in schools and universities that are always asking what's the next step? We know we need to be accessible. We understand what accessibility is, but how do we make it happen? And that's -- that was one of the huge benefits of Knowbility and the AIR program, that is the next step for me. And when I go back and talk to people, it's a great opportunity that you actually get hands-on training. You are exposed to adaptive technology, all the things we've been talking about so far in this broadcast is all right there for you. It's not enough to know that you need to do this for the law or for your school or company's policy, but how do you do it. What are the simple steps to take to make this accessible? SHARRON: and I think in many cases, too, you can even begin taking those steps but unless you have feedback from like-minded people or, you know, it's the way that any time you have different perspectives looking at a problem, you're going to have a more effective solution to that problem. So if you're the lone accessibility expert, you may make a mistake, but if you have a team of people who are working and you have a systematic way of going about it -- and honestly I think you're right, but that is one of the things that's most effective about AIR is building that common understanding and that common -- so you're advocacy for AIR and your belief in the method of the Accessibility Internet Rally for actually getting people galvanized around the idea of Internet accessibility led to be one of your own community leaders in Houston to bring the AIR program to your city. Do you want to talk some about that and what the effort is and what your plans are in Houston for doing a community AIR in the City of Houston? LEN: Sure. Sure. I'd be glad to. I'm excited about that. Moving from Austin to Houston, AIR was one of the things I missed the most, the annual get together to talk to some of these people that are now friends that I have gone to training with or competed against a number of times, and when we decided to sort of duplicate or bring an AIR program to Houston, I jumped at the chance. I really wanted to be a part of that and bring it to the community here in Houston. So we're fortunate enough to be having AIR rally this fall on the 16th of October. There is a kickoff party for that on the 5th of October, but the good news is this is the time to strike. We have -- we're in the process of taking applications for teams, of recruiting to get nonprofits that might want their Web site redeveloped to be more accessible, so it's great. This is the time to be thinking about that and if you're in the Houston area to jump at this chance. The number of teams is limited. There are size constraints to having a bunch of people together for one day working on computers, redeveloping Web sites so the teams are usually limited to 20 or 30 teams for that day. So it's really first come, first serve if you're out there in Houston and want to participate, we've got a link to the AIR- Houston fact sheet and how to register for that. WENDY: Thanks, Len and Sharron. SHARRON: Hey, Wendy, you're back. WENDY: Yes, I'm back. And thank you so much. I've got lots of great questions and you guys have actually answered some of them already, but I've got one from a person that is on a board of a nonprofit and they need an accessible Web site. They've got a couple of questions, one, how do they enter the contest? Will they automatically be accepted if they reply, and then the third thing is if they actually don't have a Web site now, could they enter and have an accessible Web site made for them? Sharron, can you attempt that one? SHARRON: Well, that is exactly why you would join AIR is because you don't have an accessible Web site and you need one or you don't have access to professional Web services, which you know, most of the people who -- well, all of the people who participate as designers in the AIR competition are Web professionals. Many of them are from companies, some of them are freelancers, and so you, as a nonprofit organization, participating in AIR, you will come out at the end of the process with a professionally designed, accessible Web site. The way that you participate is to go to the Knowbility Web site. I think it's linked from the Web cast site, isn't it, Wendy? WENDY: Yes, it is. SHARRON: and it's Knowbility.org. Follow the links to AIR- Houston and there is a registration form online using fully accessible forms, of course, and so we encourage you to do that, to sign upright now if you're interested in participating. Now, for the most part, we have really never had to turn down a nonprofit organization that signed up just because there were too many who signed up. We've always been able to recruit enough teams to make Web sites for all the nonprofit organizations that signed on. Each community has a local advisory board, and that advisory board will set the criteria for selection. So my -- while I can't promise you that you will be selected, I can tell you that the probability is very, very high. One thing you must be aware of, though, is that by signing on to be an AIR nonprofit participant, to have an accessible Web site made for you, you are making a serious commitment. You are going to send a representative to a training that will tell you -- basically it will train you how to be a good client. We will also talk to you about accessibility, about the alternative text that you use behind graphic images, how to use that correctly and descriptively and well to give the right kind of information. We'll talk to you about your responsibilities in preparing your information for your team and making sure that you have all the logos and graphics and all the pieces so that, so your team can work effectively in the very short time they volunteer for you. And we'll also talk to you about how you will maintain your site once it's created, how you will keep it current, keep it up to date, and most importantly, how you will keep it accessible. And so with that in mind, by signing on, you are accepting also the community gift from those volunteers, but also quite a bit of responsibility. We welcome you absolutely. Please, please do that. Please sign on and we'd love for you to be part of it. There is AIR-Houston this year, AIR-Austin, is also I don't know -- is that a Houston group that asked that question, Wendy? WENDY: I can't actually tell where that came from. SHARRON: and if -- you know, if you are not in the Houston or Austin area and you're interested in creating AIR in another part of the country, I can tell you that there is AIR forming in Seattle, in Chicago, in Indianapolis and in the California Bay area. WENDY: Great, Sharron. Thank you. I have another question from -- it looks like some folks that might be interested in participating. They want to know about the time commitment that it would take from the Web developer perspective and also from the nonprofit perspective in terms of involving -- in terms of the training and the actual competition. SHARRON: Len, maybe you -- LEN: I can go ahead and address that. In my experience -- Sharron summarized that so well from the commitment from the client or the nonprofit, that was one of the benefits from participating in AIR as a Web developer, as a professional Web developer, I had very few clients that had any type of training like that. So I think any Web developers out there listening know sometimes how difficult it is to get content from your client or to get the pieces you need to build this Web site that they want. So one of the benefits of the AIR program is it sort of brings everybody together and smoothes out some of those obstacles. Time commitment for a team would be pretty minor compared to what it would take if you were on your own doing this. That there is a commitment you need to come to training, and that's usually half a day or a day of training in the AIR program, learning about accessibility, trying out some of this adaptive technology, getting familiar with the judging form. One of the things we haven't talked about is this is a competition and AIR has a fantastic judging form that you're exposed to see exactly how the Web site is going to be judged and the point base for certain things. And I know that the judging form is something I took with me into my professional career. There is things on there that you would think are common sense, but a lot of times people don't know or don't think to do that. So besides accessibility specific things like Sharron mentioned the alternative text for images, there is even judging criteria on spell checking to make sure you have the content on your Web site correctly spelled. That's a big deal. So there is that commitment to a half day or day event training, and then the dates I railed off there, there is a kickoff party where the teams are matched up with their nonprofit. So at the most, you have to be there to meet who you're going to work with and set up some times to get those materials ready and then there is the commitment of the day of the rally. That's a full eight-hour day, but for Saturday it's going to be the 16th of October where that team is there and you're pounding out that accessible Web site together on that day. Does that answer your question? WENDY: Yes, that sounds great and it sounds like there are so many that any nonprofit or Web designer -- there are so many benefits if they become involved. Some great incentives. Going along with what you were talking about the criteria, Len, can you talk about the criteria for judging across the different categories that was mentioned earlier? LEN: Yeah, the first category suggests, the judging form takes that -- I don't have one in front of me to read through, but it takes into consideration sort of the type of Web site you're creating. As Sharron mentioned, there were some teams coming in that really wanted a challenge or had experience with Web sites that needed more technology involved, whether that was multimedia or it was creating Web pages from a database, and so there is criteria that go across all categories. You know, the simple things we briefly touched on at the beginning of the broadcast about alternative text for images and the simple things you need to do for every single page, but then there is a whole category or specific things for these sort of higher end Web sites. So everybody is being judged on accessibility, but depending on the type of Web site -- you know, no two Web sites are exactly alike. No two nonprofits have the same needs, so the judging form does take that into consideration. If you're in a different category, there are different things they'll look at or not look at considering. WENDY: Okay, thanks, Len. Now what about in reference to the criteria again, do you actually use or reference standards such as 508 or W3C or do you use a combination of those? And I'll give that to Sharron. SHARRON: Well, the judging form is a compilation from really some of the leading experts in the country, probably in the world. Dr. Jim Thatcher, who was the vice chair of the committee that developed the Section 508 standards, Dr. Jim Allan from the Texas school for the blind and visually impaired; Dr. John Slatin who heads the accessibility institute at UT, Phil Jenkins from IBM's accessibility center. These folks have been involved with us from the very beginning, from the very first AIR. Now we refer to them affectionately as the judge brothers. And they've added expertise along the way, people who have won AIR. They have recruited them as judges, and the AIR judging form is kind of a very live document. It evolves along with the technology that it's judging and so. It is not a strict Section 508 document, but I would say that that is probably the source of most of the -- most of the criteria. But it also references -- each one of the judging standards references the WCAG guidelines or the Section 508 standard that it correlates to. But then there are some things, you know, like the judges actually judge on the aesthetics of the site, is it appropriate to the kind of Web site that you are designing and the purpose and the mission of the nonprofit organization you're working for. So if you're working for, say, an organization that creates -- is a lending library of adaptive toys for kids, does it give that look and feel or not. You know, so there are more -- there are more ways for the judges to make their judgments than are captured solely in accessibility standards, but did good news is that the judging form is made available. When you come to the very first training, you get a copy of it, and the judging form becomes your constant companion during all the AIR training and the planning and the actual rally day, and if you -- you know, you have those to refer to. It's kind of an open book test. LEN: Yes. Let me cut in there, too. It's also a great checklist. A lot of these lists of standards or what you need to do for accessibility aren't in a very friendly checklist format like they have the AIR judging form set up to be. So while it is a judging form and it lists the criteria, it's just a fantastic checklist as you're developing the site to go through, did I cover this, does my Website incorporate video that I need captioning for that? And so like Sharron said, you can get that the first day at training and that's basically your guide while you're creating the Website. SHARRON: And many, many, many, people have told us that they just keep the judging form now and they use it as -- they use that also as kind of a testing tool where they can go and check off the things that -- you know, one of the things that's required on the form is for your code to validate. And so you use the judging form for the competition, but many people use it long after that. WENDY: It sounds like a wonderful resource. Thanks, Sharron. I've got a great question from someone that's interested in organizing an AIR event in their area. And they are actually in a small town in Kansas, and they have a state university that's located there and they would love to get the state and university Web designers involved in an event like this. So they want to know some practical suggestions for getting people at the university involved and interested and committed to such an event. Len, could you perhaps take a first crack at that. LEN: Yes, since I'm in the process of helping with the one here in Houston. The first step is to probably get a hold of Sharron or someone at Knowbility to borrow some of these resources they have and a lot of what's up on their Website or available to people participating is a great place to start. You're not reinventing the wheel. There are checklists there for logistics and things you need to do and example sponsor kits and example Web pages and things like that. Each community is different. So I don't think it matters whether you're in a small university town or in a large city with multiple universities like Houston, it really is just a matter of the commitment, somebody that's going to form, you know, an advisory board or group of people to get together and get some of these resources and start gathering, recruiting, whatever they need to do to pull these people together. One of the things we've been talking about so far is just this community building that it does. I encourage everybody out there that's interested and doesn't have one going yet in their area to try this. There is really -- it's one of the so amazing things that's a win-win for everybody that participates. Yes, if you know, set it up as an AIR rally, as a competition, there is judging criteria, but nobody loses. Every one of these nonprofits is going to walk away with a Website that's more accessible than when they started. Everybody that comes for training or that participates on a team is going to walk away learning more and having more experience than when they started. Any company that sponsors this or helps out in any way gets the advertising, gets the exposure, you know, lets people know that they're committed to this and connecting with these people that all want to excel. They want to take accessibility to take their Web sites and the Internet, break those barriers and have it available to everybody. And Sharron, do you want to go into any specifics about that if they want on start? SHARRON: Well, I think one thing that you said -- I would maybe expand on a little bit and that was the building of the advisory board because that is your core group of advocates in your community who understand why it's important and who will go out and spread the word in a way that gets the entire community engaged. And I think here in Austin we've been very lucky in that a few years ago somebody from the Texas governor's office of people with disabilities sent their Web master to an AIR program, a community AIR program, and the governor's office said that person was transformed by the experience and Pat Pound, who is the Executive Director of the committee, then just became determined that, okay, we're going to have an AIR for the state agencies because I saw the transformation and it was significant. And so she then formed kind of an advisory group of people who understood the issues and they became the advisory board for AIR-Texas. And AIR-Texas is basically going to happen this year because of that group of committed advocates who said we believe that this is a way to make the systemic change that we need and through their small committee group were able to bring enough people -- you know, they were able to create the critical mass then that made it kind of inevitable. Okay, we have enough people who understand how important this is and are willing to spend the organizing time and the logistical time to make -- to make this happen. But I think building that advisory board is the first -- is the first step and our partnership in Houston with the DLRP has the same function because they are in and of that community, they are in Houston, they know the people in Houston, and they were able to build an effective advisory board very quickly of people who had the community connections to get the word out and to get people involved. And I think that's -- that's key. So that advisory board is really important and as Len said, we here at Knowbility welcome you to be in touch with us and we have some - - you know, we have some ideas about how to reach those people in your community and introductory comments about the rally and the goals and we'd be happy to support you doing that. WENDY: Okay, thanks, Sharron. I have a question about the resources, the judging guide that you talked about some someone and they want to know if the judging form is available on line for people that can't attend AIR as well as some of the other resources that you have talked about, the online training and other positions and things that you said Knowbility has developed, Sharron. SHARRON: Yes, those resources are all linked from the Knowbility site. They are part of -- the training materials are not really downloadable. You can follow the training online, but because we change it so often, we don't encourage you to download that training because it's pretty dynamic and we try to keep it as current as we possibly can, but the judging form is downloadable and there are resource guides, bibliographies, recommended books, articles, techniques, tools, all that is linked. There is a part of the Knowbility Website called curriculum, and if you go there, you'll find all of those things linked from that part of the Website. WENDY: Okay, thanks, Sharron. I've got a general question about accessible technology and then some real specific questions about events. So let me give you guys this general question. This is for someone that's new to accessible technology, and they're with a state health department and this is a person that's an advocate. They want their system to be accessible, but this Web site is actually being managed by a state I-T department and accessibility has not been a major focus in developing or maintaining the Web sites. So they want to know what kind of resources or guides you might recommend to a professional that might be developing that site or just other general recourses that both of you could recommend. Len, if you would like to take that question first. LEN: Yeah, I would be glad to. That is a big challenge. It's similar to what some of the large universities face. I know a lot of schools and school districts have you know, I. T. departments that set template and everybody has to use that. So part of it is just reaching out to like minded people like we've been talking about forming a community and trying to expose as many of these IT people to the resources that are out there. The one we've been talking about, the judging form that is out there, Sharron -- I was going to chime in, too, and say it is up on the Knowbility Website. If you can't make it to an AIR event or part of the AIR program yet, I know one of the books that I got for participating in the last AIR-University was maximum accessibility by Dr. Slatin and Sharron Rush. So I'll put a plug in for Sharron's book because it was something tangible I could pass on to other IT people that might know what accessibility is but not what the next steps or what are the nuts and bolts for doing this. If you are lucky enough to participate in an event or can contact some of the people involved, one of the neat things is besides getting the judging format, the training, the judges are available via E-mail or on the day of the training if you have a question, if there is something that comes up, is this accessible? How do I make this work? That was one of the great, great benefits that I encountered participating that, you know, I was never turned a way and told no we can't tell you that or you have to figure it out for yourself. Everybody is there to try different things or to learn this. There is a list of resources up on the Knowbility Website I think that's really the best place to start if you're looking for real specific, you know, what do I do next, how do I get these people involved. WENDY: Okay, thanks. That sounds like a great place for anyone to start is to visit the Knowbility Website and there is going to be links to all of these resources that you both have discussed. I have some questions that are more specific to the actual training and this is actually a question -- it looks like it comes from Houston and this person wants to know how they actually would sign up for a three-day training -- for the three-day training that was mentioned. SHARRON: The three-day training is not in Houston. Unfortunately, the three-day training is part of AIR-Texas and AIR-University rather than AIR-Houston and it's going to be held in Austin on May 24th, 25th and 26th. So if you go to the Knowbility Website and link to AIR-Texas, you can sign up for it, but you'll have to drive to Austin. WENDY: Okay. Thank you. This actually comes from a person that would actually like to come and watch an AIR event, and they want to know if you actually do post -- for instance, as AIR university is developing their Web sites for different participants is developing their pages, is there a place where they can actually go and visit a place on your Web site where they can keep up with what's going on in a particular competition? SHARRON: Well, no. What they can -- what they can see is AIR- University sites that were created and submitted for the competition in 2003; but the sites don't go live until they've already been judged. So you don't see the work in progress, if that's what you're looking for. The way -- the only way to see a work -- the work in progress is to go to the one-day community Accessibility Internet Rally, that one-day event that we were discussing in Houston will be on October 16th, and that will be at the University of Houston. They are hosting the rally. So you could go that day and watch the process in action, but the university sites -- the ones that develop over the months -- like they'll be trained in May and they won't turn in their finished product until the fall. Those aren't posted up there in progress. That's kind of a nice idea though. I wonder how many people would be willing to do that? LEN: I'm thinking about that one. The other thing is the nature of it -- it's building a Web page. It's some code and some images. It's not exactly as sexy as an Iron Chef competition where you've got knives flying and steam rising up from stuff. So I don't know. It would be interesting maybe a before and after screen shot or before and after examples, something like that. I know from past experience Knowbility is great at having the participants up there for people to click through and visit those Web sites once they are completed. I came back from South by Southwest in Austin last month, the interactive part, and there was actually an AIR event going on there where teams had redesigned multimedia Web sites for artists or groups of artists and that was neat. If you were at South by Southwest, you could actually walk by the Knowbility booth and see -- click through and look at these that were not yet judged, that were in the process of being judged. So that was very cool to see that. That was almost the same thing as a work in progress. SHARRON: And those -- and all those sites that were completed in the past few AIR competitions are linked from Knowbility's Website. So you can look at things that have been completed. WENDY: That's great and that was actually another question from someone that was wondering how long Web sites might be hosted actually after the event and where they could find them, Sharron. SHARRON: One of the benefits to the nonprofit organizations of participating in AIR, is that as part of your agreement to make your Web site accessible, we agree to host it for free for one year. So they are linked from our site -- well, several of -- actually several of them are linked for longer than a year, but at least for that year that they're hosted, they're linked. We try to keep the links live as long as the nonprofit is maintaining the accessibility of the site. So you can actually go to the -- go to the Knowbility site now in the sub site of AIR, you can see sites that were made in California, in Denver, in years past, all the way back to I think -- I think 1999 some of them. WENDY: Okay. That's great. So people can visit Knowbility's Website. Sharron, this is a question about the contest in Austin since this is where everything started. And you talked about the synergy that's been built over the years. Can you talk about how it's evolved, have the number of different nonprofits competing -- has that number increased as well as the number of Web designers? SHARRON: Well, the first year was 1998 and we had 16 competitors. Last year we had 30. As Len mentioned, there is a certain amount of physical space limitation where we have a training facility that can only hold so many people. So that constrains it somewhat, but it has grown and now when in 1998 we began there was one AIR competition a year, now in some ways we have three competitions in Austin every year, because we have the AIR-University, the AIR interactive, which was the South by Southwest competition he referred to and then we have the regular community AIR. So each year in Austin we have, oh, over 50 teams and the teams can be anywhere from three to seven people. That many developers who come through the training who learn about accessibility and who apply what they know on behalf of nonprofit organizations or their academic departments. I think another way that AIR has really evolved is in that way of meeting more diverse needs, rather than simply creating the relatively straightforward and simple nonprofit sites, we're now also looking at some of the massive sites of the Department of Transportation, for example, and state agencies and college and university enrollment and a lot of the functionality that they have there and much more multimedia. So in that way, I think AIR has evolved as well. LEN: One of the other things that I've noticed evolving is just the perception of accessibility. You know, when I first started my involvement with the AIR programs, it was more -- people were coming to it because of 508 and this is the law and I have to do that. Now, even the blocks I'm reading from other professional Web developers, it's something they want to do. It's almost a given now that you're coding -- if you want to excel as a Web designer or have an excellent site, you want to code to the current standards and you want to ensure that that Website is accessible. So it was really encouraging to be talking to people -- especially at South by Southwest and hear them say this is something I want to do. Not, this is the law, I have to do this, this is what we want to do. What are next steps to take? WENDY: That's wonderful. It sounds like you've really built, through these competitions, an energy in the different communities where these contests have been held. Len, I have a question that's being posed to you and this is about the contest in Houston. And can you talk a little bit more about what is happening in Houston and I understand that you're introducing a new component called the educational edge, if you could talk a little bit more about that. LEN: Yeah, thank you. I've been dying to squeeze that in. One of the things that Sharron mentioned is how vital the advisory board is to starting an generating the interest and building to one of these AIR programs. And it just so happened that the synergy or the connection there in the advisory board for the AIR-Houston program, a lot of us had connections to education, to higher education, things like that. So we've actually incorporated another element into the AIR-Houston event, and we're calling it the educational edge. And what that means is we're inviting or trying to recruit educators, I. T. coordinators, Web professionals in education to gather a team and join the rally. And so that would help a school create an accessible Website, you know, whether it's for their own school or for another school in general. It's a chance to involve students and get them to participate. They're the ones that are going to be building, you know, the next Internet. They need to get involved. They're the ones building Web pages and blocking and doing things now. So it's a great opportunity, a teacher could become involved actually join AIR-Houston and have this as a class project where they could work for the semester or for the summer creating this Website and then just come together the day of the rally to submit it. I know one of the AIR events I was a part of in Austin, I actually helped mentor two teams of students that decided to get together and participate in the AIR-Austin event. So I was really happy to see a program like this become an official part of AIR-Houston that we're now, you know, really reaching out to these educators or schools to field teams and to become involved and be a part of this. They get all the same benefits that we've been talking about today. If they -- they made this a class activity, they'd be bringing that training back to their classroom and that's such a great feature. I know I've been working with instructors at the university level that are actually teaching accessibility to other teachers, you know, as part of an instructional technology program, as part of an education degree, and this would be just an outstanding opportunity to get hands-on training to be a part of an event like this and to really join this community or network with these other professionals. WENDY: That's wonderful and it really sounds like there is a lot of different ways that educational folks can participate in this competition. Sharron, this is a question for you, and this comes from someone that wants to know about -- you mentioned different sites where AIR competitions were forming. Is that information available on your Website? This person wants to know how they can get involved in their particular community? SHARRON: No, not -- not until it gets to the point of where there is an advisory board and we've set a date and there is more -- it's gone past the exploratory point to the actual planning if that's the point at which it gets posted to the Web site. But, if the person who asked the question just wants to send me an E-mail and let me know what community they're in, I'll definitely hook them up with the people who are forming advisory boards in that region. WENDY: Okay, great. And we will be putting both Sharron and Len's E-mail addresses up on the Website once this transcript is posted so for folks that want to get in touch directly with either Sharron or Len, you will be able to do so. I want to -- we've got some more questions that have come in, but in closing I just want to ask sort of a general question and throw it back both to Len and Sharron, and just to talk about, you know, what AIR has meant to you. Why you were interested and why you think it's important for folks to be involved at the different levels. Sharron. SHARRON: Well, I think the idea of accessibility is one that is just in my worldview, it's just unquestioned that it's a necessary thing. I mean, in the same way that we all understand the need to build ramps into public spaces, we have to find a way to systematically create ramps into the cyberspaces that we are increasingly inhabiting. I mean, it's just an idea whose time has come. And so for me, AIR takes that that necessity and presents it to communities in a way that engages them, that makes them eager to be part of it, and it gets past the idea that, you know, this is something that big brother is telling me that I have to do or that, you know, nobody likes to do something just because we're told do it. So by putting it in this very creative context of competition and community spirit and community energy, and making it really fun, I think that that's more -- it adheres more to the spirit of what we're trying to do, to make a more inclusive world, and also the results are tremendous because when all these creative people are putting their minds to some of the problems that we see with access to electronic information, it's just remarkable. The solutions that they come up with and so I think it's important. I think it's timely, and I think it's just a whole lot of fun. LEN: And I can add on to that. I can agree with everything Sharron said. It's so much what it's about, that sense of community, being together with people that are as passionate or as interested in accessibility, having the resources available at little or no cost is just amazing. I mean, when I look at training costs for something like this, it would be staggering to have to pay for something like this if they were charging full price for a seminar or anything like that, and then just the whole idea of being exposed to how other people and other audiences are approaching your Website. Speaking as a Web developer, the best Web developers don't assume that people are coming there just viewing their Website, using Internet Explorer and looking at it in a way if they are looking at a Website, being exposed to the adaptive technology and seeing that, wow, somebody might be coming to my Website through J-A-W-S or someone might be viewing my Website that is colorblind and not able to distinguish these colors. It just really helps to be exposed to that larger audience, and to get the word out that that's happening, that people don't come to Web sites the same way, but they need access to that information the same way. And as you know, the Internet grows and people are turning to that as their main source of information, this becomes more and more important. How many times in this Web cast have we sent people to the Knowbility site? If that site weren't accessible, there would be a chunk of that population that couldn't access that information. So the AIR program and Knowbility really -- that's what it means to me. It makes such an effort to expose people to that larger audience, and just sort of make them discover that there are other ways of doing this that you aren't going to lose anybody, you're just going to ensure that more and more people can access your Web site or your information. WENDY: Thank you both so much. It sounds like there is benefit for anyone that's going to compete, whether it's Web designers that are going to gain some unique skills and also possibly credits and other things as well as educational entities and nonprofits that are going to remove barriers to people with disabilities. So this is such a wonderful and innovative program. I want to thank you both, Sharron and Len, for participating this afternoon. You've given us some terrific insight into this program about bringing Web accessibility up to the next stage and having an AIR accessibility rally in your community. As a last note, Sharron, I wanted to ask you a little bit about future direction for Knowbility. Have you given any thought to perhaps bringing this up to the national level and having a national contest? SHARRON: You know, I think that would be -- that would just be a tremendous program, and as we build AIR communities around the country -- I mentioned some of the cities where we're holding AIR competitions this year and in 2005. Certainly my hope is that we find the partnerships that we need -- we're a very small nonprofit organization. We have four full-time staff, one part time, so we're pretty small, but we think big, and we love to leverage existing community resources and so I think that as we build the partnerships around the country, there is no reason why we can't have an AIR-America. It would be great fun. WENDY: Okay, Sharron. Thank you. So we can look forward to that say in 2006. SHARRON: There you go. 2006, Wendy. All right. I'm with ya. WENDY: All right. Thank you. So for those folks out there that didn't get your questions answered, I want to assure you that we will get those questions answered. Some of them were very specific and technical and individualized and I assure you we will follow up. Anyway, thanks again, Sharron and Len. SHARRON: Well thank you. It was really fun to be here. LEN: Thank you all. WENDY: Alright, thank you Len, And for everyone else, I hope you've learned from today's Web cast that if you'd like any additional information about the AIR program, please either visit Knowbility's Web site at Knowbility.org or DLRP.org. And we have links to all the different resources that we've talked about today. I want to assure everyone that this Web cast will be archived and we'll also post any additional information on resources that we talked about today. Also please check back to our Web site for information on upcoming Web casts. I would like to, in closing, acknowledge NIDRR, the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, who funds our host for today's event, which is the Disability Law Resource Project. If you have any questions either about today's Web cast, accessible information technology or the Americans with Disabilities Act, please call 1-800-949-4232. In closing, I would like to thank our Web cast team here at ILRU, and that consists of Sharon Finney, Marj Gordon, Dawn Heinsohn, Rachel Kosoy and Vinh Nguyen. I would also like to thank Rob Dickehuth and Marie Bryant, our wonderful real-time captioner. All right, I want to again thank everyone for joining today. Bye.