College Policies

Accessible Technology Policy

  • Responsible executive: Chief Information Officer
  • Responsible official: Accessible Technology Manager
  • Responsible office: Information Technology
  • Effective date: July 18, 2018
  • Last revision date: N/A

Associated policies

Policy statement

Portland Community College Information and Communication Technology (ICT) must be accessible to and usable by the college community, including people with disabilities.

Policy exceptions

Individuals, departments, and offices often use a complex mix of digital resources, materials, and systems. Training and technical support are available and most of the time, there are equally effective alternatives that can be defined collaboratively. When there are critical technologies in use that are not fully accessible, there may be exceptions that can be granted until more accessible options can be put in place.

Purpose

PCC is committed to providing equal access for people with disabilities to our programs, goods, services, and activities. Equitable student success requires accessible information and communication technology. It is important that we make a good faith effort to identify and remove barriers proactively. The operational procedures implemented to support this policy provide a structure to ensure ICT is accessible to and usable by the students, faculty, staff, and community members we are here to serve.

Scope

  • Applications and Core Content (Required to meet standards):
    Institutional websites as well as all adopted digital and electronic applications and services used to conduct business.
  • Instructional Content (Required to meet standards):
    Digital and electronic instructional materials, tools, and resources from any source for fully online, hybrid, and classroom-based courses must be accessible, or there must be an equally effective access plan in place.
  • Non-business, non-instructional (Recommended but not required):
    Non-instructional personal pages, archival materials, and student work. Materials not meeting the standard, as recommended, should have an accessibility statement specifying how to make an accommodation request.

General use and responsibilities

The College will:
  • Set accessibility standards
  • Define violation procedures for reported accessibility issues
  • Track issues and monitor timelines established for resolution
  • Coordinate accessibility audits
  • Support end-user testing
  • Facilitate staff training and communications on accessibility
  • Provide support and input on solutions to accessibility issues
  • Set exception criteria and review exception requests
  • Support development of guidelines for adopting accessible ICT
  • Ensure the institution adequately assigns resources to enact this policy
  • Maintain an Accessible Digital Environment Committee to assist and advise the development of policies and procedures related to accessible ICT
Departments, divisions, and other functional areas will:
  • Support employees in obtaining training and technical support
  • Participate in efforts to document progress in increasing accessibility over time through program reviews, accessibility audits, and other activities
Staff and faculty will:
  • Review accessibility standards and ensure understanding of definitions
  • Review accessibility options when making technology adoption choices
  • Ensure academic freedom leads to the best materials being used in ways that support equitable access
  • Create accessible documents, videos, and other ICT, attending trainings, or getting technical support as needed

Policy violation

When inaccessible technologies are identified they shall be addressed through the technical assistance options outlined in the operational procedures.

Complaint procedure

Concerns are addressed through the technical assistance options outlined in the operational procedures. If the issue is not satisfactorily resolved, the College’s Office of Equity and Inclusion should be informed.

Related governing standards, policies, and guidelines

This policy sets accessibility standards that all ICT within scope are required to meet:
Related guidelines:
Operational procedures:

Definitions

Digital Accessibility Coordinator / Compliance Officer:
Position to oversee compliance to the ICT policy and the college’s legal obligations within the scope of accessible ICT.
Digital Accessibility Transition Plan:
Each college, department, program, or unit that engages in an accessibility audit must either make their ICT accessible or submit a Digital Accessibility Transition Plan. The Digital Accessibility Transition Plan should establish priorities and timetables for updating legacy pages. Priority must be given to creating accessible Web pages for core institutional information such as coursework, registration, advising, admission, catalogs, and student, faculty, staff services information.
Digital content includes:
web pages, documents, software, and hardware.
Equally effective:
“Equally effective” means that the alternative format communicates the same information and allows users to have a comparable experience in as timely a fashion as does the source. For interactive applications or service pages, “equally effective” means that the end result (e.g., registration) is accomplished in a comparable time and with comparable effort on the part of the requester.
Information and Communication Technology (ICT):
Any hardware, software, digital and electronic applications, websites, documents, enterprise software, multimedia, audio-visual systems, communication devices, and any electronic or digital services that enable users to access, store, transmit, or manipulate information.
Legacy ICT is ICT adopted prior to the adoption date of the Accessible Information and Communication Policy.
Programs, services, activities:
Anything that the college offers or lends its name to, must be accessible to people with disabilities.
The standard(s):
Two major web accessibility standards are accepted in the United States: the internationally accepted web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) and the United States Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act web accessibility standards (Section 508 Standards). As of January 2018, the two have been harmonized.
Web page(s):
Documents on the World Wide Web, consisting of an HTML file and any related files for scripts and graphics, and often hyperlinked to other documents on the Web. The content of web pages is normally accessed by using a browser.