AMP – Technology Accessibility | The University of Alabama

Spring 2021 Accessibility Initiative Update

March 5th, 2021
in UA11y News

The University of Alabama Technology Accessibility team, housed in the Office of Information Technology (OIT), continues to lead the initiative to provide our technology users, including those with disabilities, a functional and accessible technology experience and to help our institution’s faculty, staff, and students develop digital resources that are accessible to all. Since March 2020, we have been exerting much of our efforts to help make sure newly virtual and remote resources and events are as accessible as possible.

We have seen substantial growth in the use of captioning grants for public-facing and campus wide media. Captioning grants for live public-facing or campus wide virtual events are also available now.

Additional efforts since January 2020 include:

Launching Blackboard Ally for Learn, which provides students with accessible versions of course content, offers instructors guidance on course content accessibility and remediation, and gives institutional insight into accessibility progress for course content.
Resolving more than 1500 tickets in the HelpSpot customer service/support ticket system.
Offering workshops and webinars, including offerings on web accessibility; best practices for creating accessible documents, presentations, spreadsheets, emails, social media, and other digital content; Universal Design for Learning; and other accessibility-related topics.
Captioning and/or transcribing over 12,000 minutes of media through UA captioning grants. Captioning grants may be used to caption and/or transcribe UA-owned video and audio that will be shared on public or campus-wide websites.
Running 2000+ Accessibility Management Platform reports. Accessibility Management Platform (AMP) is a comprehensive accessibility and reporting tool freely available to members of the UA community.
Continued education, outreach, and enforcement around the The University of Alabama Web Resources Accessibility Policy (PDF), which adopts WCAG 2.0 AA to address the accessibility of public-facing web resources, campus-wide web resources, and web resources needed to conduct core University administrative and academic function, including equally effective alternate access and non-compliance plans.

We continue to:

Maintain a campus technology and web site inventory, including technology accessibility status.
Conduct site audits, sharing evaluation reports with area liaisons who can handle remediation with our assistance.
Provide technology accessibility policy guidance to stakeholders who select, create, or share digital content.
Facilitate accurate captioning and or transcription of all public-facing and campus wide media, including the administration of captioning grants and training.
Work with campus stakeholders and accessibility liaisons to ensure the accessibility of instructional content housed in Blackboard Learn or other enterprise instructional technology tools.
Manage licensing and support of enterprise assistive technology tools (currently ZoomText).
Consult with and assist campus liaisons and other stakeholders with all technology accessibility concerns and questions.

Plans for this coming year include the continued implementation of The University of Alabama Web Resources Accessibility Policy, including compliance reviews, as well as partnering with the University’s IT Enterprise Development and Application Support team to develop a web inventory portal for accessibility liaisons.

Summer 2020 Technology Accessibility Webinars

May 29th, 2020
in Training, UA11y News

The Technology Accessibility team invites you to enhance your technology accessibility skills by participating in these webinars. We are proud to partner with HR Learning and Development to offer webinar registration via UA LMS, the online learning system for faculty and staff. Register for webinars via the links here, or view the entire Accessibility instructor-led training catalog in UA LMS: UA LMS Instructor-Led Training: Accessibility Students unable to register via UA LMS are also welcome to attend and may register by emailing accessibility@ua.edu.

We are also happy to offer private training sessions on these and other accessibility-related topics to members of the University community. Please contact us if we can help with your technology accessibility needs.

Spring 2020 Technology Accessibility Workshops

February 2nd, 2020
in Training, UA11y News

The Technology Accessibility team invites you to enhance your technology accessibility skills by participating in these workshops and webinars. We are proud to partner with HR Learning and Development to offer workshop/webinar registration via UA LMS, the online learning system for faculty and staff. Register for workshops/webinars via the links here, or view the entire Accessibility instructor-led training catalog in UA LMS: UA LMS Instructor-Led Training: Accessibility Students unable to register via UA LMS are also welcome to attend and may register by emailing accessibility@ua.edu.

We are also happy to offer private training sessions on these and other accessibility-related topics to members of the University community. Please contact us if we can help with your technology accessibility needs.

Upcoming accessibility-related learning opportunities

September 3rd, 2019
in Training, UA11y News

We’re compiling our team’s favorite sources for accessibility news and professional development opportunities to add to the collection of Accessibility Resources on our website. Let us know if there are organizations, listservs, social media accounts, etc. you find particularly useful, and we’ll add them to the list.

Here are some upcoming accessibility-related learning opportunities:

Fall 2019 Technology Accessibility Workshops

August 16th, 2019
in Training, UA11y News

The Technology Accessibility team invites you to enhance your technology accessibility skills by participating in these workshops and webinars. Starting this semester, we are proud to partner with HR Learning and Development to offer workshop/webinar registration via UA LMS, the new online learning system for faculty and staff. Register for workshops/webinars via the links here, or view the entire Accessibility instructor-led training catalog in UA LMS: UA LMS Instructor-Led Training: Accessibility

We are also happy to offer private training sessions on these and other accessibility-related topics to members of the University community. Please contact us if we can help with your technology accessibility needs.

Summer 2019 Technology Accessibility Workshops

May 31st, 2019
in Training, UA11y News

The Technology Accessibility team invites you to enhance your technology accessibility skills by participating in these workshops this summer:

Accessibility Office Hours and Work Session
Bring your accessibility questions or work to improve the accessibility of your digital content. We’re here to help!
- Thursday, June 27, 2:00 p.m.
- Thursday, July 25, 2:00 p.m.
Advanced PDF Accessibility: Forms
Participants in this hands-on workshop will learn techniques for creating accessible PDF forms with Adobe Acrobat Pro DC.
Tuesday, August 6, 2:00 p.m.
Advanced PDF Accessibility: Lists
Participants in this hands-on workshop will learn how to correctly tag PDF lists using Adobe Acrobat Pro DC.
Thursday, August 1, 2:00 p.m.
Advanced PDF Accessibility: Scanned Documents
Participants in this hands-on workshop will learn how to use Adobe Acrobat Pro DC to correct accessibility issues in a PDF created by scanning a document.
Thursday, July 18, 2:00 p.m.
Advanced PDF Accessibility: Tables
Participants in this hands-on workshop will learn how to correctly tag PDF tables using Adobe Acrobat Pro DC.
Tuesday, July 30, 2:00 p.m.
Creating Accessible PDFs with Adobe Acrobat Pro DC
Participants in this introductory hands-on workshop will learn how to use Adobe Acrobat Pro DC to create accessible PDFs from Microsoft Office content.
Tuesday, June 18, 2:00 p.m.
Creating Accessible PDFs with Adobe InDesign CC
Participants in this hands-on workshop will learn how to export an InDesign file as a tagged PDF and other accessibility considerations for InDesign.
Thursday, August 8, 2:00 p.m.
Creating Accessible Social Media Content
Learn how to create Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media content accessible to users with disabilities.
Monday, July 22, 9:00 a.m.
Creating Accessible Social Media Content (webinar)
Learn how to create Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media content accessible to users with disabilities.
Monday, June 10, 9:00 a.m.
Designing for Accessibility
Learn the importance of designing for accessibility and impactful practices you can apply to create accessible documents, images, audio, video, and web content.
Thursday, June 6, 2:00 p.m.
Designing for Accessibility (webinar)
Learn the importance of designing for accessibility and impactful practices you can apply to create accessible documents, images, audio, video, and web content.
Monday, June 24, 9:00 a.m.
Interpreting AMP Tests and Reports
Learn how to navigate and understand accessibility testing results documented in an AMP Report.
Thursday, July 11, 2:00 p.m.
Introduction to AMP
Learn about UA’s Accessibility Management Platform (AMP), a comprehensive accessibility and reporting tool freely available to members of the UA community.
Tuesday, June 4, 2:00 p.m.
Manual Testing in AMP
Learn how to use Access Assistant, a browser toolbar integrated with AMP, to perform guided manual accessibility testing.
Tuesday, July 9, 2:00 p.m.
PDF Remediation Basics
Participants in this hands-on workshop will learn how to use Adobe Acrobat Pro DC to correct basic tagging issues in a PDF.
Tuesday, July 2, 2:00 p.m.

All classroom workshops are held in A232 Gordon Palmer. Registration is requested but not required.

We are also happy to offer private training sessions on these and other accessibility-related topics to members of the University community. Please contact us if we can help with your technology accessibility needs.

Oct. 1 Accessibility Management Platform (AMP) Office Hours cancelled

October 1st, 2018
in Training, UA11y News

Today’s Accessibility Management Platform (AMP) open help session has been cancelled. For AMP assistance, please contact accessibility@ua.edu.

Mid- 2018 Accessibility Initiative Update

August 14th, 2018
in UA11y News

The Emerging Technology and Accessibility team, now part of UA’s Faculty Resource Center (FRC), housed in the Office of Information Technology (OIT), continues to lead the initiative to provide our technology users, including those with disabilities, a functional and accessible technology experience with our web presence and our instructional and emerging technologies. An annual audit of campus college and division web sites reflects that many campus areas continue to improve in their accessibility status.

2017-2018 efforts include:

Working with campus stakeholders to develop a Web Resources Accessibility Policy that would adopt WCAG 2.0 AA to address the accessibility of public-facing web resources, campus-wide web resources, and web resources needed to conduct core University administrative and academic functions, including third-party tools and equal access and non-compliance plans.
Establishing technology accessibility liaisons for each college, school, and division. Appointed by campus deans and vice presidents, these liaisons serve as the area contact to address technology needs related to accessibility.
Compiling and distributing to liaisons the most complete and accurate list of UA web sites to date.
Acquiring and rolling out campus wide the Texthelp suite of literacy support tools. Texthelp tools freely available to all UA students, faculty and staff on campus and personal machines include Read&Write, a literacy support solution with tools for reading, writing, research and studying; EquatIO, an application you can use to type, handwrite or speak to create equations, formulas, and other math and chemistry expressions; and Snapverter, an easy to use add-on for Read&Write for Google Chrome and iOS app that transforms papers and files into readable PDF documents.
Assuming management of campus licensing for ZoomText, a screen magnification and reading program that enables users with low vision to see, hear, and use everything on the computer screen
Captioning and/or transcribing over 4000 minutes of media through UA captioning grants. Captioning grants may be used to caption and/or transcribe UA-owned video and audio that will be shared on public or campus-wide websites.
Offering new workshops covering accessibility best practices for various media as well as diversity in learners and learning style and how accessibility barriers affect users with diversity of ability.
Adding staff member Melissa Green. Melissa is a Technology Accessibility Specialist dedicated to technology accessibility training needs.
Resolving 255 tickets in the Helpspot customer service/support ticket system.
Running 3246 Accessibility Management Platform reports. Accessibility Management Platform (AMP) is a comprehensive accessibility and reporting tool freely available to members of the UA community.

Fall 2018 Technology Accessibility Workshops

July 19th, 2018
in Training, UA11y News

Emerging Technology and Accessibility invites you to enhance your technology accessibility skills by participating in these workshops during the Fall 2018 term:

AMP Office Hours
Get assistance with your Accessibility Management Platform (AMP) questions in this open help session.
Monday, Oct. 1, 10:30-11:30 a.m.
Creating Accessible Content with Microsoft Office
Learn how to create Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets, and Outlook emails accessible to users with disabilities.
Friday, Sept. 21, 10:00-11:00 a.m.
Creating Accessible Content with Microsoft Office (webinar)
Learn how to create Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets, and Outlook emails accessible to users with disabilities.
Thursday, Sept. 27, 2:00-3:00 p.m.
Creating Accessible PDFs with Adobe Acrobat DC
Learn how to use Adobe Acrobat DC to create PDFs accessible to users with disabilities.
Friday, Oct. 12, 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Creating Accessible Social Media Content
Learn how to create social media content accessible to users with disabilities.
Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2:00-3:00 p.m.
Creating Accessible Social Media Content (webinar)
Learn how to create social media content accessible to users with disabilities.
Tuesday, Nov. 6, 10:00-11:00 a.m.
How People with Disabilities Access Digital Content
Gain a fuller appreciation of technology accessibility by exploring technologies and methods people with disabilities use to access websites, documents, audio, video, and other digital content.
Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2:00-3:00 p.m.
Introduction to AMP
Learn about UA’s Accessibility Management Platform (AMP), a comprehensive accessibility testing and reporting tool freely available to members of the UA community.
Friday, Sept. 14, 9:30-10:30 a.m.
Introduction to EquatIO (onsite webinar)
A comprehensive introduction to EquatIO and EquatIO mathspace, applications that let everyone create mathematical equations, formulas, graphs, and more on their computer or Chromebook.
Monday, Sept. 10, 1:00-4:00 p.m.
Introduction to Read&Write for Google Chrome
A comprehensive introduction to Read&Write for Google Chrome, a literacy support solution with tools for reading, writing, research and studying.
Wednesday, Oct. 17, 8:30-11:30 a.m.
Introduction to Read&Write for Windows
A comprehensive introduction to Read&Write for Windows, a literacy support solution with tools for reading, writing, research and studying.
Wednesday, Oct. 17, 1:00-4:00 p.m.
Introduction to Web Accessibility
Learn about laws and standards regarding accessibility in higher education, the University’s web accessibility guidelines, common accessibility challenges and solutions, and resources and strategies for creating accessible documents, images, audio, video, and web content.
Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2:00-3:00 p.m.
Introduction to Web Accessibility (webinar)
Learn about laws and standards regarding accessibility in higher education, the University’s web accessibility guidelines, common accessibility challenges and solutions, and resources and strategies for creating accessible documents, images, audio, video, and web content.
Friday, Sept. 28, 10:00-11:00 a.m.
Testing Web Content for Accessibility
Learn basic web accessibility evaluation techniques: using the WAVE accessibility evaluation tool; testing keyboard accessibility and content scaling; and manual checks for other common accessibility issues.
Wednesday, Oct. 10, 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Testing Web Content for Accessibility (webinar)
Learn basic web accessibility evaluation techniques: using the WAVE accessibility evaluation tool; testing keyboard accessibility and content scaling; and manual checks for other common accessibility issues.
Thursday, Nov. 1, 1:00-2:00 p.m.
Universal Design for Learning and Accessibility
Learn how to create inclusive, accessible learning opportunities by utilizing Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a set of curriculum development principles that give all individuals equal opportunities to learn.
Friday, Nov. 9, 10:00-11:00 a.m.
Universal Design for Learning and Accessibility (webinar)
Learn how to create inclusive, accessible learning opportunities by utilizing Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a set of curriculum development principles that give all individuals equal opportunities to learn.
Wednesday, Oct. 30, 3:00-4:00 p.m.
WCAG in a Nutshell
Learn about Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 requirements (success criteria) and techniques, along with resources UA web professionals can use to meet these guidelines.
Friday, Oct. 26, 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.

All classroom workshops are held in A232 Gordon Palmer. Registration is requested but not required.

We are also happy to offer private training sessions on these and other accessibility-related topics to members of the University community. Please contact us if we can help with your technology accessibility needs.

Summer 2018 Technology Accessibility Workshops

May 22nd, 2018
in Training, UA11y News

Emerging Technology and Accessibility invites you to enhance your technology accessibility skills by participating in these workshops during the Summer 2018 term:

Creating Accessible Documents with Adobe InDesign CC
Learn how to generate an accessible PDF from InDesign and use Adobe Acrobat to touch up the exported file.
Thursday, July 26, 2:00-3:00 p.m.
Creating Accessible Documents with Adobe InDesign CC (webinar)
Learn how to generate an accessible PDF from InDesign and use Adobe Acrobat to touch up the exported file.
Tuesday, July 31, 2:00-3:00 p.m.
Creating Accessible Emails (webinar)
Learn how to create accessible emails with Microsoft Outlook, learning practices you can also apply to other email programs and marketing tools such as MailChimp.
Tuesday, June 12, 2:00-3:00 p.m.
Creating Accessible Excel Spreadsheets (webinar)
Learn how to create Microsoft Excel spreadsheets that are accessible to people with disabilities.
Wednesday, June 20, 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Creating Accessible PDFs with Adobe Acrobat DC
Learn how to use Adobe Acrobat DC to create PDFs that are accessible to people with disabilities.
Wednesday, July 25, 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Creating Accessible PDFs with Adobe Acrobat DC (webinar)
Learn how to use Adobe Acrobat DC to create PDFs that are accessible to people with disabilities.
Monday, July 30, 2:00-3:00 p.m.
Creating Accessible PowerPoint Presentations (webinar)
Learn how to create Microsoft PowerPoint presentations that are accessible to people with disabilities.
Thursday, July 12, 2:00-3:00 p.m.
Creating Accessible Word Documents (webinar)
Learn how to create Microsoft Word documents that are accessible to people with disabilities.
Wednesday, June 13, 10:00-11:00 a.m.
How People with Disabilities Access Digital Content
Gain a fuller appreciation of technology accessibility by exploring technologies and methods people with disabilities use to access websites, documents, audio, video, and other digital content.
Monday, July 2, 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
How People with Disabilities Access Digital Content (webinar)
Gain a fuller appreciation of technology accessibility by exploring technologies and methods people with disabilities use to access websites, documents, audio, video, and other digital content.
Wednesday, June 27, 2:00-3:00 p.m.
Introduction to Web Accessibility
Learn about laws and standards regarding accessibility in higher education, the University’s web accessibility guidelines, common accessibility challenges and solutions, and resources and strategies for creating accessible documents, images, audio, video, and web content.
Wednesday, July 11, 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Introduction to Web Accessibility (webinar)
Learn about laws and standards regarding accessibility in higher education, the University’s web accessibility guidelines, common accessibility challenges and solutions, and resources and strategies for creating accessible documents, images, audio, video, and web content.
Tuesday, July 24, 2:00-3:00 p.m.
Understanding the New AMP Interface
Accessibility Management Platform (AMP) is a comprehensive accessibility testing and reporting tool freely available to all members of the UA community.
Tuesday, June 26, 10:00-11:00 a.m.

All classroom workshops are held in A232 Gordon Palmer. Registration is requested but not required.

We are also happy to offer private training sessions on these and other accessibility-related topics to members of the University community. Please contact us if we can help with your technology accessibility needs.

Tag: AMP

Tag: AMP