[Athen] EDUCAUSE and the TEACH Act

[Greg Kraus]

Hi All,

Please pardon any cross-postings. This issue has been raised on two
accessibility lists that I am a member of so I am replying to both
lists. Several questions and points have been raised on this issue,
and I will try to address each of them from my perspective.

Does EDUCAUSE support accessibility efforts?

Yes, and I've been very happy with the support accessibility has
received. Could EDUCAUSE do more? Of course, but I have no major
complaints against them. There are people in senior leadership
positions within EDUCAUSE who go out of their way to make sure
accessibility interests are considered from policy statements, to
conference programming, to outreach efforts.

Was the IT Accessibility Constituent Group consulted by EDUCAUSE in
regard to the TEACH Act?

No, however, some accessibility specialists were. I was one of them. I
was not speaking on behalf of the entire CG, but I was speaking as an
accessibility expert in the field. I did not help write any of
EDUCAUSE's position papers or responses. I simply provided input on my
interpretation of the issues at hand.

I am currently working on getting some EDUCAUSE representation at our
Annual IT Accessibility Constituent Group meeting during the Annual
Conference to discuss the issues more.

What is your opinion about the TEACH Act and EDUCAUSE's response?

In my opinion, the NFB TEACH Act gets many things right. Creating a
standard, as recommended by the AIM Commission, would be a great step
forward for accessibility. Making clear that "accessible" means
delivering content in an "equally effective and equally integrated"
manner with the "substantially equivalent ease of use" is a good thing
so we don't have people trying to justify some type of "separate but
equal" or worse, "lesser will be just fine" arrangement.

Where the NFB TEACH Act falls short is in the scope of what this
applies to. First, let me start by saying that the vast majority of
electronic content is stuff we know how to make quite accessible, and
it should be accessible - no questions asked. However, there are still
aspects of electronic content that there are not good answers for how
to make accessible.

For example, how about an electronic chemistry textbook where there is
an interactive 3D model of a compound? Can we make that fully
accessible to a blind student? The language in the TEACH Act requires
the content, or any alternative content we provide, to be "equally
effective and equally integrated"  and have the "substantially
equivalent ease of use". Further, the TEACH Act requires that any
accommodation we provide to access that content to also be "equally
effective and equally integrated" and have the "substantially
equivalent ease of use".

If this were a paper textbook and there was an image of a 3D molecule,
the accommodation might be for the student to meet with an assistant
to build a 3D model. Because of the language of the TEACH Act, since
this has now been implemented electronically, we must provide this
content in an equally integrated manner with the equivalent ease of
use. In this case a non-blind student could study the molecule in
their electronic textbook at 2AM. Does the blind student have that
option?

This might sound nitpicky, and you might say, "But no one would expect
that capability out of the electronic text book." The problem is the
language in the TEACH Act does not allow for these edge cases where a
reasonable accommodation might be needed. In fact, when the TEACH Act
discusses accommodations, the word "reasonable" is never used. Maybe
that's not the intention of the authors of this legislation, but that
is one way you can interpret what is in the legislation.

For the vast majority of what we do on campus "equally effective",
"equally integrated" and with the "substantially equivalent ease of
use" is an achievable goal with technology, but there are still
aspects of online content that might not be able to ever reach this
standard. The language in the TEACH Act sets up a binary situation for
all of our electronic content - either we meet that standard or we
face the consequences.

Despite all of the possibilities digital content creates for people
with disabilities to be able to more fully participate, just because
something can be implemented electronically does not mean it can be
made fully accessible. I believe if there was language in the
legislation that recognized this reality, it would be embraced more
readily by more organizations. Of course, what we have to guard
against is someone arbitrarily declaring, "This technology can never
be made accessible," and thus relegating someone to an inferior, and
unequal experience. And we certainly cannot use this line of thought
to justify laziness or a lack of commitment to make accessible
educational materials for all people.

Back to the chemistry example, 3D printing may be able to make this a
far more equitable situation than was ever possible before, but the
infrastructure and the standards needed to make that work from an
electronic textbook are too nascent to make this a viable solution for
all people at this time. We do have to guard against that thought that
something can never be made accessible, because technology is making a
lot of things possible, but we still need to be able to have that
conversation of what is possible now, and what might be possible in
the near future. Managing that point of tension is key to helping us
move forward. I don't believe the current version of the TEACH Act
gives us a way to have that conversation.

Greg
--
EDUCAUSE IT Accessibility CG Leader
http://educause.edu/groups/itaccess