Designing the Digital Accessibility Gateway: Using Data to Create Sustainability and Culture

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The University of Cincinnati has devoted considerable resources to support improving our digital accessibility, included finding ways to collect and share data about accessibility and provide opportunities for various academic and business units to create action plans directly related to improving electronic accessibility. This led to the development of a collaborative tool called the Digital Accessibility Gateway. This tool provides tiered access, allowing administration and leadership to access a dashboard and drill down for specific information about units under their purview. We included four modules: academic, web, 3rd party, and training. This tool was developed internally. Hear from a developer about the logistics of creating the tool and from our data collection expert why this is an important part of our commitment to accessibility.

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Contributors

Jessica Guess

Jessica Guess, M.S. currently works as Program Manager for Accessibility Compliance at University of Cincinnati in the Office of Institutional Accessibility. She has an M.S. in Vocational Rehabilitation Counseling from University of Wisconsin-Stout and is a doctoral candidate in the Counselor Education and Supervision doctoral program. The focus of her work is primarily on data collection related to disability/accessibility and dissemination of that information. Jessica also provides disability/accessibility related training across the university and at national conferences. Having worked with disability populations for much of her life, her experiences as a late-deafened adult have allowed her to focus her work, research, and advocacy (personally and professionally) on disability representation and access.
Jermaine Fields

Jermaine Fields is a UI/UX Developer for Application & Software Development. His main responsibilities are split between Accessibility Network development & training, and the production and maintenance of the College of Medicine, UC Research, UC Web Forms, and more. Working on CoM UI/UX team he creates dynamic applications that integrate seamlessly into Sitefinity CMS or .NET framework. As part of Accessibility Network , he maintains webforms.uc.edu and develops custom form solutions for various departments and colleges throughout the university. He also assists with the training of faculty & staff on how to create forms while following accessibility best practices and managing content in a multi-user environment. Outside of his work with IT@UC he is a member of the African American Black Staff (AABMS). As a member, he is a part of the leadership team and the chair of the Technology Committee that oversees the website design & development for AABMS.
Heidi Pettyjohn

Heidi Pettyjohn is Executive Director for Accessibility at the University of Cincinnati, where she serves as ADA Coordinator and supervises the directors of accessibility offices on the main and regional campuses. Heidi provides institutional leadership and guides efforts in the sustainment of an accessible and inclusive experience for disabled students, staff and visitors at the university. In the past four years, her work has focused particularly on leading the university in sweeping changes to their approach to ensuring that websites and other electronic and digital content is accessible to disabled students, employees, and community members.

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Description

Contributors

Jessica Guess

Jermaine Fields

Heidi Pettyjohn