The Section 508 refresh, due to be enacted in January of 2018, adds the requirement of meeting WCAG 2.0 Level AA to all electronic materials. This conference will discuss solutions to meet this new requirement across all information and communication technology at an institution of higher education.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, commonly referred to as WCAG, are a set of standards developed by an international consortium as early as the mid-1990’s with a goal of developing standards to ensure the long-term growth of the Web. The second version, WCAG 2.0, includes three levels of compliance:
- level A, considered to be the minimum level of conformance,
- level AA, a more comprehensive level of conformance, and
- level AAA, which is understood to be full and complete conformance but prohibitive to develop.
Although WCAG 2.0 has been around since the early 2000’s, it was developed by web content providers as a self-regulating tool to create uniformity for web standards around the globe. It was understood to be best practices, but was not enforced by any regulating agency. The Section 508 refresh due in January of 2018 changes this, as WCAG 2.0 level AA has been adopted as the standard of expected accessibility. Thus, all who create and publish digital content—web pages, documents, images, videos, audio—must ensure that they know and understand these standards.
In January of 2018, the revised Section 508 standards become enforceable law. As stated, this should not be considered a threat or burden, but rather an opportunity for institutions to check their present level of commitment and adherence to accessibility. In order to prepare for the update in standards, this conference will discuss solutions to assist institutions in taking proactive steps to address accessibility.