System Office websites to be audited for accessibility compliance

October 28, 2022

System Office employees, 

Last week I signed a Voluntary Resolution Agreement (VRA) with the Office for Civil Rights to ensure that all University of Alaska System Office websites meet federal accessibility standards. Over the next few months we will be manually reviewing sites within alaska.edu in search of common accessibility errors with the expectation that they will be remediated within six months of the agreement.

The standards for accessibility extend to all content posted to UA System Office websites including documents, presentations, videos, and image files. The VRA also covers social media accounts managed by the System Office, and the content posted and shared on those platforms. It also extends to all third-party software utilized by the system office. The VRA stipulates that unless third party vendors are also able to remediate accessibility barriers within six months, then the university will have to exercise all avenues for compliance up to and including replacing the vendor. During future procurement processes all outside vendors will be required to meet our accessibility standards prior to delivery and throughout the life of their contract.

Responding to this VRA, tracking our remediation progress and reporting back to OCR will require a team effort. Over the coming months we will be providing a series of training sessions for System Office employees, with special sessions for anyone who manages system office websites, as well as establishing reporting processes. More information will be shared once those processes are finalized.

As an introduction to accessibility, all System Office employees are encouraged to participate in the courses and workshops being presented during the Virtual Disability Services Conference: "All Access, All The Time" November 7-11, 2022. There will be two training sessions and two coffee chats with accessibility experts each day. See the session details & registration link. UA Disability Services offices from all three universities and the HR Accessibility Team are working together to provide these free virtual training sessions covering a variety of essential accommodation and accessibility topics & tips; Q&A engagement; an OCR/ADA 2022 overview from the legal team at the Office for Civil Rights; keynote addresses presented by two national motivational speakers in the accessibility field, and much more. These training sessions are both timely and applicable to the work we will need to accomplish to successfully resolve accessibility issues and meet the VRA requirements at the System Office.

Additional information on accessibility standards and best practices can be found on the UA accessibility website.

Thank you for helping in this effort,

Pat Pitney, President
University of Alaska