eCollege, a leading provider of technology and services for online higher education programs, today announced it is offering services to evaluate and upgrade an institution's online course content and websites to meet Section 508 federal accessibility guidelines, which require an institution's electronic and information technology be accessible to the disabled.
eCollege AU, the next generation of the company's leading eLearning platform released in December, already exceeds Section 508 standards by providing unprecedented levels of accessibility and usability for blind, deaf and mobility-impaired faculty and students. These new Section 508 compliant services are designed to make an institution's own content, including multimedia, accessible.
"These new services are a natural progression from our reengineered products and services built to support superior levels of accessibility," said Oakleigh Thorne, chairman and CEO of eCollege. "Under the Rehabilitation Act, many institutions are required to comply with Section 508, or they run the risk of civil liability. We have again gone above and beyond the minimum requirements with this proactive effort to help institutions comply with federal guidelines, making all of their eLearning content, and all of their websites in general, accessible."
eCollege can evaluate and upgrade content within courses and websites it has developed, and generally those it has not developed. A team of course developers, technical consultants and instructional designers experienced in industry standards, guidelines and assistive technologies perform the Section 508 compliant services evaluations and upgrades.
The evaluation entails a physical assessment to determine:
The content that conforms and does not conform to Section 508 standards. Recommendations for bringing non-compliant content into compliance and next steps.
The upgrade consists of executing the recommendations made in the evaluation including: The development of code to make all content, including multimedia, compliant. The documentation confirming that the content within the course/website is readable by leading screen readers such as JAWS and Window-Eyes, as well as accessible through closed-captioning text.
In addition to advancing its teaching platform and support services to exceed accessibility standards, the company has initiated the following activities:
eCollege recently started an internship program with the Colorado Center for the Blind, an affiliate of the National Center for the Blind, where members of the organization are getting involved in eCollege's software development and support services.
Through its participation in the federal "Buy Accessible" program, eCollege is able to help its customers qualify for RFPs that require Section 508 compliant offerings.