The Special Education Needs and Disabilities Act (SENDA)
came into being in September 2002 and is an extension of the 1995 Disabilities
Discrimination Act (DDA).
Companies and institutions are now required by law to provide equal access
to information and services for all. It is against the law to treat a disabled
person "less favourably"
than an able bodied person.
In practical terms, this means an obligation to make "reasonable
adjustments"
. Institutions are required to anticipate the future
needs of their disabled students and not wait for the need for change to arise.
However, you are not required to lower educational standards to achieve equal
access. If information cannot be made accessible, the institution must provide
information in an alternative format so as not to disadvantage any individual.
The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) has established 3 levels of conformance:
• Conformance Level "A"
- all Priority 1 checkpoints
are satisfied
• Conformance Level "Double-A"
- all Priority 1 and
2 checkpoints are satisfied
• Conformance Level "Triple-A"
- all Priority 1, 2,
and 3 checkpoints are satisfied
Conformance to "Triple-A"
will provide the highest level
of access.
The further information can be found at: http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/
(Please note this is not recommended reading for the uninitiated.)
It is acceptable that Department and teaching websites meet the Level A Priority
1 Checkpoint in the short term, but you should be working to improve accessibility
in the future by achieving "Double-A"
conformance.
A useful and informative document from the TechDis website is: Accessible Curricula: Good Practice For All (PDF format).
Following the advice given in WAI Quick Tips should be sufficient to meet Priority 1 checkpoint.
You should strongly consider making your websites conform to web standards. See http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fss/resources/standards for further information.