SENDA and University Homepages

1
SENDA and University Homepages

• Roger Willison
• Gareth Bellaby

2
SENDA

• The Special Educational Needs and Disability Act
  2001 (SENDA) came into force on September 1st,
  2002
• SENDA amends Part 4 of the 1995 Disability
  Discrimination Act

3
Implications of SENDA

• It is now unlawful for educational institutions
  to discriminate against disabled students
• Unlawful to treat a disabled person 'less
  favourably' than a non-disabled person for any
  reason that relates to the person's disability
• Definition of disability is based on an
  individual's ability to carry out normal
  day-to-day activities
• Includes both prospective and existing students

4
Implications of SENDA

• A student with a disability may find it
  difficult to access the same information as their
  non-disabled compatriots, or to complete the same
  computer-based tasks. This is discriminatory
  under the new legislation.
• The university is the responsible body not the
  individual
• This is the case even if staff members have been
  instructed not to discriminate by the responsible
  body

5
SENDA and Computers

• teaching material on web
• general information on web
• computer based assessment
• internet used for research

6
Analysis of homepages

• a first point of access
• contain useful information
• used for navigation
• under university control

7
Methodology

• 19 university homepages
• selected sight-unseen
• distributed geographically throughout the UK
• the authors had no prior experience of the
  homepages.
• downloaded in a single session on November 8th,
  2002 five weeks after SENDA came into force

8
World Wide Web Consortium

• A de facto standard.
• Priority 1 errors make it impossible for some
  users to access information in the page.
• Priority 2 errors present a significant barrier
  to access.
• Priority 3 errors make access "somewhat
  difficult" for some users

9
Results

• Percentage of homepages containing Priority 1, 2
  and 3 accessibility errors

10
More Results

• 26 homepages didn't provide a 'Text Only' or
  'Accessibility' link
• 74 did have a link, but it was often too small
  or it was poorly placed, e.g. only 26 of the
  homepages had a link close to the top of the page
• 21 failed to use text equivalencies for all
  graphics
• 63 failed to use text equivalencies for all
  control elements
• 47 had no scalable text

11
Conclusions

• It would be impossible for some users to gain
  access to information held on 26 of the
  homepages.
• A majority of the homepages had severe access
  problems for the visually impaired.
• In our view the majority of the homepages were
  not SENDA compliant.