Title: Colorado Community College System Accessibility Procedures/Policies and the Law
Course: Web Accessibility MOOC for Educators > Section: What is Accessibility and How Does it Apply to my Job?

On April 28, 2014, the board approved SP 3-125g, the Colorado Community College System President’s Procedure Web Accessibility Procedure. The scope of the procedure applies to all web-based information and services which includes, but is not limited to, web sites, instructional materials, and online services that are developed, hosted or maintained by the community colleges and all entities within the Colorado Community College System (CCCS).

Colleges must ensure web-based information for use by faculty, staff, students, prospective students and the public is accessible. This procedure does not apply to unauthorized web pages published by students or employees, which are not used to conduct college business or instructional activities.

All colleges and the systems’ departments were responsible for having a written web accessibility plan in place by December 31, 2014. The college presidents shall designate individual(s) with the authority to ensure accountability and conformance. The plans must specify the date in which all official college web-based information will conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG) - Level AA. The plan may distinguish dates between creating new material versus revising and converting current web-based information, also known as legacy information.

Colleges and System should take into consideration its budget, staffing resources, and training needs when determining these dates. Colleges and System will make their top priority systems visible to the most users with highest regard given to public-facing systems and student-facing systems. The lowest priority will be those systems which are being phased out in the near future. If a college or the System has a circumstance where a specific application and/or program cannot meet these requirements, a written request for an exception to this procedure may be submitted to the System President, or his or her designee.

Additionally, vendor agreements also fall under the procedure. Vendor Agreements Colleges and the System shall purchase from vendors who conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG) as appropriate for the services they provide unless an extraordinary circumstance exists. Any purchase from a vendor not in conformance with WCAG must submit a request for an exception to the System President, or his or her designee. Any current agreements already in existence with a college or the System are exempt from this procedure.

Legal Regulations (and one report) for Higher Education

  - Letter & follow up Q & A’s sent to every college president by Departments of Justice & Education, Civil Rights Division:
  - Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, subpart E: Post Secondary
  - Regulations: Dept. of Education, Title 34, Section 104
  - Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990Regulations: Dept. of Justice Title 28, Part 35
  - Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Changes to the ADA in order to included web accessibility
  - Accessible Instructional Materials Commission Report

Retreived from: "Accessibility in Online Courses" by Karen Sorensen, Access, Portland Community College is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Legal Settlements related to IT Accessibility

Keep abreast of  higher education accessibility lawsuits, complaints and settlement at the University of Minnesota Duluth's instructor Laura Carlon's web page or at the Office of Civil Rights Settlements on the ATHEN (Access Technology Higher Education Network) website.