Accessibility Progress

Kapi’olani Community College has a long history of working to address accessibility issues related to technology. Current efforts build on these earlier efforts. Progress includes the following:

Past Achievements

2013, June
Attended a web conference and demo for Siteimprove; began the process of asking our campus to get a license for this product to address our accessibility challenges.

2014, March
Debuted our current website under a WordPress platform; replaced the previous site run under ION platform.
During the process of migration, we took a throughout examination of our site content keeping a goal of improving accessibility and clarity for everyone while we were creating the new look. It was in this phase that some of the easier accessibility challenges were addressed (i.e., navigation clarification, clearer site structure & mapping, color, etc)
An internal content guide was initially drafted to aid staff who assisted in the migration (https://ohana.kapiolani.hawaii.edu/kapcc-web-content-guide-v1/); the goal was to ensure the entire team working on the site did things consistently. This guide has since been reevaluated and improved many times over since then.

2014, April
Attended “In Their Shoes” mandatory sensitivity training; acknowledging & respecting people with disabilities.

2014, August
Phase 1 ADA effort: began scanned & evaluated the site for valid syntax.
Phase 1: assigned casual hire and students to deliberately review website images for proper alt tagging.

2014, December
Debuted new site for Faculty & Staff on ‘Ohana; replacing Quill which was neither mobile friendly nor accessible.

2015, May
Incorporation of ADA issues within Distance Learning program.

2015, Summer
Screencast-O-Matic and YouTube Closed-Captioning Workshops offered.
Google (Speech to Text) Voice Typing offered.

2015, June
Laulima Workshops using ALT text/Headings.

2015, July
PDF workshops using Headings.

2015, August
Tenure and Promotion/Contract Renewal Formatting Workshop – Headings in Word Doc.

2016, Spring
OER C4ward – integrated ADA awareness.

2016, January
Phase 1: installed WP Accessibility plugin for accessibility monitoring.
Phase 1: assigned part-time employees and students to deliberately review website images for proper alt tagging.
Phase 1: changed out search tool to OpenSearchServer aiming to improve the UI for a cleaner approach.

2016, June
Teaching Online Prep Program (TOPP) included ADA information and recommended online course design for accessibility.​

2016, March
Debuted new website for Continuing Ed that previously shrugged with their navigation and site content standards.

2016, August
OER Workshop

2016, October
Debuted new class availability portal which aimed to address many accessibility issues with the System version.

2016, November
Began killing off non-accessible satellite sites; many of them were dormant.

2017, Spring, Summer, Fall
TOPP

2017, February
New CAS login page was debuted across the System; we implemented this new tool across all our web and mobile logins which improved accessibility.

2017, Summer
Screencast-O-Matic and YouTube Workshop with Closed Captioning.

2017, May
Phase 2 ADA effort: A license fee for Siteimprove was secured for our campus websites.
Phase 2: Began the process of scanning, identifying and fixing of issues. Current score on our main website accessibility stands at 65.3/100 with the industry average around 68.8/100.

2017, June
Attended the online digital course on Digital Accessibility provided by Siteimprove; received certification.

2017, August
Attended meeting on OCR & ADA Compliance.
Attended first of a few monthly discussions for Accessible Technology and Digital Media Compliance; collaborated alongside EEO, UH ITS and other campus webmasters/programmers.
Evaluated the DSSO page on the main site addressing concerns in OCR letter; collaborated and complied with UH ITS Sortsite scan to resolve all issues on that page.
Killed off the First Year Experience satellite site which had numerous violations; merged content and created new sections within our main website.

2017, November
Attended final meeting in 2017 Accessible Technology & Digital media compliance; together, finished a final draft of the UH System Accessibility guidelines intended to be distributed to all campus Chancellors and Deans.

2017, December
Held a meeting between our Web Group, DSSO, Distance Learning, and Public Relations to determine our state of affairs on accessibility; gathering information on what each office has been doing and what we can plan on doing moving ahead.

2017, December
Emailed the Director of Accessibility at the University of Washington asking if we could use the UW accessibility materials as a model for our own materials; possibly even copying the materials directly. She gave permission to do so.

2018, January
Formed Ad-Hoc Staff Council Accessibility Committee; plans to collaborate with on addressing accessibility standards both in digital media and in physical spaces; intend to meet several times per year and involve staff members who are content contributors along with Aux Service members who may be involved with physical accessibility decisions.

2018, February
Met and exceeded the Siteimprove benchmark for Accessibility on the main site; currently sitting at 87.3/100 (industry 68.7/100 for education.). Set a goal to have it reach past 90 in the campus Tech Plan.

2018, March
Address Priority 1 of Accessibility Guidelines for digital media (i.e., Critical path applications & functions; fix top 20% of existing web pages, develop priorities and identify resources.)

2018, March
Converted all of Koa Gallery satellite site content over to the main website; the former site failed compliance. Still waiting on word to officially kill the sat. site.

2018, March
Successfully tested script that converts scanned PDFs into a format that can be read by screenreaders; tests have resulted in documents that are mostly accessible short of some minor touchups. The plan is to have this script installed for campus use by end of Summer.

2018, June
System-wide unlimited Siteimprove license provided to all 10 campuses; Kapiʻolani CC license automatically converted. Investigating expanding our reach since we now have no cap over what we monitor. Presented a full report on campus accessibility issues to the Admin staff.

2018, July
Staff Council voted to approve a list of accessibility recommendations drafted by the Ad-Hoc Accessibility Committee. This is intended to move on to the Chancellor directly or via the CAC.

2018, Aug
Staff Council submitted an approved accessibility report to the Chancellor. Chancellor responded that she’d like to share the document with administrators, present it to the CAC, and form a campus working group to prioritize and address recommendations for a more formal presentation to the CAC.

2018, October
Invited Leanne Riseley (a faculty from Leeward CC) who facilitated a general accessibility workshop entitled Fix Your Documents: An Introduction to UDL and Accessibility.

2018, November
Offered a series of 4 custom accessibility workshops (Hands-on Accessibility Lab, Laulima and Accessibility, Closed Captioning, and Accessibility for Admin Staff Discussion) to all faculty and staff.

2019, January
Invited the ADA team from UH ITS to offer accessibility workshops (Accessibility in PDF & Excel) at Refresh 2019 Professional Development event for admin, faculty, and staff.

2019, January
Drafted a STEM section on the main website to address accessibility challenges.

2019, January
Debuted a new Student Application portal that improved accessibility and web experience for new student applicants. The new system is both mobile-friendly and tackles a majority of the issues addressing accessibility.

2019, March
The Instructional Design and Support group presented Making Accessibility Accessible: Easy to Implement Strategies for Word + Laulima at the Hawaiʻi Student Success Institute Conference. The accessibility session was attended by faculty and staff from all seven UH Community College campuses.

2019, March
Offered two repeated sessions of Accessibility: Microsoft Word & PowerPoint to all faculty and staff at Kapi​ʻolani.

2019, May
Presented a Laulima Accessibility workshop at TOPP Reunion 2019, an event for all online faculty who have completed the Teaching Online Prep Program.

Fall 2018 & Spring 2019
The Teaching Online Prep Program (TOPP), a professional development program for online faculty, has been updated to inform participants and require them to integrate accessibility in their Laulima sites and all other teaching resources.

Fall 2021
Fundamentals of Digital Accessibility online program open to campus staff & faculty.