Kansas State University - K-State Research and Extension

 

The Business Problem

K-State Research and Extension, short for the Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service, is the branch of the land grant university that delivers the fruits of university research to the people of Kansas in the form of practical information or training they can apply in day-to-day life. They maintain Web sites that in the year 2001 received over 40 million “hits” and had an average of more than 100,000 visitors per day. Most people visit these Web sites looking for a solution to a problem (e.g. something they like is being eaten by something they don't like - what is it and what can they do?).

In October of 2000, the Kansas State legislature adopted policies for Web site accessibility that were subsequently revised in November of 2001. KSU Webmasters are advised to follow the Section 508 guidelines and must follow the State of Kansas' own guidelines for any pages representing the K-State Research & Extension. Kansas' guidelines overlap with the Section 508 guidelines, but focus mainly on W3Cs priorities 1 and 2.

Unlike company and government sites, educational sites are generally composite sites. A large number of web authors, with professional content but varying web skill, contribute to the overall web. Web authors are often temporary student employees, or busy faculty who just want to get the information on the web fast. Standardization of site look and feel is encouraged but rarely achieved. The K-State Research and Extension Web sites have 21,000 searchable public documents across 300 sub webs. They will add an intranet this spring, which also needs to be accessible.

“We frequently get calls from people who have just heard about accessibility and ask us to evaluate their sites. We don't have the manpower to do this adequately, but it's difficult to just push people towards a stack of accessibility regulations and not expect them to be intimidated. Worst-case scenario is that authors will remove excellent information from the web because they don't have the time or understanding to make it accessible”, said Susan Bale, Webmaster for the Electronic Publishing Division of K-State Research and Extension. “The main challenge is getting adequate and consistent information and training to this rather slippery group. Being able to access detailed site reports on demand, along with the explanations in the reports, should put everyone on equal footing.”
 

The Solution

K-State Research and Extension group purchased AccMonitor Server from HiSoftware. AccMonitor is an automated accessibility testing solution for Web sites or for use in conjunction with Intranet Servers or File Servers. Using a crawler, AccMonitor tests sites for compliance with Section 508 and W3C accessibility standards. AccMonitor spiders, or crawls over, entire Web sites and reports on their accessibility status under Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998 and W3C® Priority 1 Guidelines. AccMonitor particularly benefits organizations that need to monitor multiple servers that host information via the World Wide Web.

AccMonitor verification technology and dynamic reporting includes executive-level graphical reporting, automated email alerts, and detailed reports for all Web files or only files that fail programmatic checkpoints. AccMonitor is a HiSoftware server solution that is designed to run with no user interaction once configured. AccMonitor can be scheduled to crawl Web sites daily, weekly, or monthly. It also allows users to log-on for on demand reports on the accessibility status of their Web pages.
 

The Bottom Line

The Research and Extension group will utilize AccMonitor to provide automated accessibility reports to contents contributors for their Web sites. “AccMonitor reports will give people a good grasp of the strengths and weaknesses of their pages and some structured guidance to correcting their sites,” said Ms. Bale. “We will be able to help people generate and interpret the reports rather than explain everything from scratch. HiSoftware reports are easy to interpret by people with a limited knowledge of the accessibility guidelines. We can also add our own supplemental wording.”

AccMonitor will provide Web masters with consistent accessibility review and analysis, as well as a standard format for feedback on their Web sites. It will be used not only as a tool to educate Web masters in the creation of accessible sites, but also as a quality assurance mechanism for monitoring accessibility. K-State Research group’s goal is to make all the major Web pages accessible by March 31st, 2002.

Printer Friendly Version...