Accessibility

In December 2006, IBM's Human Ability and Accessibility Center (HA&AC) conducted a survey of 200 professors and college administrators to better understand:

1. The extent to which software design for disabilities and aging is taught in 2- and 4-year colleges today.
2. Ways to increase the incorporation of accessibility design techniques into college IT classes.

The results were not promising. The majority of college students majoring in computer science, software engineering, information technology, and related fields graduate today without ever being exposed to design principles and techniques that enable people to use IT regardless of physical limitations. Professors responding to the survey said that one of the main reasons they do not teach accessibility principles is that they don't understand the subject sufficiently and/or do not have materials to effectively convey the material.

To begin to address this, IBM has created Accessibility Common Courseware Exchange for Software Studies — ACCESS — a repository in its existing Academic Initiative that will be a specialized version of the Open Courseware Exchange. Professors can decide to share learning materials as simple or as a complex as they wish. Examples include:

While IBM has training materials on accessibility, they are targeted to a corporate learner, not a university student. We know that there are accessibility materials that have been used successfully in a variety of university courses, but the material is scattered among professors with a particular interest in the topic. We believe that if we can make a sufficient repository of tried-and-true learning materials available free of charge to professors, and if we actively promote and advertise the repository, more and more professors will include accessibility topics in their courses.

Any materials included in the repository remains the property of the professor/university, not IBM. To make sure professors maintain complete control over their material, they enter a description and some other pertinent information (see details below) then include a link to the learning material, which continues to reside on a university Web site.

IBM's HA&AC actively promotes this repository through its University Relations team, at trade shows, academic conferences, etc. We encourage faculty to add to and use the available material. We think that this is an initial step toward creating a future generation of developers who are aware of and able to address the needs of the aging user and people who have disabilities.

If you have an exercise, assignment, lecture, etc. that you think would be a good addition to the repository, adding it is easy:

1. You must be a member of IBM's Academic Initiative. If you aren't already, it takes just a few minutes to join online. Of course, joining IBM's Academic Initiative is free of any charges.
2. Go to the Academic Initiative's Open Courseware Exchange and choose the "Submit your content" link.
3. Fill out and submit the form. You will be asked for title, abstract, skills required, related technology, a link to the materials, your name, your university, and a few other questions. On the "Related Technology" pull-down list, be sure to select "Design for disability and aging (Accessibility)."

That's all you need to do. Once your form is submitted with "Design for disability and aging (Accessibility)" chosen as one of the related technologies, we will add your entry to ACCESS, which contains only Courseware Exchange material related to accessibility.