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EDUCAUSE Live! April 4, 2008 1:00 p.m. ET (12:00 p.m. CT, 11:00 a.m. MT, 10:00 a.m. PT); runs one hour

The Why and How of Web Accessibility

Special Guests

Harry HochheiserView Event ArchivesHarry Hochheiser
Assistant Professor of Computer and Information Sciences
Towson University

Harry Hochheiser is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at Towson University. His research interests include human-computer interaction, universal usability, information visualization, privacy, and the societal impact of computer systems.

Tracy MitranoTracy Mitrano
Director of IT Policy and Computer Policy and Law Program
Cornell University

Tracy Mitrano is the director of IT Policy and Computer Policy and Law Programs for the Office of Information Technologies at Cornell. Elected to the EDUCAUSE Board of Directors in 2006, she took her seat as its treasurer in January 2007 and as its secretary in 2008. She serves as chair of the Internet2 InCommon Steering Committee and from 2004 to 2006 was cochair of the Internet2/EDUCAUSE Security Task Force’s Law and Policy Team. Mitrano is a 2002 graduate of the Frye Institute and has been a member of its faculty since then. She has a JD from Cornell Law School and a PhD in American history from Binghamton University. A member of the 2005 EDUCAUSE Program Committee, Mitrano is also faculty of the EDUCAUSE Leadership Institute and was a cofacilitator of the Seminars on Academic Computing. In 2003, the University of Iowa named her the Ada Stoflet Lecturer. In spring 2005, Mitrano taught an Internet law class for the MiNE Program at the Università Cattolica in Piacenza, Italy. At Cornell, Mitrano is an adjunct assistant professor in the Information Science Program, where she teaches Culture, Law, and Politics of the Internet.

Summary

Your host, Steve Worona, will be joined by Harry Hochheiser and Tracy Mitrano, and the topic will be "The Why and How of Web Accessibility."

The challenge of web accessibility raises issues of both policy and technology. This session features experts in each of these two areas.

Policy guru Tracy Mitrano says: "Developing a web accessibility policy has been one of the greatest but most rewarding challenges I have faced in creating an IT policy framework at Cornell. With the EDUCAUSE Live! audience, I would like to share some of the struggles and stories about that process and what accessibility, education, and the web have come to mean to me as a result."

Technology expert Harry Hochheiser summarizes: "Although the need for accessible web sites is widely accepted, many developers are still uncertain about the costs and limitations associated with designs that account for users with varying skills, capabilities, and computing tools. Fortunately, these problems are solvable: with proper planning and design, web sites can be interactive, engaging, highly functional, and accessible. The combination of accessibility guidelines and automated evaluation tools can help any developer build sites that are more accessible and usable for all users."

Join us for a discussion of this very important topic.

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