How accessible are Australian university websites? Event report
RMIT University, July 9, 2004
The first WANAU event was held at RMIT University on July 9. Twenty-nine people attended from nine universities, and we even had one interstate representative!
The afternoon's activities were ably chaired by RMIT's Amgad Louka, who welcomed everyone to the inaugural event.
The agenda began with a presentation by Monash University's Dey Alexander, who provided an overview of some research conducted early last year on the accessibility of Australian university websites. After questions, RMIT's Laurie Armstrong reported on a funding application that WANAU has submitted to the Higher Education Innovation Project. We are hoping to be able to fund the employment of a project officer to help WANAU get up and running and start working towards some of its strategic objectives.
The final activity for the day involved the formation of a series of breakout groups. Each considered the following set of issues:
- Do you consider your university to be compliant with the W3C guidelines on accessibility?
- What are the major accessibility challenges faced by the University sector/your University?
- How could these challenges be addressed/resolved?
- Who needs to be involved (locally and externally)?
- What are the barriers to addressing/resolving these issues?
- How could WANAU assist in facilitating W3C accessibility compliance across the University sector?
- How could this be achieved?
- Are there other projects or groups that WANAU should network with or be aware of?
Groups reported back on their discussions and a summary of issues and ideas is now available.
The photos above were taken during the workshop activity and show participants engaged in discussion in various breakout groups.