CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the March edition of our Accessibility Forum. So as we appreciate your time. Thanks for coming. All right. So we just got a couple topics for this month. So Oracle has their accessibility conformance reports. They call them OCRs. They're just VPATs. It's the same thing. 

So we've posted the updated versions of that they've posted within the last year up on the State Board accessibility website as well as these links here. The most recent update was to the Campus Solutions VPAT, and that was back in October. So it kind of lists out all the different where they partially support all the bug numbers for the things that they're working on, so if you want to check that out. 

You've probably heard about anything that they partially support over the last couple of years through these meetings. But you're welcome to check those out. We're certainly always pushing them to get them to fully support everything and will continue to do so. 

MONICA: I think one of the biggest things that we're continuing to push and hound them on is their plan-- hopefully they are designing a plan to update classic pages to fluid pages so there's a better responsive design. So that's been something that Chris has been talking about for a long time with them. And we haven't let it go. And that's a big part of accessibility improvement overall for the application. 

And I'm also just letting folks know I'm going to put a large block of text in the chat the ITC, the IT directors group, had requested recently at a meeting, just kind of a general check in or update about ctcLink Accessibility. And so Chris and I wrote that response for them to get shared with their group. And because it's related to ctcLink PeopleSoft accessibility, I wanted to make sure you guys had that-- people who show up to these meetings have the same information. So it's a chunk of text coming at you, but I am going to paste it into the chat right now. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: So yeah we're continuing to push Oracle on especially the items like the-- see if they can come up with some sort of systematic way to handle the classic or classic plus pages. Even the fluid pages still struggle with the 400% on the Reflow. When you zoom in, make sure it all flows appropriately on the page and reformats to fit the screen. 

They've been working on trying to get a more systematic way to figure out how to get the Reflow issue improved across the system, especially as there's a lot of still a lot of classic and classic plus type pages. But the fluid is more responsive and it is better. So trying to get that where we can as well. And there's that big block of text. 

MONICA: Yeah, I have to split it into two different things. So there's a little bit more coming at you. OK, that's it. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Yeah, thanks for posting that in there, Monica. 

MONICA: Yep and I think you also got-- we had help getting the updated OCR onto our website. I think Shari already did that. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Yeah, sure [INAUDIBLE] helps out with that. That's all I do. 

MONICA: So folks can find that on, not just the PeopleSoft website, but SBCTC as well. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Any questions on that big block of text we had? 

MONICA: If you guys are reading it. I do want to acknowledge because it made Chris and I feel good because it sometimes feels like-- progress can be slow with these big companies and sometimes the changes can feel small compared to the amount of work that is still required to really make the most accessible experience as possible with Oracle's PeopleSoft. 

But I had some email exchanges recently with two different folks from a college, one of whom is a full time screen reader user. And she gave me this quote to use in my update. And it was from last month of February. She said, "Overall, I have to say, in the three years that I've been here, in the last few months, the changes have been beneficial. We are experiencing the change and it's been positive." So that tells me that even though it can feel small and incremental, some of the design improvements, bug fixes consultation and advocacy that Josh [INAUDIBLE] and Chris have done with Oracle are helping the user experience get better inches by inches. 

And so that we're going to continue on. And the work doesn't stop in April. We know that is the deadline for the Department of Justice web accessibility ruling. We are paying attention to what Oracle is sharing with us, what their plan is around responding to that ruling. But our work doesn't stop in April. We'll continue on. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: It has felt incremental at times, but there's snowballs in us over the last five years. Every little bit has made progress. So yeah, I appreciate hearing from everybody and it's always encouraging to hear something like that. It's making a difference and just matters so much, brings me joy. So thanks for continuing to work with us on this. We will continue to pressure Oracle and every software vendor we work with to make sure that they have it straight because it's software, every update comes change and potentially new bugs that we're going to just keep reviewing and just keep on top of. 

MONICA: Yeah, and these monthly meetups with you guys and Chris's team, we're primarily focusing on the accessibility work related to PeopleSoft, so ctcLink as we know it, and then also third party applications by other vendors that are being used within the ctcLink application. So that's why you hear us also talk about Cass Tech for example, that develops our OAP, and you hear us talk about Okta, the multi-factor authentication. It's because those tools are being used with ctcLink PeopleSoft. And so they enter the chat, so to speak. Should we move one, Chris? 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Yeah sounds good. Thanks All right, so this is a question [INAUDIBLE] last month. 

MONICA: Yeah, OK. So somebody sent in this question and I broke it up into separate questions to wrap my head around how we can best answer it in this space. And so I'm going to share what I can to answer all of these questions that were submitted while also taking this opportunity to remind folks that this ctcLink Accessibility Open Forum, we're trying to really focus it on the ctcLink PeopleSoft accessibility conversation. 

And so we are bringing updates around conversations with the vendor software patches or update and releases. If you all have specific questions or user experience issues about those applications, this is the space. And so larger questions about accessibility in general or procurement best practices should be happening. And there's a couple of different spaces those can happen in our system. 

We have Carrie at the State Board and I help manage an email listserv for the accessible it coordinators. So each college has accessibility coordinator. And then there's also the Keto Group still, which is committee for accessible technology oversight. Both groups, have discussed and provided, insight and recommendation around how to read a VPAT, procurement best practices. 

And so if you're listening to me talk and you're like, oh, I don't know if I was in those conversations, I'd like access to those recordings and materials, you can email me, and I'm happy to share that material with you because we're trying to keep this PeopleSoft focused. 

With that said, these were good questions. And so I do want to take the time to answer them to the best of my ability. And if I sound a little flat, it's because I actually like sat down and wrote out my responses to these questions because I was really trying to do right by you all. And so I'm going to read what I wrote, which is typically not how I present. And then we can go on from there. 

So question one in this chunk of text is, if colleges submit inventories of commonly used software, can SBCTC create a prioritized list of common tools, and conduct centralized accessibility testing? Good question. And I understand where this desire is coming from. There's 34 of us, and we often find ourselves using the same or similar education technologies. And yet those adoption, procurement and adoption decisions are largely decentralized across our system and on our campus. 

So it is a good question with unfortunately not a simple yes response, but it's also not a completely no response. So here's what I have to share. The answer is possibly. This request is currently under discussion at both agency leadership and system wide levels. At present, SBCTC does not have the infrastructure to build and maintain a centralized accessibility repository. However, SBCTC is partnering right now with DQ to evaluate certain key user workflows within the McGraw Hill Connect platform, including ebooks, SmartBook, and the ALEKS Math assessment platform. 

These findings with DQ, our third party vendor, will be shared with both the vendor, McGraw Hill and with all of our colleges. If funding permits, meaning if we have some funding left over from what we've budgeted for this exercise, additional reviews may be conducted for other frequently used educational technology tools, such as from Pearson or Cengage. 

In 2025, a Canvas report that I had a couple of colleagues help me pull, so looking at some Canvas reports across our system of colleges, identified that there were, hold your breath, more than 2000 unique tools being used in an LTI setup in Canvas so selected by our instructors and brought into Canvas for student use across our 34 colleges. That's a crap ton of tools. 

And most of those tools were identified, selected, and adopted with no SBCTC involvement or oversight. So our ability to know what those are and help like proactively assess or maintain information about the accessibility of those tools already would be a catch up game, but the infrastructure just isn't there right now. 

So that report that showed us the 2000 plus tools that were being used across our system inside Canvas, that's what helped us identify selecting McGraw Hill Connect and also Alex, because we are able to then within Excel, use different ways of sorting the information so we could see, OK, across the institutions, what are the largest vendors that we're seeing in this report? From those vendors, what are the most commonly listed products from those vendors? And that's how we narrowed it down to McGraw Hill Connect. 

So I hope that answers the first part of the question a little bit. I know it's probably not exactly what folks want to hear, but that is what I have to offer. 

The second part of that question is, do we need VPAT/ACRs for all existing software or only high impact tools? Great question. And that question also has a little bit of strategic thinking in it I think. So here's the response. Ideally colleges and the State Board, because we're also working to meet our own accessibility requirements per law, so ideally, colleges should be obtaining and reviewing accessibility documentation for all third party tools that are being used at your institution. 

That's a big, tall order. And it's likely that that's not going to be completely feasible before April 20 because we have large institutions and we use a lot of tools, and those decisions are decentralized. However, I do want to say that I thin, and this is me, Monica, my opinion, that prioritizing high impact tools, particularly those that are heavily used by students or widely and publicly visible, available, so things that you might be putting on, your public web pages and websites, that may be an effective approach to prioritize and start collecting accessibility documentation and reviewing VPATs for those tools first and then working your way through. 

Department of Justice, their update to Title II of the ADA, so about web and mobile access accessibility, they are specifically referencing WCAG 2.1 AA. So that's the technical standard. There's an interesting discrepancy between federal law and state policy because in a matter of weeks, Washington State's accessibility policy is going to be referencing WCAG 2.2 AA. 

So 2.2 and 2.1 are technically different versions. I think it's important for us to be aware of the additional success criteria that's listed in 2.2, but it's also reasonable for us to keep in mind that federal requirements are referencing 2.1 AA. So you will need to be making local decisions at your college with your colleagues about which standard you're asking vendors to demonstrate adherence to. 

Last part of the question is, what future enforcement actions does SBCTC anticipate, and will the State Board conduct periodically accessibility audits? Really good question. Really good question. And there's a few different parts to my answer. First, I don't know how the Department of Justice, the federal government, is going to be auditing compliance to this ruling. They haven't indicated. I don't know. 

And we're not living in the future yet. So we don't know after April how courts and lawyers are going to be interpreting specifics within the ruling and potential concerns or issues that arise. With that said, I think right now, the more likely course of action that any one of our colleges and the State Board could see happening, potentially at an increased rate after April, after the ruling deadline, is that individuals with disabilities, such as our students or our employees or our community members with disabilities, can always bring forth a complaint to the Office of Civil Rights for investigation. 

They can always bring forth litigation towards SBCTC or college through working with a lawyer. I think that that course of action is potentially more likely to happen more quickly than Department of Justice us sharing what it's plan for compliance auditing will be. 

With that said, the State Board does not have plans to do drive by web accessibility audits of your Canvas courses or your college websites. We're trying to position ourselves in a role that is supportive and helpful in providing policy, interpretation, and guidance, and not creating gotcha moments for our system. 

With that said, we do have a lovely woman here who works at the State Board named Miriam Jacobs, and she performs civil rights audits for all of our colleges on a three-year rolling basis. So what that means is every three to four years, your college is going to go through a civil rights audit that's conducted by someone here at the agency. And in 2023, she added two additional questions to that audit that speak to web and digital accessibility readiness at the college. 

And so question one, is does your institution have an identified IT accessibility coordinator? And if so, who is that person? And then question two is, does your college have, in any format, a written IT accessibility policy plan or procedure? And if so, providing links or documentation to that work? So that is what that is what I prepared to share with you all. I don't know if the question asker is in the room, but I'm hopeful that was helpful. And if folks have follow up questions right now, that's fine. I'm happy to have a conversation. 

Are you still with me? Did I just talk to you all to sleep? You're welcome, Craig So thumbs up was. Did that make sense and was it helpful? All right. Great. Cool, thanks. So I think we're probably good on that slide. We can keep it moving. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Sounds good. So we're continuing to work with Oracle. We got some open SRs, trying to get some accessibility bug fixes approved and moved along, a development I'm working on him, so just going back and forth with all the things they ask. But nothing new that's been coming the last few weeks. 

VICKI: Christopher this is Vicki. I have a question. Are you finding that Oracle is becoming more responsive to your tickets that you're submitting especially since the Title II new rule-- I mean I'm sure that some companies probably don't even acknowledge that, but I'm just wondering how their response to PeopleSoft is coming along, or are you still struggling with them taking it serious, the fixes that you find? Are there problems? 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: I don't know that much-- oh, go ahead. 

JOSH: Yeah, I can add some or answer that a little bit. This is Josh by the way, a developer on Christopher's team. Basically, I've noticed that the places that we really need developer help on within Oracle is in their people tools area. And I've recently been told that they're low on resources in the development department. So it's delaying some pretty obvious issues. Like there's a level a issue that I've reported and they're just like, we're low on development staff, so it might be a while till we get to that. 

So I feel like it's like we take a step forward with Oracle and then we take two steps back. We feel like we are making progress and then we'll run into an issue where they push back on it a lot or they just don't fix it. So yeah, I don't know if you have any more to add to that, Christopher. 

VICKI: Thank you, Josh. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Yeah, and it depends on the first tech we get and if they escalate it quick enough to somebody that knows the topic a little better because they're always trying to get us-- they're trying to resolve these tickets without necessarily having to do as much development as we would expect out of it. So we had to convince them sometimes. Sometimes it's easier. Over the last few years, we've learned how to get their attention and get stuff moved. 

MONICA: I think that's key to share, Chris, is that the communication strategy has changed over the years to give them what they need to act, respond. And then also as part of our strategy, we continue to communicate to them that our biggest concern is the student experience of PeopleSoft. Not that the employee experience and the pillars to employees are not important as well, but, when we know there is an issue or to get associated within the CS pillar or the student experience like that, is something we are really trying to hold them accountable to. And that's been part of our approach for a while and continues to be. 

PADMA: This is Padma from Christopher's team. So what we have noticed is they don't ignore us anymore. And even when we push back, we see that particular thread goes whole up the chain towards top and their attention is definitely there on what we log on and what we report. 

And recently they changed the entire service ticket logging system. So there are some disruptions because of that. So we can't really tell whether the latest changes are delaying because of that. So that's where we are. 

MONICA: Well, thank you. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: [INAUDIBLE]. And just like the questions got submitted, we appreciate your input. Happy to bring those up in future meetings. Just let us know if there's anything you'd like us to have as a topic for any future meetings. And the link to the accessibility web page where those updated VPATs are, that's right there. And we've got the meeting at the same time, same place next month. 

MONICA: Yep, so our next meeting is April 14, Tuesday, day before tax day. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: So you gets taxes in? 

MONICA: Yeah. 

SPEAKER: I already got mine back. 

MONICA: Wow, awesome. All right, well unless there's any question or comment from our attendees, I think that's it for today. Thanks, everyone. 

SPEAKER: Thank you. 

MONICA: Appreciate it. Bye bye. Thanks, Chris and Padma and Josh. Bye bye.