MONICA OLSSON: I've now started recording. Good morning, everyone. Again, this is Monica Olsson from the State Board Policy Associate for Accessibility. Welcome to December edition of the ctcLink accessibility open forum, the last one of this year. We'll see you back here in the New Year. 

Before we move on to our official agenda, we'll do a few housekeeping items that I'd like you all to be aware of. The first is that we do have a professional live commissioner here with us today. So if you would like to follow along using captioning, please turn that on in the bottom menu part of your Zoom screen. 

You're either going to see a three dot ellipsis that says More, Show Transcript or Show Subtitles, or you might see a closed captioning button, and you can use that to turn it on as well. We are recording today's meeting, as we do all of them. 

We will do our best as we present this information to you to not get lost in the alphabet soup, acronym soup and do our best to define the terms that we're using for you that has been a comment shared with us by stakeholders. And I'm also going to put a link in the chat to our accessibility ctcLink main page, where we do have a document glossary terms of definitions for you. You are welcome to ask questions or share comments during our hour together today. 

You can raise your hand using the Zoom function, unmute yourself, or put your question in chat. My co-moderator Chris and I do our best to follow along chat. Sometimes we do miss something, but we do our best to address everyone's questions or comments. I think that's it for now for me. So without further ado, Chris, I'll hand it over to you. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Good morning, everyone. I'm Christopher Soran, the application support manager here at the State Board. And so we're going to talk today through some-- we got some open service desk tickets with Oracle, talk about the Campus Solutions Image 27, as well as the HCX, HighPoint Campus Experience version 22.4. And we're just going to roll through some slides. Feel free to ask questions as we go. 

So we have the HCX or HighPoint Campus Solutions installed. We installed 22.2 back in October, and we're installing 22.4 this upcoming Saturday. We have a test environment. And Vicky's has begun her testing on it. And we're looking forward to getting all the updates and one of the slide decks. I have a list of all the accessibility updates that are coming in that new version. 

MONICA OLSSON: And this is Monica speaking. And I'll just share a few other things. Vicky did also do accessibility testing on the version that we're currently on, 22.2. We did talk a little bit about that in last month's meeting. And the accessibility issues that Vicky found during that round of testing were documented in a tracking sheet that we share with Chris and his team. And we're in the process of continuing to share that with the vendor HighPoint advocate for those solutions moving forward. 

As Chris said, we're moving to version 22.4 now. And Vicky is actively doing testing right now as we speak. The next update I have on this slide to share is regarding the OCTA signing widget. That's our multi-factor authentication product that many of you are now probably familiar with and have been using. 

That company has made some accessibility improvements. They hired a third party to do their official VPAT to queue. We have access to that, the most current VPAT now from the queue. And they also have redesigned their sign in widget, specifically to improve ongoing accessibility issues that were brought up by SB CTC, the State Board and by CIO Committee of accessibility technology oversight about a year ago. 

That new sign in widget has been tested and evaluated for accessibility by a number of users of stakeholders, including Vicky Walton here at the State Board. And that new sign in widget is slated to be released by OKTA the vendor sometime in winter. And the last time-- excuse me, this is still Monica speaking. The last update I have is regarding the Web Accessibility Learning Lab. 

If you have questions about that, now's not the time. I'm happy to talk with you offline more about that program. There has been promotional material sent out to our system. But we are extending the due date for application to January 17. It was originally slated for the end of this month, December. So we're putting that out a little bit. Thank you. That's it for me, Chris. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Thanks, Monica. This is Chris Soran again. We're going to roll on. So we have open service desk tickets with Oracle, and we've got some recent updates on a couple of them. So if you're on the absence page and you make any changes on the page, the page does a full reload and doesn't announce it to the screener like it should. 

So Oracle has agreed it's a problem. They're working on a fix, and they plan to deliver it in HCM 45. And so that's good news. They're getting that going. Also on the finance side, the express bill entry template page has some issues with the checkboxes and some of the things on that page. 

And so they've agreed that's a problem, and they're working on a fix, and they're hoping to deliver it in the Finance Image 47 and Image-- when I talk about Image, it's not like a PNG or a JPG. It's what Oracle names they're update packages. Yeah, and Monica linked out to some of the terms and definitions I have on that page. 

And if there's any that I mentioned today, please, that you don't know, let me know, and I'll get it added to the terms and definitions page. It's nice to get some movement on those from Oracle. And we've also-- the CS Image or update package 27 for the accessibility IOVD is when we post it on the accessibility web page. And we'll go ahead and pull it up here on the screen and turn it over to Josh. He's going to come and talk us through the updates that are coming. 

JOSH GIHA: Hi, this is Josh from SBCTC. Can everybody hear me OK? 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Yeah. 

JOSH GIHA: Let's see. So for Image 27 or the CS update package for version 27, we have, not a whole lot of accessibility update to this. But we'd like to see consistent progress. And we do have, I think, about 18 or so updates in this one and I included about six that were worth talking about, that were, I guess, more visible to our end users. 

The first one has to do with the Advisor Center. So this is only for staff that are advisors. They removed a row from the academics portion of the Advisee page. So if you click on your Advisees then go to Academics, there is a column that they have removed from that. And they said it was a filler column that wasn't needed, not functional. 

So I only was able to spot the actual change, and I don't know if it was something that-- who requested the change or not. So there's that. And then moving forward, in the Student payment history portion, so if a student goes to their Self Service and their Payment History, they made some updates to the grid that is displayed for the user. So they took away bolding from the dates that was before, which can-- if you have a font that's emphasized that is unnecessary can be a little bit confusing to the user. 

So they made it match the rest of the data that's being displayed on that page, as well as added chevrons to the end of the column to show that it is expandable, and a student can drill down into that if they were to select one of those columns or one of those rows, excuse me. And moving forward, in the Browse catalog page, they did-- they added some missing metadata to the tables and the background, but they also added this the chevrons to search results so that way it shows to the user that you can select it and drill down for more information. 

Moving forward, there are also some enhancements to some other self service pages, mostly having to do with the classes. And they carried over the changes that we talked about before, having to do with font selection to the other places where they display the class lists, like browse classes, or manage classes, shopping cart. And then in this swap classes section, they changed the way they do tabs. They also-- if you can go back up, Christopher, right there. 

And in the last update that they did a couple of months ago, in 26, they said that they had added placeholders to wherever there are fields. We didn't see that in all fields that had text boxes. But we are finding that now in this image. So that is good news. It makes it a little bit easier for the user to know what type of data they are supposed to be entering, especially when it comes to date formats. And-- 

MONICA OLSSON: Josh, can you explain what you mean by change the way they do tabs? That might not make sense to some people. 

JOSH GIHA: OK. So in the image right above when I was just speaking about swap classes is image View My Classes. At the top portion of the image, there are tabs. So you can select the By Classes or By Date tab. And it will display a different set of data to the user, but they changed the way they formatted the tabs. 

They're wider. There's more surface area to click on if a user's using a mouse. And they're, I guess, more visibly accessible. And then a little bit lower, there are some checkboxes that were out of format, and they fix the formatting on those. And I believe Megan has a question. HI, Megan. 

MEGAN JASURDA: Hi, Josh. Thanks for the update. Megan at Clark. Do you nor does anyone know if the View Classes and the Class Search, with these updates, do you know if this area of ctcLink is fully accessible so that a student could independently search for classes, add classes themselves? Do we know that? 

JOSH GIHA: I mean, when we're talking about people's ware, I never like to say something is 100%. When it comes to software in general, I never like to use the term as 100% accessible. Because accessibility is always evolving and we're always getting new standards. But as far as being keyboard accessible, and being able to function with NVDA or Jaws, and be able to select classes, and Class Search, Enroll, Add to Shopping Cart, and use the Planner function, those are keyboard accessible-- 

MEGAN JASURDA: OK, cool. 

JOSH GIHA: --for NVDA and Jaws. 

MEGAN JASURDA: And I missed, is this live? Is this a recent update or is this going to be updated? 

JOSH GIHA: This is a recent update, but there's been updates coming along the way ever since. 

MEGAN JASURDA: OK. 

JOSH GIHA: 19, they've been making consistent updates to these specific self service functions, like the Class search, Enroll, Browse Classes, Course Catalog, Dropping Classes, Swapping Classes. All of these functions have been receiving consistent updates in the last two couple of years. 

MEGAN JASURDA: OK, but it's probably better than it was like when our fall term started, some of these updates have happened since mid-September, we think? 

JOSH GIHA: Yes. And also, we do have to keep in mind that we have a large population of students that use the HighPoint for their class search, and dropping, and enrolling in class. And we do have that issue where the Submit button is deactivated until a selection is changed below it. And that is a pretty significant obstacle or barrier for students that don't know that there's a button there that becomes activated once a change is made lower down on the page. 

So that has been reported a few months ago to HCX, and they accepted it as a working item. They have been-- work has been in progress on it for the last month or so. So I will keep this group up to date is when I get updates on that from-- 

MEGAN JASURDA: And what you're showing, is this the HCX version or the original? 

JOSH GIHA: This is the original software. 

MEGAN JASURDA: Right, the PeopleSoft. OK. Yeah, you can-- 

JOSH GIHA: The PeopleSoft version is working. But I just wanted to show that caveat about HCX or HighPoint. Because if we're talking about, in general ctcLink add in classes and the problems that might have happened in fall, those might have been attributed to HCX. And those are still ongoing. 

MEGAN JASURDA: No, that was a great example. Because I feel like it's a little bit of a dance or a moving target of when I'm recommending a student to use HCX versus the PeopleSoft, especially if we have a couple of dozen screen reader users at Clark. But lately, we've been shifting to moles using the PeopleSoft for class search and adding a drop in classes. But it can be really confusing to know when to tell them to use what. So that was a helpful example. 

JOSH GIHA: No, no. I totally understand that. And then with the last two point releases for HCX, they made some adjustments to how they're displaying stuff when it comes to browse classes and class or general too. So it is kind of a moving target or dance back and forth on who has the better functionality at that time for functions. 

MEGAN JASURDA: OK. Thank you. That was helpful. 

MONICA OLSSON: Josh and Megan, this is Monica. The issues around a student being able to search for classes, select them, et cetera, those tasks and functionality is something that Vicky is going to be paying extra attention to as they work to evaluate version 32.4, HCX update that's coming here around the corner. 

And Megan, I wanted to make sure that we did answer your very first question, which is the changes or updates in PeopleSoft that Josh is displaying right now, your question was, is this live in production? And did we answer that for you? OK. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: These latest screenshots are what's coming on Saturday. I saw some of these-- yeah. Some of these are-- there have been some updates over the last year, certainly, in these areas we've introduced back in the version 26 in October. But some of these screenshots are from version 27, which is not yet live. 

MONICA OLSSON: Version 27 coming this weekend. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Coming on Saturday. So we don't have to wait long. 

JOSH GIHA: All right. And I think there's just only another page here. So for financial aid staff, they introduce the '23-'24 correct ISIR page. And I believe there is some type of bug that wasn't allowing access to the page. But this is the first time that we're getting the page. So we don't know if there was no-- if we had that bug or not. But there it is. We have the new '23-'24 Correct ISIR page. That's about it. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Thanks, Josh. Everybody you can access that on the ctcLink accessibility webpage, where we keep posting every time we get a new update. All the stuff that's changed. 

MONICA OLSSON: And before we move on to the next slide, just to reiterate CS system for Campus Solutions IOVD image overview something document. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Yeah, image overview document. The VS View. 

MONICA OLSSON: Yes. And that document, which helps us summarize the update Josh was explaining just now, is available for folks who want to look at it some more will be uploaded to our ctcLink accessibility web page. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Thanks so much. So we were on-- I showed this slide during the last session that we had. This is the HighPoint Campus Solutions version 22.3 accessibility updates that they have in their release notes. And we had updated to 22.2 last time, and we're going to version 22.4, which is their latest one, which also includes everything that came in 22.3. 

So there's a lot of grid changes on these pages, account activity, browse classes, class roster, course history, and course catalog, loans, request transcript, transfer credit, 1098-Ts. So they've made updates to all these pages. And then in version 22.4, they made some accessibility improvements for error messages, which seems like it may be a small thing. 

But think of how many places an error message might pop up somewhere in a system and you can see it. It's quite a bit of work and some changes there, as well as they refactor some code for displaying and navigating tables to be more friendly. 

JOSH GIHA: And if I could-- this is Josh for SBCTC. As far as the error messages, I haven't been able to replicate it consistently. But the way I believe they've refactored the error messages is before when there was an error message or a success message, it would pop up at the top corner of the screen, and it would be visible for a few seconds and then and then fade away. 

And now, the error messages are in a small bubble, I guess you'd call it, at the bottom corner of the screen. And it's in the tap index. So you'd be able to tap into it at the very end of the tap order. But I'm not 100% confident that's how it is. So I didn't want to document it until I'm completely sure but that's how I believe, from what I've been able to get it to do so far. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: It's hard to replicate every type of error someone might have. 

JOSH GIHA: Right. 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Yeah. Yes, we're looking forward to getting those updates. It's upcoming Saturday. And one of the suggestions, thanks for submitting, was to add in all of the acronyms and definitions here at the end of the slide deck. 

And we have those posted on the web page, but I can absolutely add them into the slide deck as well, as well as write them out more as much as I can. Certainly the first time as we go over it. There's all kinds of acronyms. 

MONICA OLSSON: And Chris, this is Monica. On that previous slide that we were just on before college sharing, can you briefly or just like in a sentence explain what refactored code means for those who might not understand what that means as it pertains to the update in 22.4? 

JOSH GIHA: Sure. Refactored code is basically editing the code for-- probably the best way to explain it, editing the code that's they're changing it around to produce different results. 

MONICA OLSSON: Thank you. And then we were on the next slide collage sharing, slide eight. Just a reminder that you all have the opportunity to reach out to us at any point before these monthly open forums and submit questions or comments to be discussed or whatnot during the open forum using our online submission form. It's on the ctcLink accessibility web page. 

The hyperlink is available here in the slide deck. If, for some reason, that doesn't work for you, you also can send us an email, and we'll do our best to respond to your questions or comments that way as well. So we haven't received a lot of activity in those online submission forms, but a little bit here and there, we are thankful to you all for contacting us that way. 

And slide nine, I just want to make sure if there's any questions around slide nine. This is just letting you know what additional information is available on the ctcLink accessibility web page that you can have access to any way you want. We do our best to keep that space updated with current VPAT information on accessibility update documentation, information about upcoming open forums, et cetera. Are there any questions from the audience around acronyms, or words, information that you are seeing or hearing? 

And if not, we can go to the next slide, slide 10, which is a reminder that our next monthly open forum is January 10. Same Zoom link. Same time, 11:00 to noon. I suspect we'll have additional updates around HCX 22.4. Because at that point, we'll be on that version. You will have completed accessibility testing and review. 

Communication will happen between Vicky and myself, Chris and Chris's team. So I suspect we'll have further updates information for you all at that open forum. Any other questions or, excuse me, comments from you Chris? 

CHRISTOPHER SORAN: That's everything. I appreciate everybody for coming. And please let us know what challenges we face. And we love to fix them all. 

MONICA OLSSON: Yep, that's right. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Josh. Thank you, Megan, for your question and participation as always. Thanks, everyone, for joining us this morning. That's everything that we've planned to present. I hope you all have a fabulous rest of your December and a happy New Year. We will see you in 2023.