VICKI WALTON: All right. It looks like everybody's been admitted that's here so far. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Awesome. If you wouldn't mind, keeping an eye out for me, that'd be-- VICKI WALTON: I will. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: --good. Good morning, everybody. I'm Christopher Soran, Application Support Manager here at the State Board. And we're on April's edition of the Accessibility and ctcLink Open Forum. I appreciate your time. Thanks for coming in. I'll go ahead and get rolling. So we're talking about finance update, calendar widget, and the upcoming PeopleTools update. VICKI WALTON: Let's see. I'm not-- are you sharing a screen? CHRISTOPHER SORAN: I thought I was. Let me try again. Da-da-da. VICKI WALTON: There we go. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Oh, sorry. [LAUGHS] How about that? VICKI WALTON: We switched hosts today, so we're a little hobbled. [LAUGHS] CHRISTOPHER SORAN: All right. OK, thanks. All right, so over in the finance area-- so when you're on the Express Bill Entry Template page, you can-- if you're in the screen reader mode and you're going through the page, you can't access any of the checkboxes on the Change Details tab of the Configure Bill Line Grid Area. So other tabs in the Configure Billing Grid Area, the checkboxes are to the-- you can't get to them when you're in screen reader mode, but the labels aren't read by the screen reader. So you don't know what to check. Labels are important. So Oracle has developed a fix. We had a service request open with that, and they're planning-- it was planned to get delivered in 47, but it got pushed to image 48. And we'll be going to finance image 48 in October. So we'll be getting that fix coming. It's cloud. Oracle agreed and fixed it. More fun with the calendar widget. So we went to PeopleTools 8.59.14 last year, one of the things you weren't able to do was use the arrow keys to change the calendar month dropdowns and the calendar prompt, and that was fixed when we went to that update last year. And then now, on the HCM time page, when you are using-- when you're interacting with that calendar widget, you're using the previous or next button, so you're just trying to go month to month-- so you're going from April to May or back to March or what have you, forward or back, the focus should stay there. And you continue to interact with that and be able to go next or previous. But instead, the focus jumps back up to the banner area, and you got to come back into the calendar widget just to go to the next month. It seems like it should be fixed. And Oracle-agreed. So we opened a service request with Oracle. We got a provisional fix from them. We're testing it out, so we'll update you when it works and when we're getting it implement it. There's also a lot of calendar widget fixes coming in the HCM-49. So there's-- in addition to the previous next button, there are some other things that weren't working quite right with the calendar widget. So that'll be coming later this year as well, and those are things that I reported on some previous meetings, but I'm happy to pull those back up if anybody has any questions. The next upcoming update-- so we are currently on PeopleTools version 8.5914, and we're going to PeopleTools 8.59.21. So PeopleTools is kind of like the foundational architecture. It is used across all the pillars, and the one update was for accessibility. It just got posted. We posted the image overview document up on the website, and I'll go ahead and show that to everybody. So when you had screen reader mode enabled. And you were to go to the Actions menu and then go to the My Preferences. So if you were to go to this page, what I'm showing here is a screenshot of the preferences page, which is the page where you can turn-- you can change the accessibility layout for the screen reader mode to be on or off. And when in the screenshot shows that the Save button is highlighted there, it's also grayed out. So on the My Preferences page, the Save button remains disabled when there's no changes to the page, and it becomes enabled when the user makes changes on the page. And so prior to the 8.59.21, the Save button was in the "disabled" state, but it was announced to the screen reader that was "enabled." And so that's confusing. So that issue is fixed in PeopleTools 8.59.21. So you'll be able to change the screen reader mode on or off and be able to interact with that Save button properly. Let's see. There's are a couple of chats. I just want to make sure. Oh, yeah, link. Thanks for posting the link, Vicki. It's up on the site now, and that's the updates for this month. Then, focus on getting PeopleTools tested, that is coming soon. On April 27, we'll be getting deployed. So feel free to let us know if you want any topics covered in future meetings. We're happy to report out on any questions you've got. And we have linked to the ctcLink accessibility webpage where this accessibility image overview document, as well as all the rest of them, where we post those. And I'd invite you to come on back next month, same day, same time, Tuesday, May 14, at 11:00 AM. At the end of the slides, we have all the updates and all the open service requests. You're always welcome to check those out. I'm reporting out as the updates happen as well. But all the updates are back in the back of the slide deck as well anytime you want to check them out. So that's all we have for today. I appreciate everybody's time coming. Any questions or anything to close it out? All right. VICKI WALTON: A quiet group today. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: That's OK. VICKI WALTON: Yeah. [LAUGHTER] I like Meredith's AI emoji or whatever you call her. MERIDITH HATCH: My avatar. [LAUGHS] VICKI WALTON: There you go. Avatar. [LAUGHS] AUDIENCE: The live on. MERIDITH HATCH: For those of us who want to be seen, but not seen. VICKI WALTON: [LAUGHS] I love it. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Yeah, that's a good balance. VICKI WALTON: Does it move with you when you're moving? MERIDITH HATCH: Not this configuration. There are some that do, but not right now. VICKI WALTON: But her voice-- her mouth is moving when you talk, so that's cool. MERIDITH HATCH: Yeah, Zoom is pretty cool. VICKI WALTON: Yeah. A question. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Question, Rosalie? Yeah. Hi, Rosalie. Go ahead. PADMAJA VILLALON: Very interesting, yeah. ROSALIE MADISON: Hi. So I'm Rose from Everett, and I just kind of had a question because we're really starting to work on accessibility and creating accessible information and start this work. One of the things that has come up is the VPAT. And so, one of my questions is, where do you draw the line of they have a VPAT, let's say it's maybe a revision behind, or it meets some but not all-- at what point do you say no? I guess is where I'm at. Where is that line? Because I feel like we just-- if there's a VPAT, we purchase the software. And so now we're starting to look at that other-- those other requirements and steps and going, OK, do we-- we've got to take this a little bit further. And thank you, Vicki, for sharing all your information with me because I'm going to use it as part of that template to help really explain the differences between testing for software and VPAT versus web content accessibility, two different realms in accessibility that we have to address. And so I'm talking more about it from the technology point of view, and purchasing, and all of those things. So we're going back through the, or starting to-- we're going to start going back through the mediation or the-- oh my gosh, I'm blanking on the word. There's Policy 188. There's an actual document out there for the State Board of what you're supposed to look for, and the criteria, and all of that. And we haven't. For me, I'm going, OK, so what defines this? Where's the legalities in here? Because I'm just a classified staff member trying to make an accessible experience. [LAUGHS] So anyway, that was my question. And I was-- I'm just curious what State Board is doing around that. JOSH GIHA: Vicki, do you want me to take this? Hi, this is Josh from State Board. ROSALIE MADISON: Hi. JOSH GIHA: I often do a lot of testing and looking through VPATs. So basically, the foundation levels are usually 2.0, AA. And whenever I see a VPAT that, say, it meets 2.0, AA with exceptions, that's usually a huge red flag. And then I look to see what those-- what they're saying those exceptions are. And if those exceptions are foundational for the program, let's say there's some keyboard functionality that's not available on one of the main pages needed to access the software, then that's a showstopper. And we wouldn't move forward unless those things were addressed. So I think, yeah, that's where I start with. And I look for any other blockers that would impede somebody just using the basic functionality of the software, like missing labels or focus traps and things like that. I don't know if that helps at all. ROSALIE MADISON: It does. And it's the same thing that I'm doing, but I don't know. It just-- I just feel like you start getting into this very political realm because then the questions come up about what is it, academic freedoms or-- you know what I mean? And so now I guess I'm looking at it like, then we have to define what is your-- what are you going to provide for an alternative? And we have to document that so that if we're audited, we can show that. And so that's the Avenue because right now I don't feel like I can say, no, this doesn't meet this exactly, we're not going to purchase it because it just doesn't feel like there's that kind of, I don't want to say power, for lack of a better word, but governance over it at this point. JOSH GIHA: Yeah, well, usually are you given multiple options and software, and are you able to, say, this one meets more of the criteria than another, and we should-- ROSALIE MADISON: No, not yet. No, because we just started. I've only done two so far where I've really is-- I'm really, really reviewing that VPAT going in and testing it. But in one of them, it was determined that they decided not to go with it just because the other one, JAWS will work with it, but NVDA does not. And so then you get into that thing of, well, JAWS, works. But, for me, digital inclusion also means-- and equity means access to do-- programs. And NVDA is free, and so are some other tools that are out there that can just read a web page text. But it seems like companies are just doing the big JAWS. You know what I mean? And not every student has JAWS. So I don't know. I don't know. It was just that thing that starting to come up as I'm starting to do this work. And we're really starting to look at this a little closer. And more than just, yes, they have a VPAT, check, go ahead and purchase it, which is kind of the way it's been since Policy 188 hit in 2018. That was the answer to that from a technology point of view. It was if it has a VPAT, yes. VICKI WALTON: Well, you'd to remember that VPATs are voluntary. They may not be accurate. And the other part is that there are two parts to this. There is compliance, and then there's functionality. ROSALIE MADISON: Uh-hum. VICKI WALTON: You can have a completely-- well, that's the dream, a completely compliant system, yet it's not functional and accessible. So testing is really important. And like I've said to you, I use the VPAT for my guide. I do not use it as my final decision. I go in and do a functional evaluation to make sure that what they're saying is actually true, but also finding barriers that they weren't aware of either. So there's a two-part there. ROSALIE MADISON: Right, go ahead. PADMAJA VILLALON: Sorry, this is but Padmaja. They basically also list the limitations around which they have worked and in what way. So VPAT, mainly we can find, oh, this-- it does not really support this because particular functionality is not supported by Tools, something like that. So all those limitations are listed there in the VPAT, yeah. And like you said, which-- like JAWS or-- which kind of a screen reader it supports, it doesn't. So basically, the one document tells what to expect from that software, but that doesn't mean that it says that it's fully compliant. Actually, it lists what it's not compliant on also. JOSH GIHA: And, Rosalie, do you-- does your institution offer JAWS to the students that need it, or is that they have to purchase that on their own? ROSALIE MADISON: I'm not sure. I know that because I'm not in the desktop team anymore. But I know that we had a server license. And I think we had 10 concurrent, so licenses that are available, but it's on-site. It's not-- so that's one of the things that we're starting to work on, is getting all of our areas together to figure out who's got what. And that's where I come in. I am just starting all this work. Yeah, to figure out what their recommendations are. Or, like you say, do they provide that for students? But I can't answer that at that point-- at this point. JOSH GIHA: And just out of curiosity, is it-- are you part of a committee that's working on these procurement procedures or just doing the testing? ROSALIE MADISON: I actually am in the role of the IT Accessibility Coordinator. And we're still trying to define what that actually means. It's the second go around with this for me. And because, as you know, accessibility becomes-- in the workaround, it becomes back burner to everything else. Sometimes, it feels like. And so I am a part of the accessibility committee, and we are doing this work, but we're just beginning to try to define it all and then figure out where e-learnings got their part. And I think my biggest thing is we've got people doing pieces of this all over campus, and we need to get that collaborative state. So that's where we are. And then I'm testing because I got-- they purchased two. And so the first time in the last couple of months, I actually tested something and then met with the company. But I find that a little bit of a frustrating process, I'll be honest because I felt like I had to prove to the company what I was seeing. JOSH GIHA: Yep. ROSALIE MADISON: And I'm like-- and so then they wanted me to send my video of it. JOSH GIHA: Yeah. [LAUGHS] ROSALIE MADISON: And it's like, well, don't you have people that can do this for you? JOSH GIHA: Nope. [LAUGHS] PADMAJA VILLALON: Welcome to our world. JOSH GIHA: That's-- PADMAJA VILLALON: We spend a lot of time on this videos after videos and screenshots. JOSH GIHA: You can fill out documents and business case statements, and all kinds of stuff. We they make us jump through hoops to get some of this stuff fixed. So yeah, we can definitely feel that. Any way that we can help support you all? I come from a college. I came from Clark for a start here as SBCD. So I'm aware of some of the challenges that you might be facing. And any way that Christopher, Padma, and I can help support you all, just let's-- and Vicki, let us know. ROSALIE MADISON: Well, yeah, I really was appreciative of Vicki sharing her model of how she tests because I don't know that our leadership, meaning my manager, my executive director, is ready to put together a conformance evaluation and send that out to companies yet. But we're starting, and I think that's a good thing because we got to get people creating accessible information when they build it because that's the other thing. I don't know about you guys, but if you ever go back and remake somebody else's document accessible, how much time that takes is kind of mind-boggling. But anyway. VICKI WALTON: I spent a lot of time reaching out to people saying, OK, if you're going to share this, this is what needs to happen because you're the company. ROSALIE MADISON: Yeah. VICKI WALTON: You need to be the one in charge of making sure the content is accessible, especially digital content. ROSALIE MADISON: Yeah, and that's part of the work that we're doing. We're revamping our policies that were put into place, our policies and procedures that were put into place as you an answer to Policy 188 in 2018. And just kind of starting to really look at this together and what is this-- what does this look like. And I just-- I feel like it's challenging because I don't have a lot of teeth as far as saying, no, you're not in compliance. We really shouldn't use this, especially when they bring back, well, the whole academic freedom. And I'm like, well, that's fine. We just have to identify what that instructor is providing as an alternative format. And I feel like that's the best that we can do at this point for some of this. PADMAJA VILLALON: But as you see, the way they worded it, they list specific test cases tested for one, two, three. These are these scenarios so compliant. So really, if you want to push back, you have to know which scenarios it's not accessible for each case. So it's a lot of work, too, if you want to challenge a VPAT. ROSALIE MADISON: Yeah, the VPAT, I feel like it's only a piece of this, though. VICKI WALTON: Yeah, it's a very small piece. PADMAJA VILLALON: [INAUDIBLE] general compliance, it shows. Each thing met with this test case it meets. With this test case, compliance is met. But you have to go in the weeds to challenge that. ROSALIE MADISON: Yeah, and there's such a learning curve with just using assistive technology, and using a screen reader, using NVDA that a lot of people-- I've noticed it's just like they don't have time to do that. So that's where I come in, and I'll check it. But I'm not an expert on it either. It's not like I use assistive technology on a regular basis or go to training for it. And that's one of my things have always been, as an IT support professional, has been, well, this is great, but where's the training for your IT support professionals that need to be communicating this and doing this, that kind of stuff. It's kind of a challenge because you're like, where's the time for me to go learn this? So anyway, it's been interesting. It's interesting. PADMAJA VILLALON: It becomes reactive and not proactive. That's what ends up happening. ROSALIE MADISON: Yeah, but that also takes way more time, I feel like, especially on digital information that's already out there because I have seen communications go out to students, and then I pull that up in a web browser and use the WAVE tool on it, and there's 71 errors. I'm like-- [LAUGHS] that's-- so that's what I'm trying to do now is just get it so that we're sending information digital information that's in an accessible format to the best of our ability at this point. But it's a lot of work. I just feel like we're barely beginning. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Yeah, I used to work at TCC in e-learning, so we did a lot of accessibility stuff. And yeah, I remember just the challenges of working with all the faculty and the vendors and all of this, all of that complicated political mess of, yeah, I'm using this software to deal with it. And I'm like-- I think of things like, I think it was a Pearson's MyMathLab where if you enabled screen reader mode, every image, all the graphs just disappeared. And I was like, oh, that's-- what? That's not a solution. [LAUGHS] ROSALIE MADISON: I know, yeah. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: That was absurd. ROSALIE MADISON: Oh, you don't see it. So yeah, I don't. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Yeah, you're supposed to pass if s don't know what the graph says. ROSALIE MADISON: Yeah. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: So yeah, I recall just absurd moments like that where, technically, we'd be like, we're using it anyways. I'm like, well, I think blind students are all going to fail because this is ridiculous. So I feel for you. [CHUCKLES] ROSALIE MADISON: Yeah, I feel like it's sad that there is some-- there is this element here of, well, we're going to have to get sued before the colleges realize that this should be a priority or should be something that you're working into the every day. But I really don't like that methodology. You know what I mean? I feel like we should be proactive rather than reactive. VICKI WALTON: Well, and it takes having our leadership buy into the fact that accessibility is important, and it is the law. But you want to use the law as the last resort, but sometimes you have to put it in there because it's a fact. Higher education-- it's the law that we create accessible content. PADMAJA VILLALON: It has come a long way, though, from where it started. So I think it will get better and better. ROSALIE MADISON: I agree. VICKI WALTON: And think if you start in small chunks, instead of looking at the whole bigger picture, you might not get as overwhelmed because there's the digital content that's going out that you said that you're checking, and then there's the software part that's being purchased, and so you can't put all of that on your plate all at once. You can only do so much with each section and training, a lot of training to your people. ROSALIE MADISON: Yep. Well, that's part of what we're revamping, too, because we've already done a lot of this. 2021, there was a huge campaign for training for all faculty. And all that information is still out there. And so we just have to revamp it and start over because we've had, like everybody else, a lot of turnover, too, right? VICKI WALTON: Yeah. ROSALIE MADISON: And those are the things that the committee is working on, and we're going to start breaking it apart, like you say, and just try to do it in chunks. My biggest thing is trying to get individuals just to create their own accessible information, digital information, create an outline, put headers, put a title, the simple things. It's really not as complicated as it needs as it seems to be when you look at VPAT or you think about it in terms of that great big picture, but just add an outline to your Google Doc. I don't know. VICKI WALTON: Yeah, maybe think about having an onboarding policy that whoever comes in gets accessibility training as part of their onboarding. ROSALIE MADISON: We did add that to the list, but like I said, the committee is-- we do have our Title IX director, is part of the committee, too, so that's helpful because we have her going, it's the law, which is nice. But again, it is-- sometimes it's a lot because I feel like there's this weird expectation, oh, Rose has made it accessible, and I'm like, OK, I made it accessible, but then you posted something else because somebody else had that document someplace else. So there's a part of me that's like, I'm having a hard time putting my name to say I'm the expert for accessibility. You know what I mean? There's just that feeling of-- anyway. It's a collaboration, and it has to be. Yeah, it has to be something that-- it's a partnership with leadership, with CDS, with IT, technology services, and e-learning. VICKI WALTON: Yeah, it definitely is a partnership. ROSALIE MADISON: We all have to do this together. It's not just a technology piece. So personally, eventually, I just want to be able to do review and assess the technology side of the house and not worry so much about content that's getting created constantly. But we'll get there. It's exciting. So I was just curious about the legalities of some of this stuff. And the support from State Board, too, because I get the feeling like sometimes, there's this feeling like we're out here alone trying to do this, and that's not how I feel. I feel like State Board has put forth a lot of great resources and created this structure and an umbrella of what we should be doing. And we should be utilizing that. VICKI WALTON: Well, we are here to support you. JOSH GIHA: Yeah, exactly. We're resources here if you need to reach out or get connected with another college that is doing-- that has been doing similar work or might have reviewed a software package that your school is looking at. Yeah, all those things. ROSALIE MADISON: So I do have one other question. What do you do when you discover that the error really isn't in the software that you can control? I'm discovering that some of the errors that come up are-- it's not in the content that we control, but it's actually in the framework for the software that the company-- PADMAJA VILLALON: --have to create the service requests for the framework. ROSALIE MADISON: OK, that's what I was thinking I would do for this instance because-- but then I know that I'm going to have to show that. I'm going to have to get them in a video and then show them what I'm seeing because the first huge landmark title is missing on there. Yeah. PADMAJA VILLALON: What you saw about that calendar prompt that Christopher showed, that calendar prompt is part of framework. It's not the application part. ROSALIE MADISON: OK. PADMAJA VILLALON: Yeah, so we had to do exactly the same thing as you mentioned. We had to log service request to the framework and prove that this that's the issue with-- like you said, videos and screenshots and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, on testing, yeah. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: I've also found if you say exactly which success criterion they're violating, they'll tend to pay more attention, not just, hey, this is missing a heading, or there's a focus trap like, yeah, this fails, the success criteria at 1.3.2 or whatever. Yeah, so they tend to go, oh, that's a thing we need to pay attention to. PADMAJA VILLALON: That's a very good point because then they suddenly, oh, that means it's violating some compliance. JOSH GIHA: It's violating their own VPAT. Yeah, if they say that their-- yep, if they say they're AA 2.0 and you're showing them a violation of one of those criterias that they said that they support, then they have to fix that immediately. But we but if you try to say that this is violating a higher WCAG rule, they may say, well, we already said in our VPAT we don't support 2.1, so we don't have to fix this issue. But you can submit it as an enhancement. ROSALIE MADISON: Yeah, well, in this scenario, I can't get the reader to jump to the actual main content on the page because it doesn't have any landmark to get there. It will work if I click in there, and it'll start reading it, but it will not jump from the title down into the actual content. PADMAJA VILLALON: It has to be keyboard accessible. ROSALIE MADISON: Yeah. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Yeah, anything you can do to get the vendor to pay attention. [LAUGHTER] ROSALIE MADISON: I haven't even. That's just one that I bring up as an example. But I know that I overwhelm my coworkers because I see it, how-- for me, I feel like it's how the technology layer on each other. And that's where that disconnect is. Everybody thinks that they're accessible until you put the two technologies together, whether it's your opening up an email, that's an outlook that's in a Chrome browser, and it doesn't work right versus-- like in this case, what I'm talking about open up a browser and running this application in a browser mode, and you can't get to the content with a reader because you're missing that landmark or title, which to me, the title on a page seems like something that they would automatically have filled in, but I guess not. Anyway, OK. JOSH GIHA: That's definitely AA, 2.0. That's one of the first success criterias. PADMAJA VILLALON: With mostly functionally used pages, you can start with-- breaking the big task into small, small parts and focus on mostly used things first. ROSALIE MADISON: So accessibility also applies in Section 508. All of that applies to staff as it does to students. Do you guys experience that there seems to be that your internet is it doesn't have as high of a priority for the staff as your external for students or customer-facing? Or are you guys able to just incorporate it? VICKI WALTON: Well, I we focus on students first. ROSALIE MADISON: Students first. VICKI WALTON: Monica and I do. That's the priority. And then, it branches out from there. ROSALIE MADISON: OK, yeah. That's where we are. But in the meantime, we have all these staff creating digital content that is not accessible or not necessarily accessible, I should say. VICKI WALTON: We have that too. So that's why you've got-- ROSALIE MADISON: The training and learning curve? VICKI WALTON: Yeah, yeah. ROSALIE MADISON: OK. VICKI WALTON: It is an ongoing process. It is not an event that's going to happen for sure. It's an ongoing process with turnover or reminding people. ROSALIE MADISON: And it is continual process improvement around accessibility in general because it's always changing. And now, with AI and everything that they're hoping to do with that and proposing, who knows where we're going to be in five years? VICKI WALTON: Yeah. ROSALIE MADISON: Yeah. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Yeah, sometimes, I've tried to make incremental change by just directly reaching out to the person that sent the image-based PDF as that all staff email, "Hey, just say so you know, I saw this thing." So just really-- and then maybe next time they send it out with alt text on the images, or they don't do it on screens, so image-based. So sometimes I've had success in just working individually. VICKI WALTON: That's how I do it, too. If I see something, I say something. That's my motto. That's truly my motto. [LAUGHS] If I have time-- but I am trying to make time for important things that really it from an educational point of view. I'm just sharing this tip blah, blah, blah because it does affect, especially if it goes out to a global bunch of people. It's really important because we don't know who needs to use assistive technology, so we need to be prepared. ROSALIE MADISON: Exactly. That's how I feel, too. Yeah, OK. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. VICKI WALTON: Well, just know we're here if you need any advice or input. We'll support you as much as we can. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Yeah, feel free to email us. I'll put my email in the chat. VICKI WALTON: Yeah, and you have my information. ROSALIE MADISON: Yes, I do. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: There you go, yeah. ROSALIE MADISON: Thank you. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: [INAUDIBLE]. VICKI WALTON: Anybody have anything else? CHRISTOPHER SORAN: That was a great chat. Thanks, Rosalie. Nice to meet you. ROSALIE MADISON: Thank you. You too. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: I hope you have a great day. VICKI WALTON: All right, thanks, everyone. MERIDITH HATCH: Thank you. ROSALIE MADISON: Thank you. VICKI WALTON: Uh-hum. MERIDITH HATCH: Bye. VICKI WALTON: Bye.