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April 28, 2008
IT expert makes seminar accessible to hearing impaired
University Park, PA—Efforts to widen accessibility took a step forward at a recent University Libraries seminar, which successfully incorporated captioning and sign language into an online presentation for hearing impaired participants. "Access to All: Create Accessible Courses and Web Pages" was presented on April 2 live in the Foster Auditorium at Pattee Library, and online via Adobe Connect, a collaboration tool that enables live interactions with small or large groups online. In addition to viewing the presentation and chatting live—both features of Adobe Connect presentations—the recent seminar also enabled online participants to read captioning and view a sign language interpreter. Coordinator of Library Services for Persons with Disabilities Susan Hayya, credits the expertise of Penn State IT Consultant John Spotts and IT Specialist Chris Demchak for widening the seminar's accessibility to include deaf and hearing-impaired participants.
"We want the University community to know that we can make presentations accessible to the deaf and the hard of hearing. We also hope in future that it will be possible to make presentations accessible to the blind and visually impaired, by enabling their screen readers to interact seamlessly with Adobe Connect," she says.
The seminar was cosponsored by Library Services for Persons with Disabilities, the Office for Disability Services, Information Technology Services, Teaching and Learning Technology, the Postsecondary Education Programs Network (PEPNet), and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID). For more information, see: http://its.psu.edu/accesstoall/.
To contact John Spotts: jds100@psu.edu or 814-360-4777; to contact Susan Hayya: shh2@psulias.psu.edu, or 814-865-0284.