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The Office of Information Technology strives to ensure that people with disabilities have equal, available and reliable access to the organization’s services, digital content, and technologies. Our promise encompasses our offerings made available through both technology and our people.
Accessibility is the degree to which a product, device, program, service, resource, or environment is available to a given user. If a building on campus has a wheelchair ramp leading to its main entrance, that entrance is accessible to wheelchair users. If a lecture includes sign language interpreters, that lecture is accessible to attendees who are deaf or hard of hearing and who understand sign language.
Accessible technology is a technology that has been designed in a way so that it can be accessed by all users. This includes electronic documents, websites, software, hardware, video, audio, and other technologies. People who interact with technology are extremely diverse. They have a wide variety of characteristics, and we cannot assume that they’re all using a traditional monitor for output, or keyboard and mouse for input. Consider these users:
Individuals may be using mobile devices including phones, tablets, or other devices, which means they’re using a variety of screen sizes and a variety of gestures or other user interfaces for interacting with their devices and accessing the content.
Accessible technology works for all of these users, and countless others not mentioned.
Accessible technology includes electronic documents, websites, videos, software applications, and hardware devices that can be used effectively by everyone, including students, faculty, staff, and visitors with disabilities. The CU Denver and CU Anschutz community are collectively responsible for assuring the technologies we choose, use, and create are fully accessible.
The University of Colorado Denver and the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus values diverse experiences and perspectives and strives to fully include everyone who engages with the university. Inaccessible information technology (IT) negatively impacts people with a variety of disabilities, including mobility/orthopedic impairments, sensory impairments, specific learning disabilities, attention deficits, autism spectrum disorders, speech impairments, health impairments, and psychiatric conditions.
The university's commitment to equal access to IT has been more formally stated through the publication of an IT Digital Accessibility Policy. The policy looks to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Level AA for guidance in meeting its IT accessibility commitments.
In addition to the policy, the Office of Information Technology maintains an IT Accessibility Scorecard which provides specific techniques and testing methods to assist the campus community including web designers, developers, content creators, and purchasing agents, in meeting the policy guidelines when creating and procuring IT.