Shannon Pritting: Alright, so it looks like things have stabilized i'm i'm starting the recording and I just wanted to introduce and and think the.
Shannon Pritting: group from broome Community college, who are going to talk to us today about their approach to the it procurement accessibility they'll go through their review process talk about exception process.
Shannon Pritting: and Dr Kimberly mcclain who's the it officer interim dean of institutional effectiveness will be joining us or is going to present.
Shannon Pritting: As well as know a Roth who's the electronic resources librarian who's been working with a group of us in the suny library accessibility cohort trying to.
Shannon Pritting: do as much as we can collaboratively in this space, so he he made the connection for us so thanks to Noah for that and then Sierra cable the Web developer from.
Shannon Pritting: suny broom who's also part of the IT committee or is it a board or a committee.
Kimberly B Mclain: We call it the it accessibility advisory council.
Shannon Pritting: Okay, so Council, I had a completely wrong.
Shannon Pritting: So I will keep an eye on chat for questions and it sounds like we can interject if there's something that it would be good to ask that question at the time of.
Shannon Pritting: You know where you are in the presentation and we'll definitely have time for questions at the end, as well, so I am going to turn it over to Dr mcclain and thanks everyone.
Kimberly B Mclain: Thank you so much, so i'm going to start us out, and I know it and CRM will jump in, and I am sure if I miss something they'll they'll remind me of that.
Kimberly B Mclain: And they'll they're also going to present some some pieces within this presentation.
Kimberly B Mclain: we're really happy to be here with everybody today and appreciate the invitation to share with you are a it procurement processes.
Kimberly B Mclain: we're very proud of our VIP plan and our procurement processes and not because they're perfect, but really because we've started from.
Kimberly B Mclain: Good to see nothing we really didn't even know to be honest, I didn't mean to be pat was when we started with this.
Kimberly B Mclain: Much less how to read one, so it really was it's been it's been a long process, a challenging one but we're we're really happy with what we've come up with so far.
Kimberly B Mclain: So That being said, though, this is still very much a work in progress, and one of the things that we're really excited about.
Kimberly B Mclain: For today is to be able to hear some feedback to hear what other schools are doing and to engage in some conversations with everybody here.
Kimberly B Mclain: I think one of the things i've most appreciated about being part of the E it process is the Community of practice that Sunni and natalie in particular i've had a lot of really great conversations with natalie throughout this process.
Kimberly B Mclain: So, very briefly, I just want to give a little bit of an overview about the it accessibility at the College before we get into the procurement process in particular.
Kimberly B Mclain: In the fall of 2019 when CD came out with the policy, I was asked to be the it officer and to develop our a it accessibility plan.
Kimberly B Mclain: So recognizing this was going to need to be very much a campus wide collaborative effort, what I did was established the it accessibility advisory council and Noah and Sierra are members of that Council, as well as our procurement group.
Kimberly B Mclain: So our e it accessibility plan, of course, follows all this, the standards.
Kimberly B Mclain: That Sunni has in their final report, and we have representation.
Kimberly B Mclain: For each of those standards on the Advisory Council, and together we came up with a pretty comprehensive plan.
Kimberly B Mclain: to stress the importance of it we I have it on our institutional effectiveness strategic planning page.
Kimberly B Mclain: And we have the link there i'm not going to open it now, but in case anybody was interested in looking through the plan, I wanted them to be able to have access to it.
Kimberly B Mclain: we've gone through two revisions at this point of the accessibility plan we just continuously refine it and, as we develop our processes and policies we go back through the plan and update the plan.
Kimberly B Mclain: We also do an annual action plan update, as well as an overview of the work we've done.
Kimberly B Mclain: which we send to the campus and i've also shared it with with natalie as well, so Sunni is aware of the progress that that we've made so as we worked on the plan.
Kimberly B Mclain: We quickly realized, one of the areas that we really needed to do a lot of work in was related to procurement.
Kimberly B Mclain: So what we did was established, and he it procurement it started out as a work group.
Kimberly B Mclain: And we had a few more members than we have currently on it and we so together we really developed the the process that we have today.
Kimberly B Mclain: That has since turned into a committee that meets on a regular basis, every two weeks to continuously refine the process and to review any it purchases that we may have received within those two weeks.
Kimberly B Mclain: So on our procurement committee, we have cr cable who's here today and she is the chair of this committee and really is just an amazing job.
Kimberly B Mclain: Getting our processes together and developing the forms Noah is also part of the procurement committee and.
Kimberly B Mclain: He didn't initially start out with it, but as soon as we realized he had the pet skills and.
Kimberly B Mclain: He was a committed person in an accessibility efforts we we snagged him immediately and he's just been an amazing addition to our team, we have an instructional designer.
Kimberly B Mclain: We also have our director of information technology services a learning disability specialist and we have somebody from sponsored programs, and the reason why we do is because that person works on grants and.
Kimberly B Mclain: They have really good insight into the purchasing processes at the College so they've been an asset to us in that respect as as well.
Okay.
This.
Kimberly B Mclain: Alright, so how our process works is what what we do is at the College when anybody is purchasing something technology related.
Kimberly B Mclain: there's an actual a checkpoint where the director of it has to approve that purchase, so we, when we were developing this process, we were trying to figure out ways to capitalize on what we already had in place so.
Kimberly B Mclain: When a purchaser requests to purchase any it related product they put their you know request form in through purchasing and the director of it gets a notification.
Kimberly B Mclain: So, at that point, what the director of it does is send an email to the purchaser, with a link to the it accessibility review form which i'll show you in a moment.
Kimberly B Mclain: And also asks them to complete or i'm sorry to request a V pat from the vendor and to forward that to the it procurement committee so i'm just going to show you our review form.
Let it pop up.
Kimberly B Mclain: Okay, can everybody see is that is that visible.
Ciara Cable: On that a little bit, can you.
Kimberly B Mclain: zoom in Sierra era.
Kimberly B Mclain: Where I, how do I zoom in Oh, my goodness.
Ciara Cable: So I bought a MAC it's command plus I don't know is.
Dean Dyer (he/him): It.
Is the same on PC.
Kimberly B Mclain: MAC.
Dean Dyer (he/him): command minus two our control sorry on DC.
Ciara Cable: Control plus.
Dean Dyer (he/him): yep control plus control minus the zoom back out control zero to.
Kimberly B Mclain: Go okay.
Kimberly B Mclain: Thank you alright see I just learned something new today okay so here's our review form.
Kimberly B Mclain: week we within the PowerPoint we put the link in so anybody could go in and check it out and we're totally happy for anybody to do that if we would just ask please don't hit submit, because it is a live for.
Kimberly B Mclain: So of course we asked for the requesters name their email and their direct supervisors name is well, and you know we really want to make sure that this is a process that everybody has awareness of you know, top down, so to speak.
Kimberly B Mclain: We asked for the product name the website so we could learn a little bit more about the product and, of course, in some cases to actually go in and test it out whether it's with a screen reader or what it might.
Kimberly B Mclain: You know, whatever like that, when do you plan to implement this purchase This gives us an idea of the immediacy of the review.
Kimberly B Mclain: The intended purpose of the product or service that the person is looking to purchase, you know how do they intend for this product to be used.
Kimberly B Mclain: This also gives us an idea of you know the extent of of the use and the impact of it, so this format is a little bit interactive So if you click something like Is this a one time or recurring purchase.
Kimberly B Mclain: Well, if you click recurring it asks when it's a contract when it might be renewed.
Kimberly B Mclain: One of the more recent things that we've put in place is, we have a spreadsheet where, as we review the products we put the date, and we will use that going forward to conduct an annual review an annual V pat review of products that are going to continue to be used.
Kimberly B Mclain: Is it replacing the current product, so if they say yes, what product is it replacing and no there's not an extra question.
Kimberly B Mclain: Who is the intended audience for the product and again this is really to give us an idea of the extent of the use and if we do come into.
Kimberly B Mclain: We see accessibility issues you know what kind of barriers and for who they might pose so depending on what they check.
Kimberly B Mclain: If it's for students, you know how how many students are we talking about if it's for a course, what is the course number which sections will be using it, and then in what areas the students will be using the product, and this question is also partially to help it do planning.
Kimberly B Mclain: it's for faculty the estimated number of faculty users and in what area will faculty use the product.
Kimberly B Mclain: staff is pretty similar the location and the number of staff users.
Kimberly B Mclain: If it's for general public the locations, whether it's a physical location, you know, a kiosk on campus or it's going to be virtually online and how many people do we end do you anticipate using this product and enterprise resource and then, if there's other audiences.
Kimberly B Mclain: We also ask that the person select whether they think that it's.
Kimberly B Mclain: You know, a low Category one, whether it's for individual department use or not being used by the public or category to medium to high.
Kimberly B Mclain: Enterprise wide public facing numerous student courses and departments, it is what a stop there really quickly and see if anybody has any questions before I go off the form.
Ciara Cable: i'd also like to jump in really quick and just give a huge Thank you and shout out to suny Suffolk Community college and university of buffalo.
Ciara Cable: We Frankenstein their forms and if we didn't have those is our basis to get started from we would have been lost, like those two forms those two examples.
Ciara Cable: That work well on their own campuses give us a huge dumping point to start from, and we really appreciated being able to look over those and use those.
Ciara Cable: And when we started soc rolling out this form and just sending it to people, our director of it was just sending it to folks and saying, will you please fill this out for your requested purchase item.
Ciara Cable: And people were just filling it out and they didn't have any questions as we're going through the process, they had some questions once they got the confirmation email like what's the path.
Ciara Cable: But we were relieved to see that people going through the forum and filling it out weren't confused by any of the questions that it was asking.
Kimberly B Mclain: yeah i'm really glad that you brought that up Sierra we really could not have done this without having um you know precedent and and it also say to.
Kimberly B Mclain: After one of the Sunni it presentations mark greenfield from from you be you know was speaking and he was really kind enough to to meet with me.
Kimberly B Mclain: And they shared you know some of the processes that we initially had, and they were pretty i'll say convoluted I think.
Kimberly B Mclain: very intense and he was was really willing to get feedback on it and say you know, this is probably really not a sustainable process that you have.
Kimberly B Mclain: And that was really key is to get us to this point where it's it's pretty straightforward so we're really grateful for all the schools, who provided us help with us.
Shannon Pritting: i'm Kimberly could you scroll back down to the bottom of the form someone was asking thanks.
Kimberly B Mclain: um is this far enough for.
Ciara Cable: Think, all the way to the bottom.
Kimberly B Mclain: All the way the bottom.
Ciara Cable: I also stuck the link in the chat I can do that again just so that everybody has.
Kimberly B Mclain: Any other questions or comments about this particular form.
Kimberly B Mclain: Alright, so we're back in the PowerPoint right.
Kimberly B Mclain: yeah yes okay good, so what happens after this is we actually set up a.
Kimberly B Mclain: Dedicated he it procurement email, so the form the the submission goes right to the email and the purchaser sentence, the V pat to that email so everybody on the procurement committee gets a copy of it and can begin the review so we're using the dq.
Kimberly B Mclain: checklist that they have in there for V paths as as our V pat review and we look at it individually prior to meeting and then, when we meet we discuss the the products to together.
Kimberly B Mclain: And then we either you know say okay great you can go ahead with a purchase it, you know it doesn't have any serious accessibility barriers.
Kimberly B Mclain: We certainly I think everything we've reviewed has at least one potential issue which we identify within the memo and give suggestions about.
Kimberly B Mclain: You know how they might be able to overcome that and also ask them, you know hey please reach out to the vendor and bring up this issue and ask if there's any plans.
Kimberly B Mclain: And that's, I think, very important to as we move forward for when we do the review on the product, you know, a year from now to say Okay, well, we know that this was an issue, what has the vendor done if anything about it.
Kimberly B Mclain: Now, in the instance where something is deemed to just be you know really problematic, we have developed and accessibility exception.
Kimberly B Mclain: Request process and an alternate access form and i'll show you that in a moment, I will say that we have not had to use the chat we came pretty close within the last few weeks and CRM is going to share some of the examples of some the paths that we've we've used and gone through.
Kimberly B Mclain: So this is the part we're still really trying to finalize.
Kimberly B Mclain: And you know figure out what what what really would you know signify an exception request having to be be used.
Kimberly B Mclain: So it's pretty straightforward really name and email and then we'll we ask is the purchaser to complete a narrative and they'll attach that to this form which goes to the procurement committee.
Kimberly B Mclain: Within the narrative what we're asking them to discuss is why is an exception needed to explain, you know why accessibility compliance may not be feasible.
Kimberly B Mclain: If they've looked at other comparable products, why they may not have been chosen and really hear what we're looking for is did you do your due diligence, you know, is there something better out there that you're not choosing and why.
Kimberly B Mclain: We also ask for some details about how equally effective alternate access will be provided, who is the audience that is going to be excluded by the accessibility issue.
Kimberly B Mclain: or issues details explaining how equally effective alternate access will be provided and communicated to the audience affected, and that was a very important piece to us.
Kimberly B Mclain: We want people to not only think about how they're going to provide equally effective alternate access, but how are they going to communicate that to potential.
Kimberly B Mclain: You know Members who may be impacted and then, who is responsible for ensuring that there is equally effective alternate access, and we also thought that this was an important component to it.
Kimberly B Mclain: Because I think everybody, you know here I think works in higher education, you want to make sure there's somebody responsible, who is going to ensure that it that it happens, and it just doesn't just get you know push to to the wayside.
Kimberly B Mclain: So that's really this form so before I go off this screen does anybody have any questions about this particular form.
Kimberly B Mclain: Where if I don't know if know or Sierra want to add anything.
Ciara Cable: i'd also just like to know that this was another University of buffalo dialing.
Ciara Cable: It we really appreciate that having that sample this was one that.
Ciara Cable: We kind of struggled with with like what kind of questions would we ask if we found that wow this this should have an alternate alternate access plan in place like what what questions do we ask in.
Ciara Cable: Looking at the University of buffalo ones they're asking for a narrative and more of an explanation because, as a starting point for conversation, so that we can work together to put a plan in place, rather than just check these boxes Lee it's going to be a conversation.
Shannon Pritting: i'm Kimberly there was a question about where does the equally effective alternate access link go, so that the to be.
Shannon Pritting: That was a question and.
Shannon Pritting: So.
Shannon Pritting: Other questions, too, and then I think carrie wanted to ask a question.
Kimberly B Mclain: Okay, so right now, it doesn't go anywhere, we are in the process of.
Kimberly B Mclain: Developing and he it excessively webpage and it will link out there.
Kimberly B Mclain: That way, there will be a definition.
Kimberly B Mclain: I believe Sierra correct me if i'm wrong, but in the notification that gets sent out to the purchaser, I think we also have an explanation of what we're looking for there.
Ciara Cable: We do have a little blurb I believe I can go hunt that down really quick that our learning disabilities specialist provided us with, but I can hunt that down and see if we have that other questions are being asked.
Shannon Pritting: So there was a question from I think you know, a couple slides ago about.
Shannon Pritting: Does does your review process include renewals or is this just new purchases.
Kimberly B Mclain: So right now it's because it is pretty new process its current purchases that are new purchases are that are going through, we are planning, as we move forward to try to snag some of the ones that we know are widely used and asked for a V Pat, you know to to review the the V path.
Shannon Pritting: So there was another question and I don't know whether you've used this in a competitive process, yet, but if you are using it in a competitive process would you require the paths of of all deters in essence.
Kimberly B Mclain: We have not used it to this at this point we're working with, so the the the purchase purchasing office oversees you know our rfp process the bidding processes and they wanted to create this.
Kimberly B Mclain: That way, they could use that within that process, so that we have something established with colleges already using what we will require, and it will be in our procurement policy that we're in process of that all bitters would have to include a V pat.
Shannon Pritting: And I know that's something that we're doing nationally can speak to this for system wide contracts were requiring Z pat's and and doing the pat reviews and top level testing for at least the ones i'm i'm involved with so.
Shannon Pritting: Another question i'm just since we're talking about the petals go to this one, and then there's a there's a different question that i'll loop back to.
Shannon Pritting: So do you do you do top level testing or any other testing, or do you just trust the V pad.
Kimberly B Mclain: Easier probably has a little bit more to say about this than I do, and probably know so i'll pass it on to them.
Shannon Pritting: And then, after this question.
Shannon Pritting: carrie how to help her hand up little will bring her into the question.
Ciara Cable: And they know I had a bit to say about this one.
Noah Roth: yeah yeah in general.
Noah Roth: we review the V Pat, and there are some things that will.
Noah Roth: Look at to determine.
Noah Roth: Initial trustworthiness of the vpn, I guess, so you know if the V pet is fully filled out the V pat does not look like a sales pitch if the V pat has enough detail that's.
Noah Roth: Really, describing any sort of conformance problem, then you know we're more likely to have some confidence in the V pat and that said.
Noah Roth: We will also when it's available to us.
Noah Roth: review the product directly and do some top level testing, and I can talk a little bit about that in a couple slides, but the suny library accessibility cohort has been.
Noah Roth: very helpful in developing some processes that allow us to.
Noah Roth: Take a look at the both of the pet and the product itself in concert.
Shannon Pritting: Great i'm so curious question was just how much lead time do you try to build into this, because you know, as we all know, procurements already a lengthy process and just trying to figure out how you've handled that part of like.
Shannon Pritting: Focusing on how do you integrate yourself without you know stopping the processes.
Shannon Pritting: editorialized a little bit there kari but.
Shannon Pritting: I think that's what you're.
Ciara Cable: Trying to.
Ciara Cable: nail that piece down like that super tricky because we ask our forum like, can you please get this in two three months in advance of implementation.
Ciara Cable: And sometimes that's feasible other times, people like no I need it next week or my course so it's it's difficult to nail down timing of it.
Ciara Cable: And right now, because we're in our soft rollout phase if they get it an early enough before they plan on implementing it then.
Ciara Cable: we've been kind of hovering around a month of reviewing the pat rating or memo identifying all the all the potential issues.
Ciara Cable: and talking about it as a group in before we send the memo back to the stakeholder and our director of it and our.
Ciara Cable: Officers saying hey, this is what we're letting this person know here are the potential barriers and we you know give are.
Ciara Cable: Not approval, but we endorse it proceeding as long as the stakeholder knows about these issues so, but in the case of well I plan on implementing this next week.
Ciara Cable: Then we just get the memo to them when we can and we don't hold up the process that might change in the future.
Ciara Cable: Depending on how much quicker we get and we have a wide range of specialties on the EIC procurement Committee, some people.
Ciara Cable: have been reviewing the past for a very long time, others learn what the has stood for at the beginning of the committee so we're all trying to catch up with each other, and I think that the.
Ciara Cable: The array of people and specialties that are on the committee will allow us to do this more time efficiently as time goes by, by nailing it down to this this stuff can't happen until we're done with this is still in flux.
Kimberly B Mclain: It just just to add to that a little bit too um.
Kimberly B Mclain: You know, we we don't have a college wide policy in place just yet for procurement and the reason why we don't just because fruit banana have process figured out.
Kimberly B Mclain: And then say okay here here's the policy, so the intention is within that that policy to have a lead time built in, you know you must start doing this, you must do this before you initiate the purchase and I think the other piece of this is, I think everybody here, probably knows.
Kimberly B Mclain: This is such a culture change for a lot of people and we we really capitalized on our shared governance process in rolling out the it plan itself.
Kimberly B Mclain: And then going through and talking about the procurement process to get people to start thinking Okay, before I even pick that product, I really should should look more closely at it.
Kimberly B Mclain: And then.
Shannon Pritting: I think it's relevant to just one of the questions was how did you what was your communication strategy I think you're headed there, but I just.
Kimberly B Mclain: Like the surgery for that.
Shannon Pritting: Sorry for interrupting.
Kimberly B Mclain: Oh no, no, not at all um so.
Kimberly B Mclain: I am a member of our Executive Council with the President in the Vice Presidents and.
Kimberly B Mclain: it's you know for for me communicating campus wide started there you know, obviously we had the it Advisory Council, but along the way, as we developed the processes.
Kimberly B Mclain: I put it out there on the table and said okay here's where we're at with this Do you see any potential problems and I wanted to make sure that you know our executive level.
Kimberly B Mclain: administrators have complete buy in for it so started with that, and then I feel like we have pretty good representation on our advisory council that gets out to various pieces across campus so they started communicating with you know their their fellow colleagues.
Kimberly B Mclain: We used the shared governance process, a number of times to share the plan to share updates and.
Kimberly B Mclain: we've also probably, like many of you have been utilizing dq university as as as a really amazing educational platform and if you're not using it, I strongly encourage it it's really been amazing.
Kimberly B Mclain: And we pushed that also on the side went to shared governance, a number of times about that and made that connection, like you know, here we have all these things that need to start happening.
Kimberly B Mclain: Or you know, to get to get better at certain things here's a nice educational platform for you to learn more about what accessibility is and how you can work with that in your area.
Kimberly B Mclain: And I mentioned at the beginning, we have our plan right on our strategic planning page so that's you know, a very I would say it's a pretty widely used page if people want to know what our strategic plans are that also I think communicates the importance of our accessibility plan and.
Kimberly B Mclain: Am I missing anything, no.
Noah Roth: Well yeah I want one thing I think that's maybe worth mentioning.
Noah Roth: The work that you did to kind of.
Noah Roth: pull together pieces from gq into sort of professional development.
Noah Roth: credentials that's supposed to make it easier for folks to really hone in on the things that you know we and you think are important.
Noah Roth: I think that was been a useful a useful tool for for getting the word out that accessibility is important and.
Noah Roth: You know tick tick you can kind of be a little overwhelming, so I think putting together some.
Noah Roth: modules that are appropriate for for us.
Noah Roth: was really helpful.
Ciara Cable: And in terms of actually getting these forums in front of people we started off with our software alone which we're still in.
Ciara Cable: But just to start placing the forums in front of people, our director of it gets a notification through our student information system anytime there is a requisition for.
Ciara Cable: An EA T related purchase so when he gets that notification he sends the stakeholder a link to the forum and just ask them, you know we're in this off of rollout process of this week, please fill this out and give us your feedback.
Ciara Cable: And that was where we saw that people were just filling it out pretty problem free.
Ciara Cable: And so, once we had said that to a few people and saw that people weren't really having a problem with it that's when.
Ciara Cable: The Director of it and I went to our different shared governance bodies and show them these forums and talked a little bit more about it.
Ciara Cable: And we talked to academic faculty in the as we talked to instructional designers We talked to administrators and gave him a more in depth view of what this process would look like and what people would be expected to do.
Ciara Cable: And we surprisingly didn't really get really get any pushback and we didn't really get any questions people so that it looks understandable and.
Ciara Cable: didn't really have a problem with it, which surprised me not that they're difficult but.
Ciara Cable: That it's a difficult process overall and here's one more step and no one really seem to have a problem with it or question that which was nice and kind of indicated to me that we're all sort of moving towards embracing accessibility and universal design as a whole.
Shannon Pritting: um could you you I think touched on this that there was a trigger to you know, to initiate the review, a while ago there was a question about what types of products.
Shannon Pritting: or services were included in this review whether it was just it and i'm just could you explain a little bit about how you're defining quote unquote E it.
Shannon Pritting: As far as like what you're reviewing for accessibility, I know that's a pretty broad question but.
Kimberly B Mclain: That so that was, and I think that was one of my first questions I.
Kimberly B Mclain: Essentially Catalina we started this tell me exactly what is what is, what are we talking about it on because you know I think I kept saying, even to our VIP group.
Kimberly B Mclain: Are we going to review, like every mouse that's somebody requests like How crazy is this going to get and I think it seems like we've really we're not looking at you know individual Mrs mouse's mice I wouldn't however you say it um you know, like that that kind of detail.
Kimberly B Mclain: But we are looking at software we're looking at i'll see what else have we looked at.
Kimberly B Mclain: help me out here guys.
Noah Roth: When.
Ciara Cable: It was offered through a website like on muddle or on even things like site improve, which is obviously meant for accessibility, but that that's a web based software.
Ciara Cable: That only certain users would be looking at, so you know it has a different kind of impact, but yes software that will be actually installed on computers virtual.
Ciara Cable: Things that can be accessed over the Internet, like websites, making sure that our website anything that we purchase we use wordpress for our website so if i'm looking at a plugin to be purchased that should probably go through this process as well.
Kimberly B Mclain: The other Thank you yeah like so platforms like when one of the products Sierra will talk about is a it's actually something that I purchased for for my office and it's a Labor market plan analysis platform, so we actually did a review on on that as well um the.
Kimberly B Mclain: Related to that to this question one of our bigger challenges is when we're talking about what is he he it is looking at our.
Kimberly B Mclain: Learning management system and the third party tools utilized with that within those systems, so now that we have the process we are moving into.
Kimberly B Mclain: When you're using a third party tool within the LM S, it has to go through a review and that's also kind of a separate sticky situation.
Kimberly B Mclain: But we're developing a policies that are related to this that will directly feed into this process, so our role and what we review and what we consider yeah it is expanding really as we, as we speak, so it will be really all all digital types of content and platforms.
Shannon Pritting: I have two more questions, then I think we'll move on this has been fantastic, but I think you have a few more things to get through.
Shannon Pritting: The two questions one came up a while ago which are how have you formulated identifying who needs to be.
Shannon Pritting: informed or contacted in the equally effective alternate access plans, I know you're still conceptualizing this, but just if you could share what your strategy has been, and then the second is.
Shannon Pritting: Who did you, you know how many people are on your advisory council and how did you formulate that that creation of that Council.
Kimberly B Mclain: Let me start with that one because it's easier.
Kimberly B Mclain: All right, the so the Advisory Council initially started out and I don't i'm going to say I feel like it was about 12 people initially roughly.
Kimberly B Mclain: You know At first it was just like Okay, I need everybody I could possibly have at the table this is enormous and then, as we really got into it and we we sort of finalizing the things really at this point, we have, I would say that one person per standard.
Kimberly B Mclain: Myself, of course, and we actually have two people, we have two Librarians at the table for the library standard.
Kimberly B Mclain: And we have a representative from the student affairs area so that way you know we have that student voice, as well as a person from our accessibility resource office.
Kimberly B Mclain: To you know again capture that student voice, and you know she's she's really great at saying well, but we need to think about this and she's been absolutely crucial and so Sierra is our web person, we have an instructional designer to for library I mentioned director of it.
Ciara Cable: public safety.
Kimberly B Mclain: Thank you, yes, a public safety Member and that person also.
Kimberly B Mclain: Like health and safety is is is their role so for that facilities piece, we wanted to also have a representative at the table, because it's really not just a it right it's really also about like we want our campus to be universally accessible so.
Kimberly B Mclain: Originally, we had like the director of facilities at the table, but then.
Kimberly B Mclain: We now have side conversations with him because of all that he has going on, and we have our representative who's in constant communication with with that person.
Kimberly B Mclain: So that's really how it was selected is at least one stakeholder per standard, and then a few extra people that we felt, would be crucial to the conversation to changing the culture around our campus and ensuring everything we do is universally accessible.
Kimberly B Mclain: And you're gonna have to remind me, I think that first question.
Shannon Pritting: How did you identify and can I just editorialize real quickly on our answer, so I think the standards you're referring to are in your accessibility plan that you.
Shannon Pritting: submitted to suny so you kind of mapped your the standards to individuals, because I know we have some people might be familiar with their accessibility plans were on this online not.
Shannon Pritting: The question was how do you identify who the people are the titles, etc, who, you should communicate or connect with on equally effective alternate access plans.
Ciara Cable: I can jump in on that one, I think that one is about accountability.
Ciara Cable: and making sure that the right people are aware that this plan needs to be put in place and aware of how to take action on it, if it needs to be put into place, so making sure that we have the people who can be accountable for.
Ciara Cable: Following through with it, so if it's for a class, you know, then it's the professors in the chair and the Dean, probably if it's for a processing office then maybe it looks more like a staff assistant and the and the direct.
Ciara Cable: In the VP.
Shannon Pritting: Excellent Thank you I think we're up to date on questions as much as we can be so.
Shannon Pritting: Back to you.
Kimberly B Mclain: Okay, thanks so um so this car is going to talk about some of our be pat reviews and see are you just tell me what you want me to, if you want me to click on anything in particular.
Ciara Cable: Sure, if you would click on the review for sin bio.
Ciara Cable: And if you can zoom in a time that.
Ciara Cable: Thank you so as chair of the IT procurement Committee, I really rely on everything to be a group discussion I want everybody to go in and look at the the path I want us all to become very familiar with reviewing these looking at these.
Ciara Cable: knowing what red flags to keep an eye out for so whenever a submission comes in, I start up a shared Google Doc where I list out these 12 items from the dq checklist and I can maybe get that in the chat.
Ciara Cable: No, I can't, it is an.
Noah Roth: Extended out.
Ciara Cable: Great Thank you so it just has 12 items in it that are a good basis to start with, for people who are new at reviewing the paths and folks on our committee were used to reviewing them.
Ciara Cable: will know where to put their notes and based on these but.
Ciara Cable: As really basic accessibility questions that we can understand, like is color alone used to convey important information and ask questions like that so.
Ciara Cable: I shared this document with the members of the committee and I asked everyone go through it, the be pat and make your notes here and I leave a spot at the top, for any other notes that people might have.
Ciara Cable: and
Ciara Cable: I asked everyone to give everyone a deadline of a week or two and again we're all new at this or some of us are you with us so some people need a little bit more time to do it, and you know really figure out what they're looking at maybe go to a little bit of extra research.
Ciara Cable: So that's how the review works everyone goes through the pat and you'll see like there's an a review be pat review notes under each question on some of them in the case of unlevel, which is a.
Ciara Cable: website that we were reviewing I would have the pat review notes and then be website review notes, where we could go in and do an actual manual review of the website if that's a quick call.
Ciara Cable: and ask those same questions, one of your 12 and evaluate them.
Ciara Cable: So you can close out of the the pat review them and go into memo to stakeholder for some mile.
Ciara Cable: So once everybody has given me their notes and has let me know that they have reviewed it I then go in and draft a memo to the stakeholder.
Ciara Cable: And this is an example of wine it's it's almost finished, but they all kind of follow the same format, I say all we've done three.
Ciara Cable: But they think the user for filling this out because we understand that this is one more step in a complicated process so it's very important to us to say thank you to them for filling it out.
Ciara Cable: And then we kind of give an overview of here is what we found in the V pat we give a list of the potential barriers and we write it in human understandable language, not just the pat language.
Ciara Cable: and
Ciara Cable: We acknowledge that we may not have caught all of the issues, the V pat might not be disclosing everything or we might not as.
Ciara Cable: New reviewers of the pads we might not have caught everything or understood understood the potential impact of everything, so we want to make sure that we acknowledge that as well.
Ciara Cable: And then of course we ask them to email us if they have any additional questions, but this memo is sent to the stakeholder our e it officer and the director of it, who is the one that originally gets the flag for hey Somebody needs to fill out this form you go through this process.
Ciara Cable: So sin bio just as a quick overview it's a biology education software which, as people probably know biology is a difficult area to make accessible because students, need to be evaluating cells, sometimes moving on a slide and that's very difficult to.
Ciara Cable: Teach excessively it's that's an area that has.
Ciara Cable: A lot of challenges facing it so this product acknowledges that and they actually have a website where they talk about like hey here's some typical barriers that students face when.
Ciara Cable: Taking a biology course we want to fully acknowledge that and say that our product is not fully accessible.
Ciara Cable: In the same way that other biology education materials are inaccessible, so we love to their page and that talks about it, and they also offer like some suggestions on.
Ciara Cable: How to overcome these barriers or how to help students who may face these with things like you should maybe arrange verse study groups and they even go as far as to offer.
Ciara Cable: Monetary help for professors who just can't figure out how to make sure that the materials are accessible, so this is one that would have long through the accessibility exception for my thing.
Ciara Cable: If it didn't have this essentially alternate access plan in place already on the website so we asked the stakeholder please make sure that you will go over this, it gives some great suggestions on how to overcome the accessibility barriers that your students may face.
Ciara Cable: So the.
Ciara Cable: Back yes please.
Ciara Cable: Then you can go to the MC analysts reveal.
Ciara Cable: So this is just another example, and this one, I did a little later after the same bio one so at the top.
Ciara Cable: I make sure that all of our committee members have quick access to the be pat I provide a link to the dq checklist which has better explanations of the checklist items one to 12.
Ciara Cable: area for Member notes at the top and then again under that a place for everybody to add in their own comments and.
Ciara Cable: As we're getting better we're doing things like referencing the specific point on the beat Pat, so that we can refer back to it.
Ciara Cable: So it's a it's a great collaborative effort, and I really appreciated the group conversations around these and everybody looking at it through their own lens I think that is really.
Ciara Cable: What makes this a success so far for us and makes us more comfortable because a lot of us are sitting looking at these saying wow this is super overwhelming.
Ciara Cable: But with all of our powers combined we're somehow making it through this and putting a plan in place that our faculty are comfortable with and our non instructional votes are comfortable with as well.
Ciara Cable: So that's the review for MC analyst.
Ciara Cable: And if you could go back to the metadata stakeholder.
Ciara Cable: And this is just another example of a memo that this product was there V pat was great it looked really good.
Ciara Cable: There was just a minor accessibility issue in it that again we made sure we put into understandable language for the stakeholder.
Ciara Cable: And again, sending it to in this case, it was our e it officer that i'm put this in so we sent this memo to her along again with to the director of it.
Ciara Cable: And again similar language saying, overall, we found the product to be accessible here's the issues we found for our college mission, where it we're really.
Ciara Cable: moving towards making sure that every single thing that's purchase is accessible and let us know if you have any questions.
Kimberly B Mclain: And that was actually an example of this is kind of going back to one of the questions from earlier.
Kimberly B Mclain: You know because I had an awareness of this process and the need to do this when I was looking at the different vendors, I said hey I want to see your feedback.
Kimberly B Mclain: And I was able to do that, and you know, during the review process, about which which platform I wanted and we're hoping to get to that point as a campus.
Kimberly B Mclain: as well, even though we're just looking at various software and platforms, that we want that we asked for the V pat and check it out before we make our decision.
Kimberly B Mclain: Any questions about the reviews or memos before I go to the next slide.
Shannon Pritting: There was a question, have you run into this word vendor does not have a V pad and then what would be what would you do.
Ciara Cable: We haven't run into that yet, and that will be a fun day because we haven't exactly laid that out yet, but.
Ciara Cable: The plan is to ask them for any accessibility documentation that they have if they don't specifically have a V Pat, and then, if they say we don't have that, then our committees to talk.
Kimberly B Mclain: I think I think we would definitely, we would ask them for documentation and.
Kimberly B Mclain: I will say, although we haven't reviewed it, yet I know that there's some issues with third party tools that some of our faculty are using in the LM s and.
Kimberly B Mclain: On the side what what I what i've done with some of our instructional designers as they are reviewing courses for accessibility.
Kimberly B Mclain: is asked them to look at you know talk to the vendors and say hey do you have a of the path that we could we could look at.
Kimberly B Mclain: And there has been some resistance from some of the publishers, I will, I will say that, but because it hasn't gone through the formal process, yet we as a committee haven't directly had to deal with with that, but it's definitely coming, and I think it will definitely be be a challenge.
Noah Roth: And there's there's some some useful resources that I can share on the next slide that will help folks communicate with vendors.
Noah Roth: When here we are.
Noah Roth: So I guess first i'd like to speak to the to the library role, I think the libraries.
Noah Roth: can have a really useful.
Noah Roth: role in this whole process.
Noah Roth: As you probably already know libraries have.
Noah Roth: A slew of electronic resources and thanks to the sls and suny library accessibility cohort.
Noah Roth: are in the process of really developing a a level of expertise that I think would be useful for the it committees throughout suny.
Noah Roth: I think libraries have the ability to develop their own accessibility plan, make sure it's aligned with campus CIT and.
Noah Roth: use that to document and kind of institutionalized libraries efforts.
Noah Roth: and
Noah Roth: The tools, I was talking about a little earlier.
Noah Roth: are located in the sls library procurement accessibility toolkit.
Noah Roth: I think that's mostly done right now there may be a couple links in there that.
Noah Roth: That still need some work, but I think it's a pretty solid.
Noah Roth: toolkit and guide and in that guide.
Noah Roth: Our best practices regarding the it accessibility and examples of letters to assist with vendor management, the terms of requesting the pats and communicating concerns regarding.
Noah Roth: Non compliance there's also a wealth of information in that tool kit regarding the it pronunciation and and the V pet review process.
Noah Roth: I guess I skipped over something I meant to talk about but.
Noah Roth: The library, you know, has also, I think, has the ability to take some of the burden off of the IT procurement committee.
Noah Roth: The Sunni library accessibility cohort the sls has developed a library vendor accessibility repository and has done, I think about 45.
Noah Roth: reviews and high level testing of shared resources across any libraries, so you may want to discuss.
Noah Roth: That resource with your team current committee and if they're they're willing to accept these.
Noah Roth: These reviews that's that's a big weight off they're off their shoulders.
Noah Roth: One of the things that.
Noah Roth: we're planning on doing and library and i've started doing is collecting the pats and conducting our own internal accessibility reviews, especially of smaller third party vendors and electronic resources that haven't yet been covered by the.
Noah Roth: Sunni cohort, but I would encourage you all to check out those those two links on your own there I won't open them now, but.
Noah Roth: there's really a lot of really helpful useful information that's been gathered there from across Sunni and and some other places as well.
Kimberly B Mclain: So I don't know if there's any questions for for Noah as as we start wrapping up.
Shannon Pritting: I don't see any in the chat.
Kimberly B Mclain: And again we'll send out the the PowerPoint to to to Shannon and as Elisa they could share it so you'll have those those those links so.
Kimberly B Mclain: we've alluded to this but, but really right now, where we're working on having a V pat review schedule, so that way.
Kimberly B Mclain: The pets get annually reviewed and we're going to build upon the process that we've already set up and one of those really big major initiatives will be reviewing third party tools within our learning management system that are used for instruction.
Kimberly B Mclain: We are kind of tossing around developing a rubric to help us better identify when he it purchases need to go through an exception process.
Kimberly B Mclain: And we are in the in the middle of developing college wide policies and procedures to really solidify what we have in place, and at that point we will then do our hard rollout because it will be established within policy and.
Kimberly B Mclain: Of course, will continue to refine, but that is that is pretty much all we have.
Kimberly B Mclain: For our for our presentation unless there's any questions or comments.
Noah Roth: yeah and I can share a little bit, this is just a well as as Kim said, is still in development, but a.
Noah Roth: somewhat vague idea I guess of a.
Noah Roth: approach to a rubric would be to look at the both the impact of.
Noah Roth: The electronic resource on the Community and to also look at the severity of the accessibility barriers, and I think if you.
Noah Roth: kind of combine those two into a framework that that can give you a little bit of a guide I think everything will still be on a case by case basis, but that may be a useful approach if you're.
Noah Roth: Trying to develop a.
Noah Roth: friend framework or rubric to help you.
Shannon Pritting: um there was a question about how your who from purchasing is involved in this process, you know we know there's a trigger in that purchasing system that that alerts the the it, but if you can talk about who who from purchasing is involved, there was a question.
Kimberly B Mclain: So a an actual person is not part of our advisory council we we did start initially without it just wasn't able to work out on on our campus so, which is why we have a person from grants planning who's very involved with the purchasing process as part of our procurement group.
Kimberly B Mclain: I have been in conversation throughout the process, with our Vice President of finance and administration, as well as our a VP who oversees the the finance and purchasing area.
Kimberly B Mclain: And while we developed the processes and procedures they went through you know, we had conversations with them, they looked at everything and we made sure that it was going to work from the finance and purchasing end as well.
Shannon Pritting: Excellent I think we're up to date on questions any last question we're right at about at the hour.
Kimberly B Mclain: Thank you very much for having us.
Shannon Pritting: yeah I really appreciate as as I know everyone else does you know I know nationally has appreciated you sharing as well, and I think this will be useful, I want to also thank Noah for all of his time in the cohort because what we're trying to do is.
Shannon Pritting: You know, really meet the needs of campuses where they're at and it's really helpful to know where the campuses are at so we appreciate all of this sharing.
Shannon Pritting: This has been fantastic thanks.
Thank you.