In choosing our cross-section, we chose all the links presented on the main page of the campus web site: http://www.csustan.edu. Using these links created a launching pad to start work on remedying the non-compliance.
Automated Scan: Cross-Section Sample
Running the automated scan of the cross section provided us with the following results:
22 pages (44.9%) passed and 27 pages (55.1%) failed.
These failures were caused by missing IFRAME Elements, "alt" tags, and text input elements.
Repair Sample: Repair Sample with Visual Verification
The Repair Sample consists of 19 sites chosen from the Cross-Section Sample.
Repair Sample with Visual Verification
The Results of this scan is as follows:
13 pages (68.4%) passed and 6 pages (31.6%) failed.
These 19 sites were chosen with some degree of freedom. Choosing from some of the more active sites linked off from the main page.
These pages all share a comment error in the IFRAMEs, a lack of "element content". This error is in the older pages created with some of the first templates written for the new site layout. Adding the "element content" should put these pages into 508 Compliance.
A manual evaluation of the repair sample was undertaken in order to have a complete evaluation of that sample. The manual evaluation used the CSU guidelines for Section 508 Manual Website Evaluation.
As stated before, the major issues with these sites are the "element content" in the iframes. This is a simple fix using a find and replace command on the affected pages. These changes can take only a few minutes.
Issues on sites such as Blackboard will have to be dealt with through the developers and maintainers of the site.
Trends
To stay compliant, the changed required will quite a large over-haul of the existing templates.
This compliancy requirement couldn't come at a better time, since we have only just begun with the current transition; any incompliance can be caught early and help curb its proliferation.
Constant monitoring of the new sites will be a must since all departments are responsible for maintaining their own sites.
