We learned a lot from experience. So the college compiled a handbook and other guidelines to help faculty members who want to make their on-line offerings as accessible as possible. The guidelines include tips that might not occur to non-disabled users. Keeping individual Web pages relatively short, for example, means that students using text readers don't have to listen to a long, drawn-out page before clicking on to something else. Much of what colleges can do to make Web pages accessible is fairly simple.
Absolute equivalence is a higher standard.
A large part of that expense stems from making the entire course accessible to disabled students. But other institutions say observing the disabilities law doesn't have to be costly for on-line courses, especially if compliance is part of the plan from the start. But paying someone to revamp a Web site's coding, page by page and line by line, can cost a college a lot. California's Mr. Brown encourages colleges to offer technical support and to educate their faculty and staff members so accessibility can be built into courses while they are being created. It's just a matter of taking the time to do it.