Today is November 8th. If you have been keeping up with entries, my supervisor Isana normally begins at 9am. However this morning before 9 she let us know we would not be meeting until 1:30 in the afternoon.
Last week individually we, the interns, took time to review the Brooklyn College Institute of Effectiveness Website. Today was to continue but this time take notes on each section keeping in mind they can not change the page structure. Previously my notes had no restrictions. What I thought could be done to update and improve the readability of their section to the Brooklyn College (BC) site had to change slightly. Now it focuses more on hierarchy and color of text.
To view office of Institutional Effectiveness website: https://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/web/about/administration/provost/institutional-effectiveness.php
On the 11th at 9 am, we were given two instructions. First we learned about the importance of accessibility documents. Second, as a group using our individual suggestions come up with two pages of agreed upon suggestions for the BC Website.
I have used the word assessment, accessibility or accessible A LOT in my past entries. I am not referring to past assignments or documents that are password protected, but those who have visual impairments or disabilities like colorblindness. I learned that every department on the BC campus that uses Microsoft, Exel, and Word to create PDFs of information is transitioning and double checking their work to be sure it is accessible for all.
To my understanding most computers come with Acrobat. Acrobat is part of the Adobe family. It is an industry standard free software that is used for viewing, printing, signing, sharing, and annotating PDFs. It is a useful program for many professions but particularly because it is able to convert PDFs to other formats.
To learn more about Adobe Acrobat Standard and Pro: https://www.adobe.com/acrobat.html
Isana screen shared and walked us through her process. She explained she is currently the only one in their department that is familiarizing herself with the software. Moving forward she would like the entire department on their own to automatically create their document accessible, but she also wants to be sure all the interns moving forward understand the need for accessibility and how to do it.
I would like to think that most people are aware of disabled individuals but the truth is we as a society do not really consider those that are different. Especially if it does not affect the majority of the population. Thankfully recently more companies are aware of the need for accessibility. Although it’s like the word sustainable. Are they really? But the point is Brooklyn College is taking the time to consider all of their students and faculty. Using Adobe Acrobat Pro the Accessibility Checker helps future workflow as well as the schools recognizing and taking accountability for not considering multiple platforms of accessibility in previous years.
Overall today’s task was to familiarize ourselves with the program. We were told automatically the Logical Reading Order and Color Checkers would need manual changes. The goal is to make sure the PDF’s posted online are in logical reading order. If we had time Isana also provided a practice Word and PDF of the BC Academic Assessment Handbook.
Meanwhile, one of the interns texted our group chat to create a zoom for us to discuss our individual suggestions to the Institute of Effectiveness Website. I ended up suggesting creating a google doc for us all to annotate. Collectively we added our suggestions to a list created by the same sections on the site. At the end of the day I emailed Isana and cced a pdf version of the list to all the interns.
