ATI Newsletter - Fall 2019

October 2019

Greetings from the CSULB ATI Steering Committee!

Welcome to the Fall semester. Accessible Technology continues to be a priority for CSU Long Beach and we are excited to provide you updates on our ATI efforts in this, our second ATI Newsletter.

While it is easy to list the impressive successes that our university has achieved, it is heartwarming to see the dedication and true commitment of virtually all members of our campus community to removing barriers. We are fortunate that all of our constituents consistently show the desire to – not only address any and all impediments – but often go the extra step to insure that CSULB will prosper as a barrier free university. We are happy to be your partners in ATI and offer our thanks for your selfless efforts.

Go Beach!

Co-Executive Sponsors & ATI Steering Committee Co-Chairs:

  • Mary Ann Takemoto, Ph.D., Interim Vice President, Student Affairs
  • Min Yao, Ph.D., Vice President and CIO, Division of Information Technology

ATI at CSULB

ATI Action Plan

In August, our campus submitted an ATI Action Plan to Chancellor White. The Chancellor's Office has required all CSU campuses to develop and submit an ATI Action Plan to address any campus ATI indicators that fall below a minimum baseline ranking. Our campus identified 45 indicators across web accessibility, instructional materials and procurement areas that need additional attention in our ATI Action Plan. Work is now underway to make progress on the 45 indicators in our ATI Action Plan.

Instructional Materials

Encompassed with the vision and drive of the instructional materials subcommittee, the Accessible Instructional Materials Center (AIM) serves as an important accessible resource on our campus.

The AIM Center, developed in 2013, has expanded the scope of services offered to students, faculty, and staff. Presently, the Center serves over 200 students who have print impairment, visual disability, or are in need of alternative course material formats (ETEXT, BRAILLE, enlargement, captioned video). The Center has provided over 700,000 pages of text translated into alternative formats (including e-reserve materials).

In addition, the AIM Center provides faculty from various departments training on how to create instructional materials in accessible formats. Training is offered in a self-paced online course within BeachBoard as well as in-person consultations. Accessibility training courses include Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Adobe PDF and Copyright.

The AIM Center also provides ongoing training for faculty upon request and provides continuous training for students in the use of Kurzweil, JAWS, ZoomTEXT, Dragon Dictation, and other assistive technology software, as well as a computer lab with 12 workstations for student use.

If you are interested in learning more about the Accessible Instructional Materials Center visit their website at www.csulb.edu/aimc or contact them via email at aimc@csulb.edu.

Electronic and Information Technology Procurement

Procurement requests for Information Technology (IT) that require an Electronic & IT Checklist (E&IT) are now being completed online. The online E&IT Checklist automatically creates a ticket so that requestors can better track the progress of their IT purchases and better communicate with Procurement regarding their purchase. Feedback on the new online process has been positive with comments such as "the process is simple and easy to use."

A training class for using the online E&IT Checklist is being offered monthly. Sign up for “Purchasing IT at The Beach” through the Financial Management Course Catalog.

The online E&IT Checklist form is available at:

Campus Accessibility and Security reviews of your IT purchases may now require more time for a thorough product review. To avoid delays please allow more time for these evaluations by submitting IT procurement requests as early as possible - several weeks or months in advance of deadlines is recommended. IT vendors used by the campus must show their commitment to providing accessible and secure products to best serve the campus community.

In addition, some departments may be seeing a new survey come out each month regarding their Equally Effective Alternate Access Process (EEAAP). This survey is part of our campus’ required annual reporting that documents the effectiveness of the approved accessibility plans. An overview of IT Purchasing using the ticketing system and additional resources are available on the IT Procurement Compliance Review (PCR) Process service page.

Web-based Information and Services

A web accessibility plan was developed as part of the campus ATI Action Plan. Efforts are underway to now perform the outlined tasks on the plan to improve accessibility of our campus web pages. This includes:

  • The campus Accessibility web site resource has been updated with campus accessible technology contacts and campus ATI training offerings and calendar.
  • A list of web contacts across the campus has been identified for coordination of web accessibility updates for their college or department. This list will be used to send reports generated from web ATI scans on a regular basis about web pages that have gaps or need remediation.

Additionally, the Chancellor’s Office has performed a comprehensive RFP for a website scanning tool and has selected Compliance Sheriff. Our campus will be using this tool to perform ATI scans on campus web pages on a regular schedule and distributing reports about pages that need remediating to the list of web contacts mentioned above. Automated testing tools only find 25% of accessibility issues in content, so web developers and content editors will need to keep an eye on all aspects of accessibility compliance when reviewing their content.

Did You Know?

  • In order to produce materials which are equally accessible to the entire CSULB community, all web content produced for CSULB affiliated sites need to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. Meeting the Cal State University’s target goal of level AA accessibility across our content means that we need to keep accessibility in mind all the time, from including alternative text on all posted images, to ensuring all our menus are built so they can be navigated purely by keyboard. Our teams routinely review web content to ensure they meet these standards and provide trainings to our content editors on web and document accessibility.
  • The AIM Center is a subdivision of our campus’ Bob Murphy Access Center, which provides accommodations and support services for students with disabilities, including: note taking, sign language interpreters and captioning, alternative media and much more. The Bob Murphy Access Center supported over 1700 students during the Spring 2019 semester.