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We're on a worldwide search to see what inclusive education looks like.

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So, Blackboard Ally is going on tour for 2019,

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visiting campuses around the globe to learn how they're tackling

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their toughest accessibility challenges and

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improving the learning experience for all their students.

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Hey, everybody, welcome to the first episode of the Ally Tour Podcast.

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So, for the first stop on the tour,

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we're going to be hearing from the team in Atlantic Cape Community College.

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Wow. They have just a really inspiring story about

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how in the face of challenging legal mandates to become more accessible,

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they rally together as a campus to take on

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those tough accessibility challenges and

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really become more inclusive for all their students.

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So, let's jump into it and hear from the team.

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All right. We'll start with Mike since you just walked in.

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Yeah.

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Just a quick introduction, your name,

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your role here, and your relationship to Accessibility.

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Okay. My name is Mike Barnes,

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Director of the Center for Accessibility here at Atlantic Cape Community College.

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I've been working closely with

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Michelle's Department and everyone here on making everything as accessible as possible,

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in as many different ways as possible.

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My name is Michelle Perkins,

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I'm the Director of Instructional Technology here in Atlantic Cape,

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also the Blackboard administrator.

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In my role or through instructional technology,

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we work very closely with

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the Center for Accessibility and delivering training to faculty and

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staff throughout the college and we work with faculty in

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trying to help them get their content as successful as possible.

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I'm Josh Carroll, I'm the Technician for the Instructional Technology Department.

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I do most of the back end server work for Blackboard

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and other academic related technologies.

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My role with accessibility is basically to test out new solutions, try to break them.

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Sometimes I'm more successful than other times,

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but yeah, my point is to test all the stuff out.

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I'm Gerry Fox, I'm a Technologist here at Atlantic Cape.

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We work with Blackboard and with the faculty,

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making their content accessible.

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I'm Pat Kubaska, Coordinator in the Instructional Technology Department.

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I work with Gerry and Josh and Michelle,

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working with the faculty, assisting the students.

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They call if they have problems with Blackboard.

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Chad Bullock, Senior Manager of the Center for Accessibility.

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We work on all aspects of

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accessibility in terms of working with students with disabilities and

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their courses and also training faculty and staff

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on different strategies for accessible content.

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All right. So, let's start maybe in the glory days pre-decree.

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What was it like around accessibility? Who cared about it?

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Prior to consent decree,

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everything was funneled through the counseling office.

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So, you have a few counselors that handle the students

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that would visit disability services,

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is what it was called at the time,

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and they would basically handle anything that had to do with accommodation.

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So, accessibility wasn't really in the conversation,

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it was more about accommodation as opposed to

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making materials of course materials accessible.

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So, that was probably the way it was set up in the past.

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So, if any request came through,

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there's probably one or maybe  two people to handle an accommodation request.

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So, now, after the consent decree,

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we're trying to be proactive where what we're

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doing is making things accessible from the GetGo,

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so we don't have to have as many accommodations in order for a student to be successful.

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So, that's kind of how the tide is changed a bit.

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But in regards to accessible content,

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there really wasn't much of anything.

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I mean, we would be the creators,

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non-faculty creators whether for web content,

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we would make sure we had an alt tag.

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Other than that, that was the time of like

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flash animations and let's make everything as spinny

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and fancy and eye-catching as we can and there maybe some people who can't look at it,

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but at least those who do,

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will really enjoy it.

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With faculty, I really don't

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think accessible content was a part of their vocabulary as a whole.

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Content was really designed in those days for users with perfect vision,

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hearing all their senses,

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nothing precluding them, whatsoever.

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The rules aren't really much of a thought given to making content accessible.

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Then what happened? So, then you get hit with this,

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it's a consent decree,

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that's the official name.

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Yeah.

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Yes.

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It's a consent decree that we had agreed to as an institution,

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we had agreed to 100 percent accessibility across the board.

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So, that was something that they had negotiated prior to my arrival at

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the college and prior to Chad's leaving Michelle's department.

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So, then I was hired.

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So, Chad, he kind of manage this consent decree.

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I'll never forget the moment,

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I was sitting on the beach and I'm looking at this,

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I got an email from the coach saying, "Here's this document.

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You might want to check it out.

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It's going to be doing a lot of work on it."

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So, I opened it up and I'm like, "Oh.

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Okay. Here we go."

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But we viewed it as a good thing.

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I think like it was very daunting,

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but it was something that in looking at it,

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it was like a blueprint into making the college,

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like the ideal to making the college completely accessible.

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Realized that 100 percent accessibility is really difficult and probably not attainable,

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but we had a blueprint right in front of us that sort of

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spelled out exactly how we should do it.

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So, it enabled us to reach out to other institutions

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that had been there before that done it really well.

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It enable us to reach out to some consultants in industry that

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had worked with other universities on figuring all that stuff out.

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So, we just sort of jumped headfirst into this world and just sort of

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started just from the ground up and just started with the basics of,

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"Okay. If we have a student with a visual impairment,

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how do we make sure that they can get into a classroom and take this class?

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What are the barriers?"

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We identified the barriers.

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We even went as far as, this is actually Chad's idea,

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as we're going through in the very beginning,

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we didn't really know how to really test a lot of this stuff.

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So, we hired a blind student to test everything.

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So, we brought in a student,

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we paid him as a consultant, and he came in.

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In the very beginning, we ran everything we did

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through the student and he would tell us where he got stuck,

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he would tell us what do you know,

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he was able to get here,

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maybe this part was a little wonky,

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go back and change this,

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and that was a game changer for us,

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to be able to really see his perspective on trying to

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register for classes or trying to read

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the course catalog or trying to do all these different things.

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So, we were able to create a map to then go back and say, okay,

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like what's the main,

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so in order to get over here and take this class we've got to get here first.

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We get here, we got to get here so it was almost like a, "Choose Your Own Adventure" with

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this kid trying to figure out exactly how to get where we needed to go.

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Then with all these different things with help of Ally

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eventually now we have a whole system in place that's

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really enabling us to ensure that these students have

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access to fully accessible content and that if they don't,

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there's a process for making that accessible,

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both on the student side and the faculty side.

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So, pre-Ally had you started to look at the content in the LMS?

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How were you trying to look at the content in the LMS?

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I don't think we started looking at it.

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We had started training.

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We that was really the first thing we tried to do is to

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educate the faculty and to start to teach

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them how to make their content accessible and I guess at that point

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we were relying 100 percent on the office accessibility checkers.

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But there was really no validation or if they

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weren't using office for some reason when they uploaded their content.

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We really didn't have a way to manage and you know it was,

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there was one point at a meeting that I missed that's the way it always happens,

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where it got back to me that Michelle Perkins will go through

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every single course on Blackboard and make sure that the content

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is accessible. I just said-

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I know what that means.

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I even don't know what to say because I said even

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if I said it was accessible here

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two seconds later they upload something it might not be accessible.

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So, we've really didn't have a solution at that time,

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we were just trying to get started because we knew we had to get started we didn't

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insert Ally which made that journey a little bit easier but-

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Once we got familiar using the Microsoft Office Checkers,

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so once we found the Blackboard had a product that was basically going to mimic in

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a way that same result and usage then we jumped on right away with thought this is great,

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let's get it in here even first ones or something to do it,

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if we were but we're pretty early on in

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the adoption process just for that reason because we couldn't keep just

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using the Microsoft Office checkers so there wasn't

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enough analytics behind that in order to see what was really happening at the school.

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Just to point out that the day

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Blackboard Ally introduced their product was in mid-March of 2017, I believe.

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That same day we were a better toaster for a Blackboard Ally's so we

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were in communication with Blackboard two months before they

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rolled out the test products and we were testing it from day one and we rolled

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out for the full semester I

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believe was the limited roll out or do we actually do a whole roll out?

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We started with a pilot at fall and the pilot was so successful.

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Our vice president of academic said turn it on for everyone,

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everything we need everybody to have this tool and have access to it. So-

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The pilot like 20 classes, 30 classes or something along those lines?

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It was more like 20 faculty members,

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and then of those 20 we turned it on and all their courses.

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But then over thanksgiving break we turned it on system wide and never looked back.

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What were some of the indicators of success of that pilot?

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One big indicator was that when we were invited to go back on different webinars,

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we were already trained on the things that they were discussing in those webinars,

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on how to build accessible content.

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We were saying we're already in past,

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we already know this stuff in a way like we were

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already educating faculty and staff on these stuff already.

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So, we felt like we were ahead of the game,

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so that was a real good indicator.

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Especially on a few Blackboard webinars.

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As a matter of fact, I think we are on the Blackboard webinar,

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we mentioned that we're from Atlantic Cape and they even mentioned then that

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we were already been working with you guys on accessibility stuff, you already know this.

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Isn't all that's neat. We're already making

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some type of indent or something in the industry.

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Right.

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And I think to it speaks to the culture change of the institution.

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I think from the very beginning,

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we had stepped in to try and figure out how to not

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just require people and faculty to make accessible content,

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but to create culture of accessibility to where we're creating

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accessible content irregardless of

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specific disabilities may or may not be in the classroom.

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So, I think that vying and in combined with access to this Ally product,

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you know once it came out and we started noticing that

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faculty members were really concerned about their score,

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they were concerned about their content,

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which I think was something that we really didn't see in the past.

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I think Ally really allowed,

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it was kind of like the vehicle for

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our faculty members to be able to

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visualize progress instead of just us saying, "Yeah, it looks good."

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You can really go in and see exactly where they're at and

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also figure out how to make changes if needed.

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Another indicator was a faculty started coming up to

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us in conversations and start talking about accessibility.

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While before that, they were saying I don't know what that is.

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I don't know what accessibility is.

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I don't know really know what you're talking about,

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and they had a lot of stress and trepidation about it,

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about getting into it, and then they will stopping us in a hallway saying,

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you know I edit headers on this document and I can't figure out how to modify the header,

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and I'm going this a great conversation because that

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means you're implementing this stuff.

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So, that was a game changer.

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Yeah I mean the scoring system of Blackboard Ally

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for some they took it like a game, like progress.

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I want to get to this new level for content I'm giving to my students.

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So, I don't know if the game of fire is the right word for that

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but that's kind of what the scoring system did in the beginning.

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So, did you first kind of turn on

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the institutional report and look at that before you opened it up to faculty?

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What was that process?

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I think we did turn on the institutional report.

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We were looking before we turned it on.

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00:13:25,945 --> 00:13:28,930
Yes. So, we were looking just kind of out of curiosity.

248
00:13:28,930 --> 00:13:32,080
There was at that time I mean we were still training faculty,

249
00:13:32,080 --> 00:13:34,420
it wasn't like anything was being held against faculty.

250
00:13:34,420 --> 00:13:40,390
We were kind of morbidly curious to see where we were in those very first steps.

251
00:13:40,390 --> 00:13:45,430
In those days, we would go through page after page after page

252
00:13:45,430 --> 00:13:47,260
of zero percent, five percent.

253
00:13:47,260 --> 00:13:51,640
We were excited that, "Hey, we had 10 courses that are 100 percent accessible now."

254
00:13:51,640 --> 00:13:53,286
Remember, we were looking at that stuff.

255
00:13:53,286 --> 00:13:53,530
Absolutely.

256
00:13:53,530 --> 00:13:55,435
And then that number grew more

257
00:13:55,435 --> 00:13:59,455
and more and it was exciting watching the change. It was really exciting.

258
00:13:59,455 --> 00:14:01,780
Yeah I mean it was a good indicator of what

259
00:14:01,780 --> 00:14:07,660
content faculty were putting on Blackboard at the time and I think in the beginning,

260
00:14:07,660 --> 00:14:12,310
there were like 80 courses at zero percent because they were all scanned PDFs.

261
00:14:12,310 --> 00:14:15,610
There was just not a trace of anything

262
00:14:15,610 --> 00:14:20,095
accessible beyond a person who could visually see the scan document.

263
00:14:20,095 --> 00:14:23,410
And as a team looking at a course like that,

264
00:14:23,410 --> 00:14:24,640
what was your strategy?

265
00:14:24,640 --> 00:14:27,070
Did you pull them into your room and sit them down

266
00:14:27,070 --> 00:14:30,010
like we had to do something like now about it?

267
00:14:30,010 --> 00:14:32,140
What was the process there?

268
00:14:32,140 --> 00:14:34,240
There was a lot of education.

269
00:14:34,240 --> 00:14:38,800
I mean we had this series of accessibility courses that Chad created.

270
00:14:38,800 --> 00:14:45,475
We had two faculty development days that were dedicated towards,

271
00:14:45,475 --> 00:14:48,805
let's get down and get dirty and show you how to do this.

272
00:14:48,805 --> 00:14:51,400
We had messages from upper management.

273
00:14:51,400 --> 00:14:54,760
I was going to say, we tried to take the nice guy approach at first,

274
00:14:54,760 --> 00:14:58,900
and of course, that worked for

275
00:14:58,900 --> 00:15:03,310
some and then there were others that we needed administration.

276
00:15:03,310 --> 00:15:04,900
We needed administrations backing.

277
00:15:04,900 --> 00:15:09,070
I mean, it wasn't going because it does require work and it's not hard work,

278
00:15:09,070 --> 00:15:10,870
but it's different and change is different,

279
00:15:10,870 --> 00:15:13,255
and until administration said,

280
00:15:13,255 --> 00:15:15,070
you have to do this.

281
00:15:15,070 --> 00:15:17,710
There were some people who just weren't going to do it,

282
00:15:17,710 --> 00:15:23,080
and those people then would end up in our offices and say, I'm so overwhelmed.

283
00:15:23,080 --> 00:15:26,860
I've no idea how to start with this and we're going to start one document at a time.

284
00:15:26,860 --> 00:15:29,350
You have to look at it one PowerPoint at a time,

285
00:15:29,350 --> 00:15:32,680
one video at a time because when you're trying to look at,

286
00:15:32,680 --> 00:15:36,760
well I have five different courses I teach and I have like 60 different thought.

287
00:15:36,760 --> 00:15:40,570
It's very overwhelming to start one at a time and when you do that one,

288
00:15:40,570 --> 00:15:41,755
then you can do the next one,

289
00:15:41,755 --> 00:15:44,080
and then the next one and you're going to find that it gets a little bit

290
00:15:44,080 --> 00:15:47,075
easier and we found that in the beginning,

291
00:15:47,075 --> 00:15:50,160
we had faculty who just weren't willing to do anything,

292
00:15:50,160 --> 00:15:53,970
and it really just please try and you know what I can do this stuff,

293
00:15:53,970 --> 00:15:57,180
and like they were excited about it and then they're like you know what,

294
00:15:57,180 --> 00:16:01,675
I have other students who are actually using this too and they said it's better,

295
00:16:01,675 --> 00:16:05,155
and that was all very exciting feedback for us.

296
00:16:05,155 --> 00:16:09,415
I think to like one of the things that we struggled a lot with.

297
00:16:09,415 --> 00:16:13,060
I was sort of on the peripheral of a lot of this stuff that rise.

298
00:16:13,060 --> 00:16:17,740
What I saw was a lot of the faculty members who've been here for 40,

299
00:16:17,740 --> 00:16:21,475
45 years, 50 years and that's a lot of data.

300
00:16:21,475 --> 00:16:23,920
That's a lot of course material, that's a lot of stuff,

301
00:16:23,920 --> 00:16:28,870
and what we wanted to make sure that we did from the beginning is to not devalue all of

302
00:16:28,870 --> 00:16:33,780
that work and devalue all of that content because it is still great content.

303
00:16:33,780 --> 00:16:38,800
It's still very great for lack of a better word,

304
00:16:38,800 --> 00:16:44,005
but in doing this it was saying like okay that's still good stuff.

305
00:16:44,005 --> 00:16:47,275
We had to figure out a way to bring that to now.

306
00:16:47,275 --> 00:16:52,345
So, it's to make that content accessible for kids now because right now it's not.

307
00:16:52,345 --> 00:16:54,910
So, what do we have to do to work together to make sure that that

308
00:16:54,910 --> 00:16:57,580
still holds value and I think once we

309
00:16:57,580 --> 00:17:00,100
broke down that barrier of being like that I think there's

310
00:17:00,100 --> 00:17:03,055
a lot of faculty who were just like look don't touch my stuff,

311
00:17:03,055 --> 00:17:07,090
it is my stuff, I'm not playing this game.

312
00:17:07,090 --> 00:17:11,020
Once really explain that it's not your stuff,

313
00:17:11,020 --> 00:17:12,055
your stuff still great.

314
00:17:12,055 --> 00:17:14,860
It's just how it's presented and things like that.

315
00:17:14,860 --> 00:17:19,960
So, I think once that barrier was broken down, I think we saw a lot.

316
00:17:19,960 --> 00:17:22,720
That's what I think we really started to see the culture change and

317
00:17:22,720 --> 00:17:27,700
that shift at the college to more accessible content.

318
00:17:27,700 --> 00:17:29,335
I was part of it too.

319
00:17:29,335 --> 00:17:33,640
There was some defensive faculty early on that said,

320
00:17:33,640 --> 00:17:35,140
you know why are you targeting me?

321
00:17:35,140 --> 00:17:36,430
I've always taught it this way.

322
00:17:36,430 --> 00:17:38,545
I don't understand why anything has to changed.

323
00:17:38,545 --> 00:17:41,590
So, part of the message was saying it's not your fault,

324
00:17:41,590 --> 00:17:44,455
we're not blaming you and pointing the finger directly to you,

325
00:17:44,455 --> 00:17:47,455
it said this is really how the process should be all along.

326
00:17:47,455 --> 00:17:49,300
Let's put you in the direction of

327
00:17:49,300 --> 00:17:52,240
improving everything you create from this point forward,

328
00:17:52,240 --> 00:17:54,865
whereas punishing you for what came before.

329
00:17:54,865 --> 00:17:56,829
We had to kind of get around,

330
00:17:56,829 --> 00:18:01,580
the explanation, and get to the learning part of it, I guess.

331
00:18:01,740 --> 00:18:04,765
I think using examples too of students,

332
00:18:04,765 --> 00:18:07,795
for instance, we had a student with a visual impairment,

333
00:18:07,795 --> 00:18:13,330
who had no cognitive issues whatsoever and this student can't access her material, right?

334
00:18:13,330 --> 00:18:15,640
The student is no different from any other student

335
00:18:15,640 --> 00:18:18,505
other than the issues the student has a vision,

336
00:18:18,505 --> 00:18:22,450
and we're saying that this student effectively that okay even though you've got nothing

337
00:18:22,450 --> 00:18:27,550
else besides your visual impairment,

338
00:18:27,550 --> 00:18:31,708
you can't take this class because it is in a language that you can understand, right?

339
00:18:31,708 --> 00:18:34,570
So, I think by really having that student right

340
00:18:34,570 --> 00:18:38,260
there in front of somebody saying like okay well you can't be here,

341
00:18:38,260 --> 00:18:42,670
that I think was a little bit of a change too because it brought the idea of

342
00:18:42,670 --> 00:18:47,515
accessibility home to where like now we have a kid who's in our a fully capable student,

343
00:18:47,515 --> 00:18:53,995
who is at our institution that cannot access anything unless we make changes.

344
00:18:53,995 --> 00:18:56,230
I was going to ask me about that course with

345
00:18:56,230 --> 00:18:58,975
all scans because like that's a heavy lift right.

346
00:18:58,975 --> 00:19:01,525
Doing heading on a word document,

347
00:19:01,525 --> 00:19:04,390
not too terrible but in cases like that,

348
00:19:04,390 --> 00:19:05,920
what was some of the process?

349
00:19:05,920 --> 00:19:08,695
Because that's something that we hear a lot from institutions which

350
00:19:08,695 --> 00:19:10,930
we keep carve off all text or whatever,

351
00:19:10,930 --> 00:19:13,570
but how did you pick up some of these big challenges?

352
00:19:13,570 --> 00:19:15,400
Well, any other training that we did,

353
00:19:15,400 --> 00:19:17,575
we kind of reiterated a lot of the same thing

354
00:19:17,575 --> 00:19:20,050
and a lot of different training that we did,

355
00:19:20,050 --> 00:19:23,830
and one of them were we're not the only school on the planet that are trying to make

356
00:19:23,830 --> 00:19:28,225
this particular document or infographics in an alternative version.

357
00:19:28,225 --> 00:19:29,950
There's resources out there already.

358
00:19:29,950 --> 00:19:32,260
So, whenever you get stressed out like as

359
00:19:32,260 --> 00:19:34,780
faculty member I mean about making something accessible,

360
00:19:34,780 --> 00:19:36,745
we have support circles to help you with that,

361
00:19:36,745 --> 00:19:37,960
and if we have a solution today,

362
00:19:37,960 --> 00:19:41,200
we're to find it because we know the channels where to reach out and where to look for.

363
00:19:41,200 --> 00:19:42,535
So, we'll find a solution,

364
00:19:42,535 --> 00:19:45,565
but now fix the things that you're comfortable with fixing,

365
00:19:45,565 --> 00:19:47,740
record the things that you're having trouble with,

366
00:19:47,740 --> 00:19:51,010
and eventually your course will be fully accessible.

367
00:19:51,010 --> 00:19:56,450
So, just keep chipping away at the course semester after semester.

368
00:19:57,090 --> 00:20:02,515
They would email you directly when they had an issue of what was that system they use?

369
00:20:02,515 --> 00:20:08,934
The words accessibility and Chad just weren't together at all aspects even like staff,

370
00:20:08,934 --> 00:20:12,160
they were going to buy a piece of software Chad has to test it.

371
00:20:12,160 --> 00:20:14,110
I'm like wait, hold on what!

372
00:20:14,110 --> 00:20:16,300
and I have a lot of email.

373
00:20:16,300 --> 00:20:20,815
So, originally that's what happened and then we looked at the process though,

374
00:20:20,815 --> 00:20:25,330
and we looked at where we needed to implement different stages of the process.

375
00:20:25,330 --> 00:20:30,550
So, what they brought on a part time employee just for the academic side of things.

376
00:20:30,550 --> 00:20:34,540
So, just for faculty support that helped me out a lot,

377
00:20:34,540 --> 00:20:36,520
as opposed to just coming directly to one person.

378
00:20:36,520 --> 00:20:38,290
Now, we have a few people that

379
00:20:38,290 --> 00:20:42,630
instructional technology was helping out a lot with giving direction.

380
00:20:42,630 --> 00:20:44,940
We made a web page strictly for

381
00:20:44,940 --> 00:20:48,000
resources where faculty can read up on things on their own,

382
00:20:48,000 --> 00:20:50,940
so they didn't have to keep reaching out to us especially for things that we

383
00:20:50,940 --> 00:20:55,010
felt were a little more simpler concepts to really understand and get.

384
00:20:55,010 --> 00:20:57,400
So, that helped out so all these different channels

385
00:20:57,400 --> 00:20:59,680
and buckets we really started to fill.

386
00:20:59,680 --> 00:21:02,215
Now, once those buckets got filled a little more,

387
00:21:02,215 --> 00:21:07,360
it was easier to get things done especially the time of [inaudible] anyway .

388
00:21:07,360 --> 00:21:10,900
That's what we were saying for the academic side for [inaudible] ,

389
00:21:10,900 --> 00:21:13,675
the part time support on the academic side,

390
00:21:13,675 --> 00:21:16,090
and then we just kept educating ourselves.

391
00:21:16,090 --> 00:21:18,925
So, we went through professional development for ourselves.

392
00:21:18,925 --> 00:21:22,210
We have two people on staff now that are certified, right? For accessibility.

393
00:21:22,210 --> 00:21:25,645
So, we took courses in professional development.

394
00:21:25,645 --> 00:21:27,940
We spoke to vendors, we brought vendors in.

395
00:21:27,940 --> 00:21:30,415
We went to conferences all these different things.

396
00:21:30,415 --> 00:21:36,295
Anything that we could do to gain more experience as quickly as we could with experience,

397
00:21:36,295 --> 00:21:37,720
and then once we gain that,

398
00:21:37,720 --> 00:21:41,230
we bring it back and disseminate that information as much as possible,

399
00:21:41,230 --> 00:21:43,280
and that was really the plan.

400
00:21:43,280 --> 00:21:45,705
We just keep going with that.

401
00:21:45,705 --> 00:21:46,765
Great.

402
00:21:46,765 --> 00:21:48,730
The process doesn't end.

403
00:21:48,730 --> 00:21:50,760
No. It never had and never will,

404
00:21:50,760 --> 00:21:53,360
and that's a message we said it backwards to about their courses.

405
00:21:53,360 --> 00:21:56,040
It's never going to end. You're not just going to be fully accessible one day.

406
00:21:56,040 --> 00:21:58,440
Because anytime you bring in a new piece of equipment,

407
00:21:58,440 --> 00:22:02,520
you want to have accessibility in mind whatever that concept might be so.

408
00:22:02,520 --> 00:22:06,175
Yes. It's constantly evolving but it's good.

409
00:22:06,175 --> 00:22:09,290
So, some of the training that you all set up,

410
00:22:09,290 --> 00:22:12,370
I mean you are showing me some of the things that you have built out,

411
00:22:12,370 --> 00:22:15,835
and so you provided basically asynchronous secret.

412
00:22:15,835 --> 00:22:18,655
However, you can reach them you did it.

413
00:22:18,655 --> 00:22:21,135
Yeah, and bombarded too.

414
00:22:21,135 --> 00:22:24,100
We offered more training than we had ever had in the past.

415
00:22:24,100 --> 00:22:27,535
We basically made it like Fridays where training.

416
00:22:27,535 --> 00:22:30,490
Without a doubt, we always had something on Fridays and then we would

417
00:22:30,490 --> 00:22:33,495
always do a Tuesday or Wednesday as well on top of that.

418
00:22:33,495 --> 00:22:35,320
We brought out new workshops stuff that was

419
00:22:35,320 --> 00:22:37,585
never been offered before to keep it a bit fresh.

420
00:22:37,585 --> 00:22:40,120
I mean obviously there were no accessibility workshops.

421
00:22:40,120 --> 00:22:43,405
We know that, but then we also parlay that into universal design.

422
00:22:43,405 --> 00:22:46,760
We talked about video captioning which is certainly accessibility,

423
00:22:46,760 --> 00:22:48,025
what is just the bucket of it.

424
00:22:48,025 --> 00:22:52,045
We never had workshops dedicated to those topics before.

425
00:22:52,045 --> 00:22:55,455
So, now we have more education than we ever had before.

426
00:22:55,455 --> 00:22:59,070
So, it's easier especially for a new faculty member,

427
00:22:59,070 --> 00:23:00,880
a new adjunct that comes in.

428
00:23:00,880 --> 00:23:05,395
They can jump right into all these resources and get educated very quickly on this topic,

429
00:23:05,395 --> 00:23:08,060
and that's probably one of the biggest things.

430
00:23:08,060 --> 00:23:11,970
Right, and one of the other things that academics is doing now is,

431
00:23:11,970 --> 00:23:15,845
they started putting together

432
00:23:15,845 --> 00:23:22,060
some standard courses that had accessible content already filled out in it.

433
00:23:22,060 --> 00:23:25,930
So, that when a new adjunct was hired instead of saying, hi you're hired.

434
00:23:25,930 --> 00:23:27,795
Here's the syllabus on a text.

435
00:23:27,795 --> 00:23:29,980
Good luck. Here you go.

436
00:23:29,980 --> 00:23:32,620
Here's a course we already have fully accessible PowerPoint.

437
00:23:32,620 --> 00:23:34,240
We already have a fully accessible syllabus.

438
00:23:34,240 --> 00:23:38,380
We already have all these things that are already done and give them a head start.

439
00:23:38,380 --> 00:23:39,730
What I mean when they started.

440
00:23:39,730 --> 00:23:42,820
So, we're still working on that.

441
00:23:42,820 --> 00:23:45,085
But we definitely have made a lot of progress.

442
00:23:45,085 --> 00:23:49,135
So, those templates were something pretty new that you introduced after.

443
00:23:49,135 --> 00:23:50,605
Oh, yeah. They're very new.

444
00:23:50,605 --> 00:23:54,145
They just started last summer.

445
00:23:54,145 --> 00:23:57,820
I think they just started developing them for last fall.

446
00:23:57,820 --> 00:24:00,730
How is faculty response to templates?

447
00:24:00,730 --> 00:24:04,815
Are they like, don't tell me how to organize my course or my syllabus.

448
00:24:04,815 --> 00:24:08,130
There's some of that. There's others

449
00:24:08,130 --> 00:24:11,550
who have embraced that a little bit more because it doesn't.

450
00:24:11,550 --> 00:24:13,290
They're not restricted from changing it.

451
00:24:13,290 --> 00:24:16,860
Once they get it, it's just given them a foundation to get started.

452
00:24:16,860 --> 00:24:19,830
Once they have it, they can then use it,

453
00:24:19,830 --> 00:24:22,870
not use it, add their own content.

454
00:24:22,870 --> 00:24:27,055
Some of our academic departments have really,

455
00:24:27,055 --> 00:24:30,010
again you spoke with some of our science folks earlier.

456
00:24:30,010 --> 00:24:34,240
They've done amazing things with developing that type of

457
00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:39,495
content both for lecture and lab blackboard core shells.

458
00:24:39,495 --> 00:24:41,905
So, that way when an adjunct comes in.

459
00:24:41,905 --> 00:24:45,565
Just think of it, you're a brand new adjunct they're hiring maybe in the 11th hour.

460
00:24:45,565 --> 00:24:47,260
How am I going to make this happen?

461
00:24:47,260 --> 00:24:51,345
Just like that and they not only have the tools they need to be successful,

462
00:24:51,345 --> 00:24:53,650
but it's already accessible and it all is

463
00:24:53,650 --> 00:24:56,770
just going to help make the students more successful.

464
00:24:56,770 --> 00:25:01,030
In the process of training up faculty,

465
00:25:01,030 --> 00:25:02,300
getting them on board,

466
00:25:02,300 --> 00:25:07,720
did certain faculty champions emerge that you propped up on the campus to say,

467
00:25:07,720 --> 00:25:11,005
hey this is your model look at this faculty member?

468
00:25:11,005 --> 00:25:14,140
Absolutely. We're definitely did because we had

469
00:25:14,140 --> 00:25:17,025
some remember where you can see right away.

470
00:25:17,025 --> 00:25:21,390
Like that bell click or something clicks all of a sudden where they get it.

471
00:25:21,390 --> 00:25:24,375
So, this isn't as stressful as I thought it would be

472
00:25:24,375 --> 00:25:27,550
or as daunting as a test because I thought it would be.

473
00:25:27,550 --> 00:25:29,905
But then we started getting feedback going.

474
00:25:29,905 --> 00:25:31,885
I've cleaned up a lot of stuff in my course.

475
00:25:31,885 --> 00:25:33,640
I didn't realize how much stuff I have had my course.

476
00:25:33,640 --> 00:25:36,520
I don't even use anymore that's really old or something like that,

477
00:25:36,520 --> 00:25:39,715
and I brought in new content new fresh stuff as well.

478
00:25:39,715 --> 00:25:41,665
So, we're getting good feedback from that.

479
00:25:41,665 --> 00:25:43,210
With something that we really didn't think about.

480
00:25:43,210 --> 00:25:46,015
We were just trying to make it accessible. But here we are.

481
00:25:46,015 --> 00:25:50,530
They're designing their courses all over again and updating their materials and they

482
00:25:50,530 --> 00:25:55,760
felt like that cleaning out my closet type of feeling, more organized and I'm ready to go.

483
00:25:55,760 --> 00:25:58,615
So, that was a nice response.

484
00:25:58,615 --> 00:26:01,130
Well it sounds like there's been some cost savings,

485
00:26:01,130 --> 00:26:03,295
there too as far as storage.

486
00:26:03,295 --> 00:26:07,720
Oh, yeah. Right. Because we were always up

487
00:26:07,720 --> 00:26:12,220
against the limits because of storage with Blackboard.

488
00:26:12,220 --> 00:26:17,650
Because we are a managed hosting and we pay for our storage and faculty,

489
00:26:17,650 --> 00:26:21,585
they'd upload a file and it would never be deleted from their course and we could

490
00:26:21,585 --> 00:26:25,370
go through their files and they'd have a syllabus in there from 2004.

491
00:26:25,370 --> 00:26:30,560
That's just been copied over and over and over and over again, and we had,

492
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:33,640
well over half of our faculty that just

493
00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:39,520
said, "Give me a brand new course I'm starting over," and that is really.

494
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:40,960
Cleaned it up a lot.

495
00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:42,460
Yes it did.

496
00:26:42,460 --> 00:26:49,510
Comes down to customer service emails and all that.

497
00:26:49,510 --> 00:26:54,175
So, now I mean you're pretty far along in this journey.

498
00:26:54,175 --> 00:26:56,920
You got some success in there.

499
00:26:56,920 --> 00:27:00,495
As you were starting to see these courses turn green.

500
00:27:00,495 --> 00:27:02,650
Did that inspire the campus?

501
00:27:02,650 --> 00:27:07,120
Did it start to move away from just a stick being beating over to them to a sense of pride?

502
00:27:07,120 --> 00:27:09,340
How has, when you talking about a culture shift,

503
00:27:09,340 --> 00:27:14,080
how does that now feel on a campus that has become more inclusive?

504
00:27:14,080 --> 00:27:16,210
Well, accessibility is obviously a big word.

505
00:27:16,210 --> 00:27:20,395
Everybody I think on campus knows about it and knows exactly what it means,

506
00:27:20,395 --> 00:27:22,120
exactly how to implement it.

507
00:27:22,120 --> 00:27:25,630
Which is three years ago there wasn't something that was happening here at all.

508
00:27:25,630 --> 00:27:28,285
Right. That's just not a word that people knew and now they know

509
00:27:28,285 --> 00:27:31,480
a lot of it probably more than they want to know about it.

510
00:27:31,480 --> 00:27:35,260
Well, I think they're proud to know I mean we were talking a

511
00:27:35,260 --> 00:27:39,570
little bit earlier and some of us in the room teaching.

512
00:27:39,570 --> 00:27:42,040
I'm proud that my course is accessible.

513
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:45,470
I wanted it to be accessible as accessible as it can to everybody and I think that

514
00:27:45,470 --> 00:27:49,315
there are a lot of faculty on campus that are proud that they can say that now,

515
00:27:49,315 --> 00:27:52,665
and many of them did the work themselves and they are like I did that,

516
00:27:52,665 --> 00:27:58,650
and I think there are a lot of people who are proud of themselves.

517
00:27:58,650 --> 00:28:01,630
I think when the teachers hear any feedback from a student though.

518
00:28:01,630 --> 00:28:02,125
Right.

519
00:28:02,125 --> 00:28:04,240
That's where it really makes

520
00:28:04,240 --> 00:28:06,595
an impact because that's what they're here for at the end of the today.

521
00:28:06,595 --> 00:28:11,710
So, we always pitched the idea of saying,

522
00:28:11,710 --> 00:28:15,625
would you like less emails from your students about they can't get access to this thing.

523
00:28:15,625 --> 00:28:18,865
Where they can't find this document, those types of things.

524
00:28:18,865 --> 00:28:21,460
Now, that the courses are more organized and accessible,

525
00:28:21,460 --> 00:28:23,650
they're not getting those emails or just getting emails

526
00:28:23,650 --> 00:28:26,185
about content which is where they want to be.

527
00:28:26,185 --> 00:28:29,055
They don't want to have emails about software where things are.

528
00:28:29,055 --> 00:28:31,900
So, you know when they get that feedback from the students I think that

529
00:28:31,900 --> 00:28:33,160
really makes them feel so good about it that they

530
00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:35,080
have a good product that they're putting out there.

531
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:38,935
I think also how much it's support students without disabilities.

532
00:28:38,935 --> 00:28:42,470
I think that's a point that does get lost a little bit.

533
00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:47,380
Accessibility is a whole doesn't just serve students with disabilities,

534
00:28:47,380 --> 00:28:51,340
it helps students without disabilities incredibly well as well.

535
00:28:51,340 --> 00:28:56,140
So, I think by seeing sort of the student investiture

536
00:28:56,140 --> 00:28:59,290
in their Blackboard courses

537
00:28:59,290 --> 00:29:02,200
I think they're starting to see an uptick of students using them.

538
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:05,609
Students be able to access them and also

539
00:29:05,609 --> 00:29:10,540
by taking out a lot of that stuff that has been there forever,

540
00:29:10,540 --> 00:29:12,610
it's very much easier to navigate.

541
00:29:12,610 --> 00:29:15,220
So, I think students are using the Blackboard

542
00:29:15,220 --> 00:29:18,550
courses a little bit more now because they're a little bit cleaner.

543
00:29:18,550 --> 00:29:24,895
So, I think that's been a pretty positive thing as well for staff and faculty.

544
00:29:24,895 --> 00:29:28,345
So, and faculty get the service, right?

545
00:29:28,345 --> 00:29:30,265
I mean they get feedback on their courses.

546
00:29:30,265 --> 00:29:34,210
So, they can literally read all this feedback and get feedback directly from the students.

547
00:29:34,210 --> 00:29:36,280
So, that's a big one too.

548
00:29:36,280 --> 00:29:40,630
Are you getting a sense that it has improved in some of those areas that

549
00:29:40,630 --> 00:29:44,695
students are reporting a better experience in the course?

550
00:29:44,695 --> 00:29:47,935
Yeah. Well, and part of that was

551
00:29:47,935 --> 00:29:51,855
as a part of this process in the very beginning of the process probably one of

552
00:29:51,855 --> 00:29:54,910
the first things we did is we

553
00:29:54,910 --> 00:29:59,710
instituted a standard course menu in all of our Blackboard course shells.

554
00:29:59,710 --> 00:30:02,740
So, we could make navigation a little more consistent.

555
00:30:02,740 --> 00:30:07,240
That probably hit more resistance than you could probably imagine from faculty.

556
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:08,875
Because we were telling them,

557
00:30:08,875 --> 00:30:14,200
you can only have these eight things on your course menu now instead of

558
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:17,590
the 30 things that you had before and they didn't

559
00:30:17,590 --> 00:30:21,370
want to be told that and they sure didn't want somebody telling them what to name them.

560
00:30:21,370 --> 00:30:27,400
But we did survey students after we did that and there was so much positive feedback.

561
00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:31,150
The students were like it was nice that no matter what course I was going in,

562
00:30:31,150 --> 00:30:32,550
I knew where to find my syllabus,

563
00:30:32,550 --> 00:30:33,620
I knew where to find this,

564
00:30:33,620 --> 00:30:34,750
I knew where to find that,

565
00:30:34,750 --> 00:30:39,870
and that definitely was validation that we were moving in the right direction there.

566
00:30:39,870 --> 00:30:43,380
Has it changed the way your office is doing things?

567
00:30:43,380 --> 00:30:45,580
What's been the impact on your office?

568
00:30:45,580 --> 00:30:47,970
It's been a great impact as we're able to now

569
00:30:47,970 --> 00:30:51,105
ensure accessibility for students and we can now say,

570
00:30:51,105 --> 00:30:54,870
so if a student comes in and we know what they need to take,

571
00:30:54,870 --> 00:30:59,240
like for instance got one of our student visual impairment.

572
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:03,680
We know he has to take a biology class at some point in the next few semesters.

573
00:31:03,680 --> 00:31:06,010
So, now we're able to go in and try do

574
00:31:06,010 --> 00:31:09,860
a deep dive now into that course to make sure that it's perfect.

575
00:31:09,860 --> 00:31:13,235
So, I think we're seeing that.

576
00:31:13,235 --> 00:31:15,285
Being able to look into the future and sort of

577
00:31:15,285 --> 00:31:18,400
scaffolding the students experience as they move through.

578
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:27,775
But also being able to point our students towards classes that are more accessible.

579
00:31:27,775 --> 00:31:33,220
To say, so we know we have a student who requires a high level of accessibility.

580
00:31:33,220 --> 00:31:36,010
We're able to now go in and we

581
00:31:36,010 --> 00:31:38,975
know that the faculty members that are really doing it well.

582
00:31:38,975 --> 00:31:45,670
So, this enabled us to go in and see who are those professors that are just killing it.

583
00:31:45,670 --> 00:31:48,640
So, that we can now take our students and put

584
00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:51,520
them in that direction instead of what we're doing before.

585
00:31:51,520 --> 00:31:53,485
Just like this is open go here,

586
00:31:53,485 --> 00:31:57,445
just because it's open and we don't know what experience that students is going to get.

587
00:31:57,445 --> 00:31:59,785
Being a community college we're full of adjuncts.

588
00:31:59,785 --> 00:32:01,515
Most of them are wonderful.

589
00:32:01,515 --> 00:32:03,820
But sometimes you have some that are a little bit funny.

590
00:32:03,820 --> 00:32:08,110
Now, we can go in and really see what the course looks like and make sure that

591
00:32:08,110 --> 00:32:14,205
students experience is almost 100 percent going to be a good one.

592
00:32:14,205 --> 00:32:18,149
Is it over now? Is the-

593
00:32:18,149 --> 00:32:19,512
In consent decree? No.

594
00:32:19,512 --> 00:32:20,780
No, it is not.

595
00:32:20,780 --> 00:32:23,045
No. We still have, what do we got left?

596
00:32:23,045 --> 00:32:25,140
We got some time left on it.

597
00:32:25,140 --> 00:32:28,130
I think it's just the progress,

598
00:32:28,130 --> 00:32:29,465
this is going to continue.

599
00:32:29,465 --> 00:32:31,880
That's the way too much new technologies are way

600
00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:35,960
too much variation in dissemination of information,

601
00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:38,825
where accessibility is always going to have to be

602
00:32:38,825 --> 00:32:42,380
thought of when you're creating content and when you're bringing content in.

603
00:32:42,380 --> 00:32:43,850
It's never going to go away.

604
00:32:43,850 --> 00:32:47,975
So, we have to stay up to date now for all the new stuff that's coming in.

605
00:32:47,975 --> 00:32:50,385
So, there's a lot of work to be done.

606
00:32:50,385 --> 00:32:52,945
But as far as the legal hammer,

607
00:32:52,945 --> 00:32:55,980
that's still over your head in a way?

608
00:32:55,980 --> 00:32:59,720
Yes, like the deadline that loomed for so

609
00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:03,680
long of all content has to be 100 percent accessible by a certain date,

610
00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:05,120
that passed last summer.

611
00:33:05,120 --> 00:33:07,760
So, we are past that now but we still

612
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:13,190
have facets of it that is still ongoing for a little easier.

613
00:33:13,190 --> 00:33:16,370
Because you are right. I mean it's always going to be there, right?

614
00:33:16,370 --> 00:33:19,040
It's always a journey, right?

615
00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:23,330
That inclusive learning they say it's not a destination, it is a journey,

616
00:33:23,330 --> 00:33:25,550
and it's something you'll always work on.

617
00:33:25,550 --> 00:33:29,120
Well, I think the most important part over the consent decree, right?

618
00:33:29,120 --> 00:33:31,535
When everybody thinks about consent decree they think about lawsuit,

619
00:33:31,535 --> 00:33:33,455
they think about things that have to get done right away.

620
00:33:33,455 --> 00:33:37,160
But what the consent decree really did was it highlighted

621
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:41,330
ways that we can support our students that we were not doing prior.

622
00:33:41,330 --> 00:33:43,820
We were offering a lot of services.

623
00:33:43,820 --> 00:33:47,030
That's not why the consent decree came about,

624
00:33:47,030 --> 00:33:51,530
it was because there were certain little areas that we weren't offering support in.

625
00:33:51,530 --> 00:33:53,900
So, we were able to really analyze

626
00:33:53,900 --> 00:33:57,050
those areas and strengthen them, and that's what we've done.

627
00:33:57,050 --> 00:34:01,775
So, we're taking proactive approaches because of that and we'll continue to do that.

628
00:34:01,775 --> 00:34:04,040
I think, and I'm not sure if this was mentioned,

629
00:34:04,040 --> 00:34:06,440
but I think one of the great things about the consent decree is

630
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:09,710
it's allocation of resources, right?

631
00:34:09,710 --> 00:34:14,090
So, you have something like this that we're now legally bound to do, which I stand by.

632
00:34:14,090 --> 00:34:16,100
I think the consent decree is a great thing.

633
00:34:16,100 --> 00:34:18,830
I think it's enabled us do a lot of really good work,

634
00:34:18,830 --> 00:34:21,560
but with that comes an allocation of resources,

635
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:25,280
with that comes the ability to go to conferences,

636
00:34:25,280 --> 00:34:27,230
to be able to write grants, to do these things,

637
00:34:27,230 --> 00:34:30,200
to be able to bolster the program and get the technology we need.

638
00:34:30,200 --> 00:34:34,099
Not just with Blackboard Ally but being able to get the right magnifiers,

639
00:34:34,099 --> 00:34:35,795
being able to get the right equipment,

640
00:34:35,795 --> 00:34:41,300
the right everything and be able to have an ability to pay for it,

641
00:34:41,300 --> 00:34:44,480
which I think that's been huge for us.

642
00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:50,200
It's being able to use that added resources and really figure out a way out.

643
00:34:50,200 --> 00:34:55,210
It's very rare that you get the ability to build a program from scratch and say like,

644
00:34:55,210 --> 00:34:59,519
"Here's this document, build a program around this document."

645
00:34:59,519 --> 00:35:02,240
So, it's a unique position to be in and we really took

646
00:35:02,240 --> 00:35:05,750
full advantage of it across the board.

647
00:35:05,750 --> 00:35:10,865
The other two amazing resources we did get out of the consent decree is Mike and Chad.

648
00:35:10,865 --> 00:35:13,490
Whereas Mike actually was in

649
00:35:13,490 --> 00:35:16,849
Atlantic Cape before and Chad was part of instructional technology,

650
00:35:16,849 --> 00:35:22,340
but the roles they have here now have changed the Atlantic Cape

651
00:35:22,340 --> 00:35:28,520
forever in a positive way and have just really opened up everybody's eyes.

652
00:35:28,520 --> 00:35:31,969
They have been the vehicles by which

653
00:35:31,969 --> 00:35:35,990
they had directed the change of the culture here at Atlanta Cape.

654
00:35:35,990 --> 00:35:41,270
I think by breaking down the silos that had existed across campus for so

655
00:35:41,270 --> 00:35:46,580
long and really being able to work so closely with them, instructional technology,

656
00:35:46,580 --> 00:35:52,970
that's just been a perfect partnership in that we're able to work seamlessly

657
00:35:52,970 --> 00:35:55,910
together on projects where it's not just we're off

658
00:35:55,910 --> 00:35:59,000
doing our thing and then we're on Step 10 and we go,

659
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:01,310
"Hey, what do you think about this?"

660
00:36:01,310 --> 00:36:03,725
And like, "I've been doing this too.

661
00:36:03,725 --> 00:36:07,640
Why don't we." So, our efforts have been combined from the jump.

662
00:36:07,640 --> 00:36:11,330
Then not only just with instructional technology but

663
00:36:11,330 --> 00:36:14,300
working with the academic side of the college, with purchasing,

664
00:36:14,300 --> 00:36:17,570
with every area and every facet

665
00:36:17,570 --> 00:36:20,900
of the college being able to make sure that it's accessible.

666
00:36:20,900 --> 00:36:23,960
So, for instance the college isn't

667
00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:27,770
purchasing any kind of electronic technology without our approval,

668
00:36:27,770 --> 00:36:31,745
without it being completely vetted through the center for accessibility.

669
00:36:31,745 --> 00:36:34,925
So, we're not even buying anything that we know is inaccessible now,

670
00:36:34,925 --> 00:36:37,130
whereas before we just like, "Go ahead and buy it."

671
00:36:37,130 --> 00:36:39,560
Now we're able to go in and look at it and feel like if this is

672
00:36:39,560 --> 00:36:43,130
an accessible product we're not buying it, right?

673
00:36:43,130 --> 00:36:48,410
We have the ability to approve or deny all those things which I think is huge.

674
00:36:48,410 --> 00:36:52,970
We've been able to include a lot in policy changes.

675
00:36:52,970 --> 00:36:54,980
We've changed a lot of different policies now to

676
00:36:54,980 --> 00:36:58,160
include accessibility within those policies now.

677
00:36:58,160 --> 00:36:59,000
So,-

678
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:01,400
Absolutely.

679
00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:04,010
When I see that we've rebuilt the whole thing and we got rid of

680
00:37:04,010 --> 00:37:07,190
every policy and procedure and we rewrote everything.

681
00:37:07,190 --> 00:37:10,160
We just went and we found different institutions that were doing it

682
00:37:10,160 --> 00:37:15,800
right and we just adopted things that other people had done that worked.

683
00:37:15,800 --> 00:37:18,500
We took things that we were doing that worked and we built this

684
00:37:18,500 --> 00:37:22,430
around best practices from all over the place,

685
00:37:22,430 --> 00:37:25,925
and then realized that we could create our own philosophy, right?

686
00:37:25,925 --> 00:37:28,205
We looked at our population of students.

687
00:37:28,205 --> 00:37:31,020
It's a unique community college.

688
00:37:32,100 --> 00:37:38,810
We service students in the community and a lot of our students are on the fringe,

689
00:37:38,810 --> 00:37:41,300
even if you take the disability completely out of it.

690
00:37:41,300 --> 00:37:44,135
Even to walk in the front door is a huge success.

691
00:37:44,135 --> 00:37:48,305
So, what could we do from an accessibility standpoint to be able to

692
00:37:48,305 --> 00:37:54,750
scaffold these students and to be able to make them feel like they can be successful?

693
00:37:55,330 --> 00:37:58,985
We've built a program around that.

694
00:37:58,985 --> 00:38:02,030
Also, we want to get what we do without the team that's here,

695
00:38:02,030 --> 00:38:09,365
without the culture of the institution stepping in and allowing us to build this thing.

696
00:38:09,365 --> 00:38:12,680
I think by large it's been pretty successful thus far.

697
00:38:12,680 --> 00:38:16,400
You were talking about student success and the benefits for all students and

698
00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:20,015
I shared with you all your alternative format downloads recently.

699
00:38:20,015 --> 00:38:23,225
It sounds like people are pretty excited to hear that number.

700
00:38:23,225 --> 00:38:24,920
They're very excited because you know what?

701
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:30,020
That's a part of Ally that our faculty don't really think about a whole lot.

702
00:38:30,020 --> 00:38:34,490
Because they think about the indicators and do I have green or red whatever,

703
00:38:34,490 --> 00:38:36,950
but they don't really think about the fact that now

704
00:38:36,950 --> 00:38:40,760
their content isn't just like that one accessible file they put up there,

705
00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:44,285
but now there's several other ways that students can

706
00:38:44,285 --> 00:38:48,050
also get this content in a way that they never could before.

707
00:38:48,050 --> 00:38:49,775
That just makes their life,

708
00:38:49,775 --> 00:38:53,075
their learning experience a better one.

709
00:38:53,075 --> 00:38:56,060
You were speaking to that point earlier Chad,

710
00:38:56,060 --> 00:39:00,050
about broadening the conversation to that UDL,

711
00:39:00,050 --> 00:39:04,970
thinking about the usability of the course and opening up a lot of those principles.

712
00:39:04,970 --> 00:39:10,490
Do you want to talk about maybe what you see as you all move further down the road here?

713
00:39:10,490 --> 00:39:13,535
Well, we're definitely focused more on universal design.

714
00:39:13,535 --> 00:39:15,800
There's a lot of different aspects to universal design

715
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:19,475
but just the organization structure to the course.

716
00:39:19,475 --> 00:39:22,850
It's extremely beneficial for student success,

717
00:39:22,850 --> 00:39:26,000
but I think what we're finding too is how faculty member can actually have

718
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:29,780
a dialogue with students about certain things that they never knew before.

719
00:39:29,780 --> 00:39:32,780
So, we have a student in your class that relies on a screen reader.

720
00:39:32,780 --> 00:39:34,430
We have a faculty member now saying,

721
00:39:34,430 --> 00:39:36,830
"I know what screen reader is" I'm aware of

722
00:39:36,830 --> 00:39:39,980
that tool and I can build contents so that that will work that way.

723
00:39:39,980 --> 00:39:41,900
So that's a huge benefit.

724
00:39:41,900 --> 00:39:44,075
That's one of the big changes that we're seeing that

725
00:39:44,075 --> 00:39:46,460
actual conversations that are happening.

726
00:39:46,460 --> 00:39:49,310
Prior to this, you probably said I don't know what a screen reader is.

727
00:39:49,310 --> 00:39:52,280
So go see disability support services and

728
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:55,460
get a combination of something while now it's like, "No, we can work with that.

729
00:39:55,460 --> 00:39:58,430
As a matter of fact, there's an alternative versions right here in blackboard.

730
00:39:58,430 --> 00:40:00,425
Let me show you. Click this button" type of deal.

731
00:40:00,425 --> 00:40:03,125
So, faculty are definitely more

732
00:40:03,125 --> 00:40:05,960
open to discussing these type of things with their students.

733
00:40:05,960 --> 00:40:08,375
There is a lot of dialogue, which is good.

734
00:40:08,375 --> 00:40:12,785
Yeah. I'll just point out prior to this whole thing,

735
00:40:12,785 --> 00:40:15,575
the word accessibility was not required in syllabus.

736
00:40:15,575 --> 00:40:17,960
So, it wasn't really a thing that a student

737
00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:20,780
even had the opportunity to bring up with their instructor.

738
00:40:20,780 --> 00:40:23,960
One of the first policy changes you guys can correct me and all

739
00:40:23,960 --> 00:40:26,780
that is that there had to be a little blurb in every syllabus thing.

740
00:40:26,780 --> 00:40:29,090
"Hey, we have these resources available,

741
00:40:29,090 --> 00:40:32,600
here's the contact information to reach out for that."

742
00:40:32,600 --> 00:40:34,940
Part of that is now with the very first class.

743
00:40:34,940 --> 00:40:37,250
You hand out the syllabus. Hey, it's right there in writing.

744
00:40:37,250 --> 00:40:39,290
If the student was curious about something,

745
00:40:39,290 --> 00:40:41,270
they can bring it up with their instructor or they can just

746
00:40:41,270 --> 00:40:43,955
go straight to CFA to take care of it.

747
00:40:43,955 --> 00:40:48,365
That's part of the reasons when we rebuilt the program, we rebranded it.

748
00:40:48,365 --> 00:40:49,610
It was for years,

749
00:40:49,610 --> 00:40:51,740
it was disability support services.

750
00:40:51,740 --> 00:40:54,080
So, the first thing that we did was we took that out and

751
00:40:54,080 --> 00:40:56,615
threw it away and changed it to the Center for Accessibility.

752
00:40:56,615 --> 00:40:58,970
That's at the bare bones.

753
00:40:58,970 --> 00:41:00,755
That's what we do, is we make

754
00:41:00,755 --> 00:41:04,340
things accessible for students not distractions with disabilities.

755
00:41:04,340 --> 00:41:06,590
So statements like that on the syllabus,

756
00:41:06,590 --> 00:41:09,200
we were able to do that and link that directly back to

757
00:41:09,200 --> 00:41:13,340
an office instead of just being just random statement.

758
00:41:13,340 --> 00:41:16,910
Any other policy things that you wanted to mention,

759
00:41:16,910 --> 00:41:19,310
any other things that you instituted you thought were

760
00:41:19,310 --> 00:41:21,920
pretty effective and in creating that culture shift?

761
00:41:21,920 --> 00:41:24,770
I'm sure a lot of other institutions would love to hear about.

762
00:41:24,770 --> 00:41:27,420
Well, we did the 90 percent green.

763
00:41:27,970 --> 00:41:30,830
I don't know if you want to mention that, but yeah.

764
00:41:30,830 --> 00:41:34,310
Yeah, we did have a goal or challenge.

765
00:41:34,310 --> 00:41:37,940
You emphasize 90 percent and you say that we're had a standard that we were looking for.

766
00:41:37,940 --> 00:41:41,090
Right, that the Office of Academic Affairs put out,

767
00:41:41,090 --> 00:41:42,350
where they told faculty,

768
00:41:42,350 --> 00:41:46,730
they wanted everybody to strive towards

769
00:41:46,730 --> 00:41:51,590
a 100 percent accessibility but they really wouldn't accept anything below 90 percent.

770
00:41:51,590 --> 00:41:55,280
So as a result of that,

771
00:41:55,280 --> 00:42:00,830
we had Josh here develop a way to extract the data that the Deans actually

772
00:42:00,830 --> 00:42:07,115
look at the accessibility of all of our active courses on a weekly basis.

773
00:42:07,115 --> 00:42:12,290
Anybody that dips below that number gets an email from the Dean,

774
00:42:12,290 --> 00:42:15,080
"Hey, there's something going on in your course.

775
00:42:15,080 --> 00:42:17,945
Did you upload some new content that you need help with?

776
00:42:17,945 --> 00:42:19,910
We have these resources.

777
00:42:19,910 --> 00:42:23,555
Do you have it in an alternative format we're not aware of?

778
00:42:23,555 --> 00:42:27,290
If so, let us know so we're aware."

779
00:42:27,290 --> 00:42:32,375
So, that definitely was huge in our success.

780
00:42:32,375 --> 00:42:34,760
Again, that's administration support.

781
00:42:34,760 --> 00:42:36,410
You need the backbone.

782
00:42:36,410 --> 00:42:40,310
You need the muscle from the top and you need the workers

783
00:42:40,310 --> 00:42:44,615
from the bottom to have that perfect success I think.

784
00:42:44,615 --> 00:42:45,890
Absolutely.

785
00:42:45,890 --> 00:42:48,950
I mean, not this isn't specific to Ally,

786
00:42:48,950 --> 00:42:53,555
but one of the things that we implemented that I think we've seen a big success on is,

787
00:42:53,555 --> 00:42:57,210
being a community college we see a lot of older students.

788
00:42:57,310 --> 00:43:03,800
Like a lot of institutions that we are one of them in order to receive accommodations,

789
00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:07,220
we have to provide documentation of your disability.

790
00:43:07,220 --> 00:43:11,060
We were only accepting documentation that was,

791
00:43:11,060 --> 00:43:13,715
less than five years old.

792
00:43:13,715 --> 00:43:17,390
So, and making students go if it was older than five years,

793
00:43:17,390 --> 00:43:19,625
they can go out and get re-evaluated,

794
00:43:19,625 --> 00:43:21,875
at their own cost.

795
00:43:21,875 --> 00:43:24,170
I've seen most institutions are

796
00:43:24,170 --> 00:43:26,210
doing this but when I was going or going through regarding this,

797
00:43:26,210 --> 00:43:28,925
we realized we don't, we really have to do that.

798
00:43:28,925 --> 00:43:31,325
We don't really have to have this barrier so,

799
00:43:31,325 --> 00:43:35,300
it's kind of the idea for five of the students has documentation that they have

800
00:43:35,300 --> 00:43:39,470
autism but the documentation is from 2010.

801
00:43:39,470 --> 00:43:42,349
There's a really good chance they still have autism,

802
00:43:42,349 --> 00:43:45,950
and what kind of a barrier am I putting in place now for the student saying, oh great,

803
00:43:45,950 --> 00:43:48,215
I have this IEP from high school,

804
00:43:48,215 --> 00:43:49,955
that says you have autism,

805
00:43:49,955 --> 00:43:53,990
but it's not, we can't take it anymore.

806
00:43:53,990 --> 00:43:56,300
So, I'm going to need you to go out and spend

807
00:43:56,300 --> 00:43:59,615
a thousand bucks to get re-evaluated to tell me something that I already know.

808
00:43:59,615 --> 00:44:01,400
We threw out the window, we got rid of it.

809
00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:06,575
So, as always we get something from a licensed professional,

810
00:44:06,575 --> 00:44:08,780
we're going to take it and we're going to work with

811
00:44:08,780 --> 00:44:11,090
every student also comes in and meets with us.

812
00:44:11,090 --> 00:44:13,410
So, we don't really

813
00:44:14,230 --> 00:44:18,950
go on the days where a student just sends off a piece of documentation,

814
00:44:18,950 --> 00:44:20,180
we give them accommodation.

815
00:44:20,180 --> 00:44:21,440
They come in and we come up with

816
00:44:21,440 --> 00:44:26,375
an individualized plan and if their plan involves accessibility and technology,

817
00:44:26,375 --> 00:44:28,220
they're going to go and meet with Chad and develop

818
00:44:28,220 --> 00:44:31,010
an individual technology plan

819
00:44:31,010 --> 00:44:33,920
to be able to suit them and this is, we're in high schools now.

820
00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:36,635
So we're talking to kids or juniors in high school now,

821
00:44:36,635 --> 00:44:39,830
that identified Atlantic Cape is the place that they're going to come.

822
00:44:39,830 --> 00:44:41,360
We're working with them now,

823
00:44:41,360 --> 00:44:43,835
on technology plans, still in high school.

824
00:44:43,835 --> 00:44:46,745
So, trying to get this technology in their hands now,

825
00:44:46,745 --> 00:44:49,655
so that when they come to Atlantic Cape,

826
00:44:49,655 --> 00:44:52,730
they're proficient in the use of that technology already.

827
00:44:52,730 --> 00:44:54,770
So, we're really dialing it back.

828
00:44:54,770 --> 00:44:59,090
So, we know for instance like how many visually impaired students,

829
00:44:59,090 --> 00:45:02,300
how many deaf students are in our catchment area that may

830
00:45:02,300 --> 00:45:06,155
possibly come to Atlantic Cape at some point over the next five years.

831
00:45:06,155 --> 00:45:09,170
So we're ready, and they know that we have a resource here.

832
00:45:09,170 --> 00:45:10,625
They also come on campus.

833
00:45:10,625 --> 00:45:12,260
You don't have to be a student here to come in

834
00:45:12,260 --> 00:45:13,820
and talk with us and learn about the resource,

835
00:45:13,820 --> 00:45:18,275
learn what we can do, how to support you irregardless of where you go to college.

836
00:45:18,275 --> 00:45:24,060
So, I think it's been a good success for us, policy wise.

837
00:45:24,060 --> 00:45:28,340
It's our policy wise but one of the new Blackboard Ally tools that we are

838
00:45:28,340 --> 00:45:32,435
actually or abilities that we are using is,

839
00:45:32,435 --> 00:45:38,420
we had to develop or Mike developed a form that students could click on and

840
00:45:38,420 --> 00:45:41,030
fill out if they do happen to go through

841
00:45:41,030 --> 00:45:44,750
their Blackboard course and find a piece of content that wasn't accessible.

842
00:45:44,750 --> 00:45:48,065
They could click on that link and it takes them to a form,

843
00:45:48,065 --> 00:45:50,690
then goes to Chad and Mike so they can help the professor

844
00:45:50,690 --> 00:45:53,780
identify what the content is and make it more accessible.

845
00:45:53,780 --> 00:45:56,060
We were able to use that new feature,

846
00:45:56,060 --> 00:45:57,710
where you could include

847
00:45:57,710 --> 00:46:02,195
that automatic help feedback to the student to put in a direct link to that form.

848
00:46:02,195 --> 00:46:05,690
So as the student clicks on the piece of content and that's not

849
00:46:05,690 --> 00:46:07,130
working for them and they go through

850
00:46:07,130 --> 00:46:09,500
the alternative formats and they're not working for them,

851
00:46:09,500 --> 00:46:13,310
then right there, they're taken to the form that goes straight to those guys

852
00:46:13,310 --> 00:46:18,270
to help them to get their content in a format that's actually going to work for them.

853
00:46:18,370 --> 00:46:22,700
Very cool. Any closing thoughts?

854
00:46:22,700 --> 00:46:25,550
You want me to expand just a minute longer,

855
00:46:25,550 --> 00:46:28,490
I know because you wanted some stuff on universal design.

856
00:46:28,490 --> 00:46:31,235
Where we're at though in terms of training,

857
00:46:31,235 --> 00:46:33,770
we did a lot of training for accessibility,

858
00:46:33,770 --> 00:46:37,760
meaning you can use an automated tool to see if something is accessible,

859
00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:39,200
just like Blackboard Ally.

860
00:46:39,200 --> 00:46:41,435
So, our faculty really understand

861
00:46:41,435 --> 00:46:44,690
what accessibility is and how to make something compliant.

862
00:46:44,690 --> 00:46:48,080
But now, we're trying to educate them a little bit more on usability and

863
00:46:48,080 --> 00:46:51,590
why we're doing the things that we're doing for student success.

864
00:46:51,590 --> 00:46:53,285
The student experience side of it.

865
00:46:53,285 --> 00:46:57,350
So that's what we're catering towards our workshops now,

866
00:46:57,350 --> 00:47:00,320
in the future, adjusting to that.

867
00:47:00,320 --> 00:47:04,550
So, in other words you can run a document through an accessibility checker and get

868
00:47:04,550 --> 00:47:06,260
the green light because

869
00:47:06,260 --> 00:47:09,770
the accessibility checker might say that you have alternative text on an image,

870
00:47:09,770 --> 00:47:13,700
but is the alternative text good for the context of the lesson?

871
00:47:13,700 --> 00:47:16,925
Is it really a quality alternative text.

872
00:47:16,925 --> 00:47:20,660
So that's where the conversation is heading now at our school,

873
00:47:20,660 --> 00:47:22,665
quality in universal front.

874
00:47:22,665 --> 00:47:24,550
Let me as one challenge question,

875
00:47:24,550 --> 00:47:27,100
while I read this one back in at another part.

876
00:47:27,100 --> 00:47:30,370
But as far as you mentioned some faculty,

877
00:47:30,370 --> 00:47:31,570
because I've heard this one before,

878
00:47:31,570 --> 00:47:33,580
some faculty saying I'm going to yank

879
00:47:33,580 --> 00:47:36,465
my content out of there so that it doesn't get checked.

880
00:47:36,465 --> 00:47:39,680
What's been the strategies in trying to address that?

881
00:47:39,680 --> 00:47:42,290
Do you see that starting to change a little as they see

882
00:47:42,290 --> 00:47:45,725
other faculty get green and feel more comfortable with it?

883
00:47:45,725 --> 00:47:46,985
No, yeah. Number one,

884
00:47:46,985 --> 00:47:48,830
our message from our departments and we do

885
00:47:48,830 --> 00:47:51,350
workshops is never ever pull content down like that.

886
00:47:51,350 --> 00:47:54,395
That's not the way this institution operates,

887
00:47:54,395 --> 00:47:57,140
and that's not the way we're trying to operate.

888
00:47:57,140 --> 00:47:58,640
That's really not an option.

889
00:47:58,640 --> 00:48:01,310
The option is to identify where the barriers are,

890
00:48:01,310 --> 00:48:03,620
the struggles for accessibility and reach out to

891
00:48:03,620 --> 00:48:06,245
the support circles in order come up with a resolution.

892
00:48:06,245 --> 00:48:09,799
So, if we keep doing that rhetoric,

893
00:48:09,799 --> 00:48:11,435
then that's what's going to happen.

894
00:48:11,435 --> 00:48:13,490
If we have a rhetoric of take it down,

895
00:48:13,490 --> 00:48:14,600
it can to make excessive of work.

896
00:48:14,600 --> 00:48:16,040
It's too hard, don't worry about it,

897
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:17,630
then that's the result you're going to get.

898
00:48:17,630 --> 00:48:19,730
So, we're not really looking at that result.

899
00:48:19,730 --> 00:48:22,820
We don't say that rhetoric.

900
00:48:22,820 --> 00:48:24,680
We don't, we try to do,

901
00:48:24,680 --> 00:48:27,725
push them in the positive direction of trying to,

902
00:48:27,725 --> 00:48:29,300
we absorb the challenges,

903
00:48:29,300 --> 00:48:32,975
we look forward to a challenge and try to come up with a solution for it, so.

904
00:48:32,975 --> 00:48:36,545
I think a lot of it too is just having real talk with

905
00:48:36,545 --> 00:48:41,255
faculty members and just when we're noticing that content's removed,

906
00:48:41,255 --> 00:48:46,249
the content's not reflective of the course,

907
00:48:46,249 --> 00:48:49,085
having blatant purposeful conversations

908
00:48:49,085 --> 00:48:52,010
with that faculty member and just trying to figure out why,

909
00:48:52,010 --> 00:48:55,805
figuring out what's the rationale behind it.

910
00:48:55,805 --> 00:48:58,430
Then, just taking things from there,

911
00:48:58,430 --> 00:49:02,270
just realizing what like Chad had said it's not the culture of the institution.

912
00:49:02,270 --> 00:49:05,870
We've been collectively working really hard for a long time

913
00:49:05,870 --> 00:49:09,890
to build this culture and that's counter to what that culture is and

914
00:49:09,890 --> 00:49:14,105
what the mission of the college and the Center for Accessibility and all of

915
00:49:14,105 --> 00:49:20,975
the other offices and it's not acceptable and it's kind won't be tolerated.

916
00:49:20,975 --> 00:49:24,750
We do have the support of,

917
00:49:25,780 --> 00:49:30,410
all the way up to make sure that this stuff happens.

918
00:49:30,410 --> 00:49:34,100
But I think communication and real talk and just making sure

919
00:49:34,100 --> 00:49:40,835
that once people I think realize how non-difficult it is,

920
00:49:40,835 --> 00:49:42,350
that's when we start to see that shift.

921
00:49:42,350 --> 00:49:45,440
So I think, having those conversations and not sort

922
00:49:45,440 --> 00:49:49,085
of beating around the bush so to speakers, is really important.

923
00:49:49,085 --> 00:49:50,585
And you said the examples.

924
00:49:50,585 --> 00:49:54,515
I mean we have examples in classes about how this was made accessible.

925
00:49:54,515 --> 00:49:56,660
Well, I don't know how to make that. Is it possible to do that?

926
00:49:56,660 --> 00:49:57,950
I say, "No hold on, let me show you."

927
00:49:57,950 --> 00:49:58,400
Exactly.

928
00:49:58,400 --> 00:49:59,720
We have different ways of doing it.

929
00:49:59,720 --> 00:50:00,965
We've done it over here this way,

930
00:50:00,965 --> 00:50:02,450
maybe you can implement that.

931
00:50:02,450 --> 00:50:05,720
When they see that their peers are able to do

932
00:50:05,720 --> 00:50:09,065
it and maybe they think outside the box a little bit,

933
00:50:09,065 --> 00:50:12,770
to get it done, that's the direction that we push people in.

934
00:50:12,770 --> 00:50:15,020
It's a bit of a strange statement because when

935
00:50:15,020 --> 00:50:16,640
you're saying I'm going to pull my content down,

936
00:50:16,640 --> 00:50:19,370
you're basically saying I don't want to give my students the ability to learn this.

937
00:50:19,370 --> 00:50:22,805
So, it's an odd starting point for something like that to say that.

938
00:50:22,805 --> 00:50:27,950
I'm going to remove resources from my students, then okay.

939
00:50:27,950 --> 00:50:31,670
I mean, if that's going to be your starting point as a teacher,

940
00:50:31,670 --> 00:50:33,905
you probably have other things you got to look at.

941
00:50:33,905 --> 00:50:35,580
Yeah.

942
00:50:35,740 --> 00:50:39,305
All right. That's a wrap.

943
00:50:39,305 --> 00:50:42,350
Wow. Hearing from the team in Atlantic Cape,

944
00:50:42,350 --> 00:50:45,545
I mean what an amazing, amazing story.

945
00:50:45,545 --> 00:50:49,070
They deserve major kudos for leading their campus and really

946
00:50:49,070 --> 00:50:53,420
turning a tough situation into a triumph for inclusive learning.

947
00:50:53,420 --> 00:50:57,530
So next stop, we'll be continuing on the northeast leg of the tour

948
00:50:57,530 --> 00:51:01,970
with visits to William Paterson University from the University of Connecticut.

949
00:51:01,970 --> 00:51:06,480
Until then, good luck on your road to IncluCity.

950
00:51:07,090 --> 00:51:13,190
Join the tour along with the rest of the Ally community at tour.ally.ac.

951
00:51:13,190 --> 00:51:18,980
You can catch the latest updates on Instagram and Twitter at #AllyTour2019 and

952
00:51:18,980 --> 00:51:21,979
listen to stories of inclusion from our community champions

953
00:51:21,979 --> 00:51:25,070
on the Ally Tour 2019 podcast series,

954
00:51:25,070 --> 00:51:28,565
available on SoundCloud or in your favorite podcast app.

955
00:51:28,565 --> 00:51:33,900
We'll look forward to seeing you at the next stop on the road to IncluCity.