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Accessibility of Electronic Materials Guidelines
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Principles

The Disability Discrimination Act of 1992 makes it unlawful to discriminate against a person on the grounds of that person's disability. This includes denying access, or limiting access, to any benefit provided by the University, including provision of information and support services and provision of learning materials.

All University staff who are involved in developing material to be delivered in electronic format are responsible for ensuring that materials for all students and staff are available in an 'accessible' format where it can be reasonably provided. This responsibility extends to staff from all faculties, Knowledge Media, ITSD and other divisions, and Deakin Prime, and applies to all materials provided in electronic format on-line, in CD-ROM format, or on floppy disk.

The Accessibility of Electronic Materials Policy is based on the 'Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0'. Examples of how WCAG checkpoints can be implemented within a web site are available in the document, 'Techniques for Creating Accessible Electronic Materials'.

Checklist for general principles of accessibility
  1. The needs of various user groups need to be considered in planning the web site. Have you catered for users who:
    a) are not able to process some types of information easily?
    b) have difficulty reading or comprehending text?
    c) are unable to use a keyboard or a mouse?
    d) are not fluent in the English language?

Yes
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No
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  1. Key Principles
    a) Do your web pages/documents make sense if the user can't see or hear?
    b) Have you separated the structure of the site from its presentation?
    c) Have you provided text alternatives for visual content?
    d) Do your documents rely on specialist hardware to run successfully?
 Yes
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[ ]		 No
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  1. All text-based information has been checked for spelling and grammar accuracy and edited for currency and accuracy in the information?
 Yes
[ ]		 No
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  1. Has the site/file been tested on a range of:
    a) operating systems (Mac/Win/?)
    b) Internet browsers? (Internet Explorer/Mozilla Firefox/Safari)
 Yes
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[ ]		 No
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  1. Has the content and structure of the site been reviewed for clarity and simplicity?
 Yes
[ ]		 No
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  1. Have you checked all the links to make sure they are working correctly?
    (W3C Link checker may be helpful with this)
 Yes
[ ]		 No
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