MERLOT Accessibility Policy

MERLOT is in the process of being compliant with ADA priority one standards as mandated by TITLE IV, SECTION 508, of REHABILITATION ACT AMENDMENTS OF 1998. MERLOT is undergoing testing for compliance with JAWS v 3.7, Bobby v 3.2, Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool created by CSU Fresno and available at http://csufresno.edu/webaccess/resources/waet.html and a validator provided by the W3consortium. Some items previously flagged that required human judgment. These items are:

• Web pages shall be designed so that all information conveyed with color is also available without color, for example from context or markup.
• Rows and column headers shall be identified for data tables.
• Markup shall be used to associate data cells and header cells for data tables that have two or more logical levels of row or column headers.
• Pages shall be designed to avoid causing the screen to flicker with a frequency greater than 2 Hz and lower than 55 Hz.
• A text-only page with equivalent information shall be provided when compliance cannot be accomplished.
• When pages utilize scripting languages to display content, or to create interface elements, the information provided by the script shall be identified with functional text that can be read by assistive technology.

MERLOT is not responsible for the ADA compliance of sites who's links are listed in MERLOT.

History of MERLOT ADA compliance actions:

• Tables used to display the front page design were written so that they could be read correctly in later versions of JAWS.
• Images and submit buttons have been coded in html tags that contain descriptive alt attributes.
• There are no style sheets.
• Image maps were coded in html tags that contain descriptive alt attributes.
• The client-side, drop-down menu, written in javascript proved difficult to navigate with a screen reader, and has been removed. Go buttons are provided with the remaining javascript drop-down menus, which makes the links accessible to a screen reader.
• The ability to sort materials by title, author, date entered, rating and item type can be accomplished with a go button as well as by clicking on the headings. It is always good to provide alternate methods of navigation (alternate routes) to accommodate users with various disabilities.
• Discipline Communities can now be reached from the Communities tab in the header bar.
• While the header bar colors may be hard to distinguish by some visually impaired viewers, they are not needed to navigate the site. The navigation links are text that is accessible by a text reader and screen reader.