Section 508 Amendment of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 - Info Tech. Accessibility Stand.

Publication: Marketing Handbook

Policy Statement

Carolina University complies with Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Section 508 standards are based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) established by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

Policy Procedures

Compliance with Section 508 standards is required by law. The standards most relevant to a typical CU website are summarized below:

1. A text equivalent must be provided for every non-text element. Non-text elements include images, audio, video and programmatic objects, such as plug-ins and applets.
2. Link text should be informative and give context. For example, use “Download the Pentateuch Study Guide (PDF)” rather than “Click here to download.”
3. Web documents must be designed such that information conveyed with color is equally available without color. High contrast between backgrounds and text must be maintained.
4. Web documents must be organized so as to be readable without requiring an associated style sheet.
5. If image maps are used, redundant text links must be provided for each active region of the image map.
6. Web documents should be fully accessible when using only a keyboard.
7. When web documents use scripting languages, the page must remain usable when scripts are turned off or not supported.
8. When web documents use scripting languages or plug-ins to display dynamic content, the information provided by the script or plug-in must either be accessible, or an alternative presentation or page must be provided.
9. When compliance cannot be accomplished in any other way, a text-only page with equivalent information or functionality must be provided. The content of the text-only page must be updated whenever the primary page is updated.
10. Row and column headers must be identified in data tables.
11. For data tables with two or more logical levels of row and column headers, markup must be used to associate data cells and header cells.
12. Frames must be titled with descriptive text facilitating frame identification and navigation.
13. Online forms must be designed to ensure that people using assistive technology are able to access all form fields, functionality, and instructional information needed to complete and submit a form.
14. When video is embedded on a web page, a transcript or closed captions should be made available.

For additional information and guidelines, see: https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/

For technical questions regarding accessibility requirements, contact the Marketing and Communication Department.