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Members Present: Biles, Bosco, Erdwien, Knous, Korkill, Rabold, Richter
(chair), Simmonds (by video from Salina). Ted Knous has replaced John Murray
as representative of the graduate school on the committee.
Guest: Dr. Fred Newton, Director, Counseling Center
Meeting was called to order at approximately 3:00 p.m. Minutes from the meeting of April 18 were approved as distributed.
Emergency Services Link on Home Page: Fred Newton was invited to explain the need to have some sort of web access to important crisis management contacts. A somewhat loosely-defined crisis management committee meets monthly, including representatives of the Dean of Student Life, Counseling Services, Lafene Health Center, university police, the Women's Center, and others. The committee proposes that there be one or more "front-page" linkages to a page that would provide these contacts. The committee discussed placement--in pop-ups, in headers or footers, and/or under the directory button. Neil Erdwien and Janelle Corkill will do some mock- ups for committee consideration. Fred will work with them on identifying the appropriate content for the linked page.
We need to keep in mind the need to include Salina's emergency contact information as well as Manhattan's.
Accessibility Issues: Janelle distributed a set of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines for the State of Kansas, prepared by the Kansas Information Technology Executive Council (ITEC). These guidelines, effective October 26, 2000, may be found on the web:
http://da.state.ks.us/itec/WASPriorities102600.htm
The underlying principle for these guidelines is that the web should be accessible to all. One concern is termed "Graceful Transformation," i.e., that people should not be denied web content because of "physical, sensory, or environmental constraints, or technological barriers." Another is "Making Content Understandable and Navigable," which concerns both content language and navigability issues. K-State and other state agencies are expected to be in compliance by March 2002.
The committee discussed some of the challenges the university will face in responding to this expectation. Many of the scores of thousands of existing pages are not in compliance and the units that maintain the pages are not likely to have the expertise to comply. The committee agreed that this is an important issue, but had no clear answers on how to address the problem. Janelle pointed out that there were both "carrot" and "stick" considerations: the latter including whatever sanctions might be tied to enforcement of the guidelines, the former relating to the fact that university web designers ought to be concerned about whether their pages are being read, or indeed can be read, by intended audiences.
We agreed to carry discussion over to subsequent meetings, with emphasis on the "how" questions. CNS is dealing with templates that will be shared with the committee. Richter offered to communicate these concerns to Provost Coffman, Vice Provost Unger, University Compliance Officer Jane Rowlett, and Disability Services Director Gretchen Holden. Richter also noted that the particular issue of accessibility raises many of the same issues as the next item on the agenda.
Problems of Second-Level Pages: Janelle continued the discussion, begun at the April 18 meeting, of the problems of consistency in existing second-level K-State pages. The outline of the presentation may be found on the web:
http://www.ksu.edu/committees/webdesign/2001-04-18/consistency.html
All agreed that the sites noted were dramatic examples of problems. The question that was less clear was how best to deal with these matters. Bosco suggested the holding of "Super Web Day" at which examples such as these could be noted and training could be provided. Biles questioned whether it would be better to begin with the negative (such as these examples) or the positive (exemplary sites).
Meeting time ended before further options could be explored. The final agenda item, on unit home page links, was postponed until the next meeting, June 20. Meetings will be held the third Wednesday of each month in June and July, from 3:00 to 5:00.
Meeting was adjourned at about 5:00.
Respectfully submitted,
William L. Richter
Chair and acting secretary
