Meeting accessibility guidelines: lessons from Australia

The internet is regarded as a hub for information, commerce and education and this raises issues of universal access for citizens being able to participate in a knowledge-driven economy. Universal access to the internet has become a human rights issue that allows all members of a society, including people with disabilities, the right to access its vast repository of information. In Australia, the Disability Discrimination Act of 1992 makes it is unlawful to discriminate against people with disability. However, the Act is not specific about online accessibility. It does not, for instance, include reference to the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Guidelines as does the US Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. According to research reported in this paper, we found that the majority of websites in Australian educational institutions have significant obstacles that would make it difficult for people with disabilities to use. The central question posed by this paper is: Why is it that, despite best intentions, policy frameworks, the availability of a wealth of resources, testing devices and so on, many vocational education and training websites and resources fail to comply with the accessibility standards? It concludes that with the rapid development of Rich Internet Applications (RIA) technologies, the ability of education providers to reach accessibility standards becomes even more important as a focus for institutional policy development and implementation.