Building a community of practice for digital accessibility

It's our goal to empower our network of site managers to treat accessibility-related improvements as must-do actions. A key part of our efforts is ensuring access to tools and knowledge along with an awareness of the importance of accessibility. Having a governance framework in place that references legal considerations also helps.

But is this enough? Are there actions can we take to foster a real passion for building accessible websites?

How about building a digital accessibility community of practice?

In this presentation, you'll learn from our experiences building a community of practice for digital accessibility at McGill University.

1. Land acknowledgement I’m presenting to you from land which has long served as a site of meeting and exchange amongst Indigenous peoples, including the Haudenosaunee and Anishinabeg nations. I acknowledge and thank the diverse Indigenous peoples whose presence marks this territory on which peoples of the world now gather.

2. Building a community of practice for digital accessibility HighEdWeb 2024 Accessibility Summit Slides: https://mcgill.ca/x/wxB

3. Hi, I’m Joyce Joyce Peralta Manager, Digital Communications at McGill University user experience | web governance | web strategy linkedin.com/in/joyceperalta @theotherlondon

4. McGill’s web landscape 1000 Drupal sites + 500 non-templated sites 1500 site managers 8-10 million page views per month

5. Better digital Standards 101 Photo by Eugenio Mazzone on Unsplash

6. Digital standards compliance Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash

7. Better digital standards

8. Keynote by Hillary Hartley at a Drupal Event in Toronto, Canada

9. McGill’s digital standards

10. Better digital standards = Improved standards compliance = Better websites

11. Digital standards supporting resources Photo by Eugenio Mazzone on Unsplash Governance framework Education and training Toolkits and other self-serve resources Consultation support for large projects Ongoing communications

12. Endless possibilities Photo by Guille Álvarez on Unsplash

13. Building our digital standards community of practice.

14. Community of practice definition Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly . (Lave & Wenger, 1991)

15. Communities of practice How do we inspire people to share a concern or passion for our standards? How to we encourage people to continually learn about out digital standards? How do we make it possible for people to interact as they learn?

16. The people of our digital standards community of practice.

17. Members of McGill’s Digital Standards Community of Practice Audience members Developers and system admins Executive staff External partners Institutional stakeholders Site managers and editors

18. Nothing about us without us. Illustration by RIcardo Levins Morales – Art for the People .

19. Defining and evolving our digital accessibility standards Responsible Accountable Consulted Informed Manager, Digital Communications, Digital Communications team Accessibility Advisor, McGill Equity team Director, Digital Communications, Communications and External Relations Director, IT Communications, IT Services Associate Provost (Equity and Academic Policies) Equity Team, Accessibility Advisor (add other roles) Communications and External Relations IT Services, NCS, Web Services Team Office for Student Accessibility and Achievement Student Usability Panel Web Advisory Committee Members of our site manager and editor community People involved in producing digital content for our community. People whose work may be impacted by our digital standards.

20. Web and digital governance

21. Identifying audience requirements

22. Education, training and other resources

23. Digital standards training Live workshop format Interactive and conversational A starting point for learning and developing skills

24. Communicate priorities

25. Take aways

26. Lessons learned Produce better digital standards Foster a community of practice Ensure strong representation of people with disabilities

27. The impact of our actions "Representations here and now have real consequences for real people, not just in the way they are treated ... but in terms of the way representations delimit and enable what people can be in any given society.” Richard Dyer, The Matter of Images: Essays on Representations , 2002

28. Questions

29. Appendix A: McGill students with a disability (Fall 2022) 8.8% Yes, I identify as a person with a disability 91.2% No, I do not identify as a person with a disability

30. Appendix B: McGill tenure-stream academics with a disability (2021)

31. Appendix C: People with disabilities in Canada (2022)