Office of the Assemblies

Conveyed by N. Rogers.

Dear President Pollack,<br /><br />It is my pleasure to convey to you Resolution 13: Cornell Commitment to Web Accessibility<br /><br />This is a resolution similar to the Employee Assembly's Resolution 4 and the University Assembly's Resolution 6 where the GPSA heartily endorses the tremendous amount of work that Jeramy Kruser has done to create an actionable set of objectives for Cornell to address the issue of Web Accessibility. <br /><br />I know that Interim President Rawlings created a working group in response to the EA's resolution, but I'd like to respond to his specific issues with items 5,6,7, and 8.<br /><br />Item 5: It is my understanding that an annual survey of the cornell.edu domain would be an almost entirely automated process using freely available software specifically designed for this purpose and would require minmal manual effort. Of course, someone will need to interpret the results and make a brief summary available, but I am of the understanding that this particular case should not be an administrative burden. If the working group can verify that information, I would urge you to reconsider President Rawling's refusal.<br /><br />Item 6: I understand wanting to have further input from the working group before setting what seems to be an arbitary goal. However, I would like to offer that the working group carefully consider meeting this goal explictly since that is what has been requested by the EA, UA, and now GPSA. If the working group should choose to set a different goal, I just ask that they provide a clear and reasonable justification for why that specific number versus the 85% within 5 years.<br /><br />Item 7: Like Item 6, it is my understanding that when Jeramy Kruser originally came up with these figures it was after many conversations with Cornell IT staff and other stakeholders, and these number are what they deemed to be feaisable. Therefore, if the working group chooses to go with a different standard, we would very much like to know why.<br /><br />Item 8: With the constant evolution of Cornell's digital presence, intuitively, I don't understand why we would not want to revisit the exemptions at least once per year. There is no requirement to remove the excemption, just to follow up. It would seem to me like the minimum that we should expect. However, if there is a strong argument to be made for a different strategy, I would very much like to hear it.<br /><br />Thanks, and I look forward to seeing you on Monday!<br /><br />Sincerely,<br />Nate Rogers, GPSA President