Colleagues:
The message below and another that will follow request two sorts of
responses. Dr. Marinov is interested in advocacy for academic website
acess. He also offers technical support for those of us who want to offer
our courses on the web. If you are interested in learning more, please
contact him directly.
Paul K. Longmore
Professor of History
San Francisco State University
1600 Holloway Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94132
phone: 415-338-6498 or 415-338-3382
TDD: 415-338-6349
fax: 415-338-7539 or 415-338-0952
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 13:52:32 -0500
From: Samuel Marinov <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Getting in touch
Dear Dr. Longmore,
Thanks very much for your call earlier this morning. It was a pleasure to
talking to you on the phone.
As I mentioned, our company, IDET Communication Inc. in Atlanta, Georgia
has developed a proprietary conversion process that greatly facilitates
access to Web-based college education for people with disabilities.
In our development effort, we have followed the WAI standards that have
been recently adopted by all federal agencies as a way to satisfy the
section 508 of the American with Disabilities Act (ADA).
As I also mentioned, while our efforts to facilitate access to Web-based
higher education has been enthusiastically met by the faculty who see it
as the way to improve teaching and learning for students with
disabilities, the attitude of the college administration has been far less
receptive, ranging from a lukewarm support to an outright rejection,
citing either the lack of need this kind of conversion, or most
frequently, the lack of funding to accomplish this goal. But most
importantly, in almost every case, campus administrators have shown a lack
of motivation and understanding the importance of this issue. Some of them
even stated that unless they're sued, their colleges will not engage in a
concerted effort to convert their existing online courses so that they
will become better accessible to the students with disabilities.
From our experience here in Georgia and elsewhere, this is clearly a
national problem that requires a close attention of disabled advocacy
groups who might be able to persuade and if necessary, force colleges and
universities to provide a better access to their online courses and other
educational materials for people with disabilities.
In that regard, we're prepared to work with any disabled advocacy group in
providing any necessary assistance that would help advance this cause. I
personally will be closely involved in this matter.
In the meantime, as you suggested, we would be happy to provide whatever
technical assistance is necessary to the individual faculty members who
might want to improve access to their Web-based courses. For information
on our products and services please contact: Jon Preston at
[log in to unmask] , or Jeff Chastine at [log in to unmask]
They should be able to answer any specific question that the faculty
members might have.
Again, thanks very much for your willingness to help in addressing this
very important issue. I look forward to working with you in the future.
Sam
____________________
Dr. Samuel G. Marinov
Chairman and CEO
IDET Communication, Inc.
________________End of message______________________
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