Samvera Accessibility Working Group

Owned by Robin Lindley Ruggaber
Last updated: Dec 04, 2024 by Margaret Mellinger
3 min read

Scope & Objectives

Samvera has matured to have several applications an institution could select to satisfy their requirements. Increasingly Institutions are adopting requirements for all applications to meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Therefore market scans increasingly require all applications to have a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) and if rudimentary, language stating the goals and progress related to meeting compliance with WCAG to at least the minimum acceptable level.  

The Samvera Community values accessibility and works to make all applications meet accessibility best practices, however, applications are not currently tested against WCAG standards and do not have a VPAT.  The Samvera Community partnership discussed the needs at the Spring 2024 partners meeting and decided Samvera applications should meet WCAG standards and each applications should have a VPAT and/or accessibility roadmap. This satisfies the community goals of developing repository applications meeting the needs of all, and the institution requirements for compliance. Samvera Community members with knowledge of the code base have called for the accessibility  requirements be baked into the processes of development, testing, and deployment.

Use Case:  

An institution has an accessibility policy for all commercial software purchased or Open Source software adopted, stating that software must meet certain accessibility standards and have accessibility documentation such as a VPAT and/or accessibility roadmap made available to the customer before that software can be purchased or adopted for staff and/or public use.  Samvera software solutions must have a VPAT, even a rudimentary one, and an accessibility roadmap that demonstrates a timely commitment to ensuring the accessibility of the software.  Samvera software solutions must also use tools for accessible software development, testing, and release.

Other areas of interest: tools to facilitate content accessibility; interpreting Title II information; PDF accessibility; content remediation processes and contracts; best practices for remediation by request.

Deliverables & Timeframe

  • Establish barebones VPAT for Hyku

  • Establish barebones VPAT for Avalon

  • Establish barebones VPAT for Hyrax

  • Evaluate Website to determine changes needed to make VPATS available

  • Evaluate process for code development, testing and software release to determine changes needed

  • Recommendations for best practices for developing/maintaining VPATs and accessibility roadmaps for Samvera software solutions

  • Establish an accessibility roadmap for one of the above Samvera software solutions (voted on by the members of the group once formed and meeting); charge the other software solutions to develop accessibility roadmaps using the process developed by this group as a guide

Timeframe

The timeframe for activities and producing deliverables should also be included in this section. Included should be a sunset date for the group (the date WG will end and announce the WG deliverables/accomplishments).

To be reviewed with Samvera Board

Meeting Times & Communication Channels 

  • Meeting dates/times/frequency TBD

  • Communication channel:

    • #accessibility-wg on Samvera Slack

    • Emails to Samvera mailing list should begin with "Samvera Accessibility WG: Subject here"

Members

Note that Working Groups must have participants from three different Partners.  All members of a working group producing software must be licensed Samvera contributors covered by the appropriate CLAs. Other types of contributions such as requirements, design, best practices, documentation, etc. - do not require CLAs but participants should accept that the materials to which they contribute may be released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Princeton and UVA are developing this charter and will enroll members from Hyku, Avalon, and Hyrax to participate, along with any other interested parties in the Samvera community.

  • Robin Ruggaber, UVA (co-facilitator)

  • Kate Lynch, Princeton (co-facilitator)

  • Jon Cameron, Indiana University (participant(?))

  • Nick Homenda, Tufts University

  • @Margaret Mellinger, Oregon State University

  • your name here (your institution here)

Resources

Meeting Notes

  • list of links

  • or table of meeting notes