| | Dear [First Name]
Welcome to Session 2: The Committee and the Champion
We are enjoying reading through the posts for the first activity. There are some really good elevator pitches there. Once you have posted your pitch, be sure to read through others' and comment on one or two. The idea is to tailor your pitch, using the business arguments, laws, and knowledge of barriers people with disabilities encounter, covered in the previous session, to create a short, convincing argument to win the support of a person in a decision making role.
Moving on to this session's topics, for digital accessibility to successfully become part of an organization’s culture, there needs to be a person to lead up the effort, and there needs to be buy-in from groups throughout the organization. This session in The Committee and the Champion learning pathway, we’ll introduce you to the "Champion," the person who will lead the effort, and the "Committee," made up of influential, often senior people, from across the organization who will lead efforts within their respective groups. In Activity 2 To Be or Not to Be the Accessibility Champion, you will assess your own characteristics to determine if you have all that is needed to be a good champion, or whether it might be worth hiring a person with specialized knowledge in digital accessibility and in managing people.
At Ryerson University, we have two accessibility champions, one for the larger university, and one for the school of continuing education (i.e. Greg). The committee is a combined group from both the university and continuing education. During the school year the committee meets face-to-face every couple months to discuss any issues, plans, projects etc. related to accessibility at the university. The two champions also meet regularly to keep each other up to date.
At the Chang School of Continuing Education, we have a special awareness of accessibility, with our (now former) Dean being the person who introduced the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). Needless to say, buy-in from the senior level is not a problem here. For some organizations, however, there may be some effort needed to get buy-in from senior people, but it is absolutely necessary for implementation of accessibility culture to be successful. Last session's coverage of the laws and business cases, and the elevator pitch activity should help with putting together arguments to gain that buy-in.This session's tasks:Just a quick reminder, if you have not already begun preparing your policy document for the Final Project, you should not wait too much longer to get started. In this session several elements are discussed that will provide content for your policy.
Best wishes
Greg Gay (CPACC, WAS, CPWA)
IT Accessibility Specialist, Ryerson University
Lead Course Developer
|
| |
|
|
|
Global Sharing, Affordable Learning
If you are having difficulty reading this email, you can view it online.
|
|
|
