What is EIR and why are we concerned about accessibility?
We use a variety of electronic and information resources (EIR) on and off campus to provide information and services.
What are EIR?
Imagine
You see an event on a website or email, and you want to add it to your calendar, but you can't highlight the text to copy/paste it in. Instead you have to type the whole thing out.
While this is an inconvenience for you, it is an accessibility issue for people who are blind: they can't see the text that was on that event image to know when to come or what it is all about.
We want to close those types of gaps and make all our lives a little more convenient as well as accessible to people with disabilities.
Accessible EIR provides the following benefits:
- Increases effective communication
- Extends learning opportunities to our diverse community in a university environment
- Broadens employment opportunities to our current, and future, faculty and staff
- Expands participation in, or benefits from, programs and activities
- Keeps our university in compliance with federal and state laws, along with A&M System regulations
- Provides everyone with more usable electronic and information resources, creating more ease and simplicity to our daily activities and tasks
We want to progressively improve accessibility
It is true that much of what we use is inaccessible. However, given the great strides we have with technology, some of these issues can be resolved right now. Our goal is to educate ourselves and the companies we work with to create a more inclusive community and environment for learning.