Accessibility and Usability

Coastline's goal is to provides an online environment where knowledge and ideas can be easily shared. This exchange is most meaningful when it promotes inclusion. Many website owners may not realize the challenges that websites and digital content can present for individuals with disabilities. Fortunately, there are many opportunities to improve online accessibility.

For example, captioning a video will allow those who are deaf or hearing-impaired to engage with your content. Similarly, formatting a website so that it can be read by a screen reader allows it to be navigated by an individual who is blind or vision impaired. A screen-readable webpage and a page with the same information that is not screen-readable may appear identical to a person without vision impairment. To a user who relies on a screen reader, however, the content on the page that is not screen-readable may be jumbled, disordered, impossible to interact with, or entirely inaccessible. Similarly, accessible websites, electronic learning materials, and learning environments allow individuals who have mobility impairments and use only a keyboard or alternate input devices to effectively engage with the content. While accessibility improvements are essential for the inclusion of individuals with disabilities, most features enhance usability for site visitors without disabilities as well.

Coastline strives to provide products that meet the accessibility standards recommended by the CCC Accessibility Center: U.S. CFR Standard 508 and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 at Level AA Success Criteria. If you come across content that is not accessible to these standards, please contact us so we can work to provide you with accessible content.

CCCD Board Policy

Coastline College and the Coast Community College District are committed to providing equitable access to information and data posted on all of its websites and Learning Management Systems. These forms of Electronic and Information Technology ("EIT") are significant and growing means by which the District provides information to students, faculty, staff, and other constituents. As mandated by state and federal law, the Chancellor shall ensure equitable access to EIT for individuals with disabilities.

All web pages, digital documents, digital content in courses, and other digital resources published, hosted, or otherwise provided by the District, and by each College within the District, must be in compliance with the World Wide Web standards defined in Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. These standards specifically identify the WCAG 2.0 Level AA guidelines as the appropriate guidelines to follow when publishing digital content. Library resources cited for course use must also be in compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

The District recognizes the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0 Level AA) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) as the standard for World Wide Web accessibility and compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. All web pages published, hosted, or otherwise provided by the District, and by each College within the District, must display contact information for the Accessibility Compliance Officer on each College's website.

Board Policy 3722: Adopted June 20, 2018

Student Resources

Special Programs and Services for the Disabled

Employee Resources

• WCAG

  The WCAG documents explain how to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities. Web "content" generally refers to the information in a web page or web application, including:

  • Natural information such as text, images, and sounds
  • Code or markup that defines structure, presentation, etc.
  • How to Meet WCAG 2 (Quick Reference)
  • WCAG 2.1 Standard
  • WCAG 2.0 Standard
• Assistive Technology
  • CCCCO Assistive Technology Tools A set of tools and tutorials are available from the CCCCO.
• Browser Toolbars & Extensions
  • CCCCO Web Accessibility Tools A set of tools and tutorials are available from the CCCCO.
  • The Wave toolbar by WebAIM. Available for Chrome.
  • Web Developer Toolbar, by Chris Pederick. Includes some tools useful for accessibility checking. Available for Chrome, Firefox and Opera.
  • Diagnostic.css, by Karl Groves. This is not a browser toolbar as such, but a CSS file that, when applied, will highlight specific potential accessibility issues on a page.
  • Chrome Accessibility Extensions are available for Google Chrome.
• Code Quality
  • Accessibility Viewer, by The Paciello Group. For checking for presence and quality of name, role and value/state information.
  • Inspect, by Microsoft, for checking accessibility information of a user interface element.
  • HeadingsMap by Jorge Rumoroso (Firefox Extension) generates a document map with headings and/or with sections in HTML 5.
  • Nu HTML Checker. A code validator from W3C. Note that valid code does not on its own guarantee accessibility.
• Email
  • Email Best Practices, by CSU Northridge.
  • Accessibility Checker for Email, by Microsoft.
• Color and Contrast
  • Color Contrast Analyzer, by The Paciello Group
  • Color Contrast Check, by Jonathan Snook
  • Contrast Ratio Checker, by Lea Verou
  • WCAG Contrast checker by Jorge Rumoroso (Firefox Extension)
  • Contrast-Finder by Tanaguru
  • Color Brewer COlor assessment tool by Cynthia Brewer, Mark Harrower and The Pennsylvania State University
  • ACE: The Accessible Colour Evaluator for designing WCAG 2.0 compliant palettes
• Multimedia
  • CCCCO Alternative Media is a set of tools and tutorials are available from the CCCCO.
  • Photosensitive Epilepsy Analysis Tool (PEAT) from the TRACE Center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Checks the flicker rate of flickering and flashing content.
• Training
  • @One training is available for free and provides self-paced courses to learning accessibility for alternative media, Canvas, Microsoft Word, PDF, PowerPoint, video captioning
  • Self-Paced Accessibility Courses provided by California Community Colleges
  • Office Accessibility PowerPoint - Make your PowerPoint presentations accessible to people with disabilities by Microsoft
  • Office Accessibility Word - Make your Word documents accessible to people with disabilities by Microsoft
  • Office Accessibility Outlook - Make your Outlook email accessible to people with disabilities by Microsoft
  • Adobe Acrobat Training - Create and verify PDF accessibility (Acrobat Pro)
  • Web Accessibility by Google - Udacity course
  • Web Fundamentals: Accessibility - text-based course
• Video Captioning
  • NCAM (WGBH) CADET a free tool for do it yourself tool for captioning
  • Amara a free tool for do it yourself tool for captioning.
  • YouTube a free tool to tools to edit and correct captioning.
  • Rev A $1.25/per minute captioning services that is used for videos that need high accuracy, such as for a student who needs captioning for a course lecture or videos to be made public. It has 24-hour turnaround if video is 20 minutes or less.
  • DCMP (The Described and Captioning Media Program) has many resources for captioning in video. Captioning Types, Methods, and Styles, Captioning Tip Sheet and Guidelines and Best Practices for Captioning Educational Video.

Contact Us

If you have any questions or concerns, or to request assistance, please complete the accessibility and usability support request form.