Section 508 Accessibility: Federal ICT Compliance, Master WCAG 2.1 Level AA, accessible documents, multimedia, testing, and federal Section 508 program management.
What you’ll learn
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Explain the history and legal authority of Section 508 under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended
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Describe the scope of the 2017 Section 508 Refresh and its incorporation of WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards
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Apply the four POUR principles — Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust — to evaluate ICT conformance
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Create accessible Word, PDF, Excel, and PowerPoint documents that meet federal Section 508 requirements
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Implement captions, audio descriptions, and accessible media players for federal video and audio content
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Use automated and manual testing tools to evaluate websites and documents for Section 508 conformance
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Apply the Revised 508 Standards to ICT procurement decisions including Accessibility Conformance Reports
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Build and manage an agency Section 508 program covering training, reporting, remediation, and governance
Course Description
This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act requires federal agencies to ensure that all information and communication technology (ICT) they develop, procure, maintain, or use is accessible to people with disabilities. Since the 2017 Refresh incorporated WCAG 2.1 Level AA as the technical standard, the scope of that obligation now reaches web content, software, electronic documents, multimedia, hardware, and support services. This course gives you a thorough, practical grounding in Section 508 compliance from the statute through implementation.
You will start with the legal framework: the Rehabilitation Act, the Access Board, GSA, and the functional performance criteria that define what accessible means in practice. From there the course works through the WCAG 2.1 Level AA success criteria — organized under the four POUR principles (Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust) — and applies them to the most common ICT types federal agencies deal with: websites, PDFs, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, and video with captions and audio description.
The final section covers testing and procurement: how to use automated and manual tools to evaluate conformance, how to apply the Revised 508 Standards in an Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR), and how to build and sustain an agency Section 508 program. By the end of this course you will be able to create, test, and procure accessible federal ICT with confidence.
Who this course is for:
- Federal agency employees responsible for creating or procuring accessible information and communication technology
- IT professionals, developers, and web managers at federal agencies subject to Section 508 requirements
- Section 508 program coordinators and accessibility leads building or improving agency compliance programs
- Document authors, content managers, and communications staff who create federal digital content
- Federal contractors delivering ICT products or services that must conform to the Revised 508 Standards
