Section 508 Compliance
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act (29 U.S.C. § 794d), as amended by the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (P.L. 105-220) requires federal agencies to develop, procure, maintain and use information and communications technology (ICT) that is accessible to people with disabilities – regardless of whether or not they work for the federal government. The US Access Board established the Section 508 standards that implement the law and provides the requirements for accessibility.
Section 508 requires federal agencies to make their ICT such as technology, on-line training, publications, and websites accessible for everyone. With regard to PacTrans, this specifically means that the final project technical reports that are published on our website and submitted to various repositories meet section 508 so these public facing PDFs are accessible to all.
As a PacTrans-funded PI, this means downloading and utilizing the new PacTrans Final Project Technical Reporting template from the Reporting page under the Research tab of this website, which is section 508 compliant, and also specifically addresses many of the commonly found errors in 508 compliance. For those new to 508 compliance there are several simple tools to identify whether a publication is compliant. Adobe Acrobat has an Adobe Acrobat Accessibility Checker, which can be found in the Tools section of Adobe Pro. Similarly, MS Word has an MS Check Accessibility tool that is located under the Review Tab in Word.
PacTrans requires that Final Project Technical Reports be submitted in MS word. A new part in the review process will include running the MS Check Accessibility tool. If the accessibility checker reports back that a document fails to meet section 508 compliance, PacTrans staff will report back to the submitting PI with the errors found and ask that they be corrected before accepting a final version of the publication.
