Dear Campus Community,
The campus is currently working very hard to get ready for our new system, ctcLink, which is set to go live in November. Thank you for all of your hard work! We know there are many challenges with moving to a new system, and we are proud of how our campus is handling this transition. While ctcLink will bring many good things to our campus, we also know that the system is inaccessible to many screen reader and other assistive technology users. Here are the issues that we know about and what is being done about them:
- ctcLink has widespread accessibility issues for people with disabilities who use screen readers or other types of assistive technology. For more details about the inaccessibility issues, please visit BC’s ctcLink Accessibility page to learn more.
- ctcLink has had confidentiality issues for students and staff/faculty using disability accommodations. The State Board of Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC) has come up with ways to eliminate these issues, and we are currently waiting for confirmation from ctcLink-live colleges that these fixes have addressed the issues.
- Many folks at BC and other community and technical colleges around the state are engaged in advocacy work to address the inaccessibility of ctcLink. For more information and how to get involved please visit the Get Involved section of the ctcLink Accessibility page.
- To ensure our services remain accessible to Disabled (and in particular blind and low vision) students, staff, and faculty, we will all need to engage in trainings and create departmental and office plans to support students and employees for whom ctcLink is inaccessible. Check out the Campus Plan section on the ctcLink Accessibility page.
We know that ableism (the discrimination against people with disabilities) is very prevalent within our society including our educational institutions, and because of this, many of our systems are not built for all of our students’ and employees’ brains and bodies. In order to be anti-ableist at BC and across the state, we need to continue to advocate and work for more accessible and less ableist institutions on a daily basis. To get engaged in anti-ableist work at BC see the Get Involved section on the ctcLink Accessibility page.
To help the campus community better understand how these issues are being addressed, SBCTC representatives will discuss ctcLink accessibility via Teams Live Event on April 19th from 10 am – 12 pm. Please join us to learn what has been done, what is coming up, and how the SBCTC is approaching this issue. Questions can be submitted in advance to Maria Rivas BC’s ctcLink Project Manager. This session will be recorded for those unable to attend the live event and posted on our ctcLink Accessibility page.
Sincerely,
Rodger Harrison, Vice President, Information Technology Services
Maria Rivas, ctcLink Project Manager
Marisa Hackett, Director, Disability Resource Center
AJ Duxbury, Assistant Director, Disability Resource Center
Last Updated August 14, 2021