Tammy Stitz is the Engineering Librarian at George Mason University, where she works with engineering departments. She has a MLIS from Kent State University and a MS from The University of Akron in Electrical Engineering.

Shelley Blundell is an Education Designer with FedEx Custom Critical. She has a Ph.D. in Communication and Information, an MLIS, and bachelor’s degrees in history and magazine journalism, all from Kent State University.

In 2015-2016, while working as an instructional design librarian for the University of Akron, Blundell collaborated with Stitz on the creation of a comprehensive, multi-sourced rubric that assesses the compliance of online information resources with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Because many of the necessary ADA-compliance guidelines are spread across a variety of resources, Blundell and Stitz created this rubric to fill the ‘no comprehensive resource for assessing ADA compliance’ gap.

Testing the efficacy of this rubric against a sample of UA library information resource guides in a 2015-2016 research study, Blundell and Stitz have revised the original rubric they created based on study findings to make it a more robust and appropriate assessment, as well as to include elements related to universal design. They have continued to update the rubric as and when federal standards and guidelines have been introduced. It is the most up-to-date version of the rubric that appears in this wikispace.

Both Stitz and Blundell believe the rubric to be a useful, constructive tool that can be used to assess the ADA compliance of existing online materials and which can be used to make materials both ADA-compliant and universally accessible.

Author contact information

Shelley Blundell, Ph.D.

Education Designer, FedEx Custom Critical

Email: blundell.shelley@gmail.com

Tammy Stitz, MS, MLIS

Engineering librarian, George Mason University

Email: tstitz@gmu.edu