From the Brown University Daily Herald:

Over the past two years, a number of designers have asked permission to use the University’s code, and the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Ohio State University and the University of Alabama in Huntsville have created Web sites that look and function just like Brown’s.

Though the code for Brown’s site is copyrighted, the University views the similar designs as a compliment, said Director of Web Communications Scott Turner.

Turner learned about OSU’s similar Web site design last October, when the OSU webmaster sent him an e-mail asking if the site infringed upon Brown’s copyright.

“I don’t know if the code they used was stolen. They wanted to imitate us, and that’s their business,” Turner said. “We’re flattered.”

In responses to inquiries about its home page design, the University has notified Web site developers of the copyright on Brown’s code. But the University has also directed them to two open source libraries Brown drew on heavily in developing its code, encouraging site developers to employ the same public resources in efforts to “duplicate” the site, Turner said.

Liz Alcalde, coordinator of public relations for the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at OSU, said she loved the “really clean application” of Brown’s Web site and looked at the site for inspiration when developing OSU’s.

Alcalde said she knew of no licensing or copyright issues with the designs of the site, and she added that there are some “pretty significant differences in design.”

Despite those differences, the similarities among the three sites have raised questions in the blogosphere. Eric Stoller, who blogs about higher education and technology, posted last month about the OSU site.

University officials said they do not have evidence the code was stolen and did not express any intention to pursue the issue further.

The end.

Target settles lawsuit with advocates for blind

Target Corp. will revamp its Web site to make it more accessible for the blind and pay $6 million in damages to plaintiffs who joined a class action lawsuit against the retailer, under a settlement announced yesterday with the National Federation of the Blind.

Virginia Tech Tries ‘Compliance Sheriff’ To Improve Web Site Accessibility

Virginia Tech has selected HiSoftware’s Compliance Sheriff to address management of its Web site accessibility. Compliance Sheriff is a browser-based service that crawls a Web site and compares pages against a user-defined set of criteria. The tool will compare the school’s site against world-wide accessibility guidelines such as the federally-defined Section 508, which addresses how technology should be designed to enable its use by people with physical impairments, and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0/2.0, from the World Wide Web Consortium, which address Web content and mobile Web applications.

Multimedia/Flash Screenreader Tango

Screenreaders don’t like flash, and I’ve invested huge amounts of time to try and satisfy the requirements of a flash (SlideshowPro) feature spot being “cool” and compliant at the same time. It ain’t easy folks. And there are quite a few universities deploying homepage flash content that isn’t accessible. And you know who you are.

WebAnywhere

WebAnywhere provides access to the web from any machine with a modern web browser and some way to play audio. It is useful for web developers who would like to check their pages for accessibility and for blind web users using a computer where no other screen reader is available.

The Winners of the first eduStyle Awards were announced at the eduWEB Conference July 21-23 in Atlantic City, NJ. I was selected as one of this year’s judges. The eduStyle Awards categories that I was responsible for voting on were:

• Best Home Page
• Best Redesign
• Best Use of Photography
• Best Prospective/Future Students or Admissions
• Best Online Tour or Maps

I’m not going to post my confidential judge’s comments…However, I’m glad that the University of Tennessee - Knoxville, Biola University, University of Notre Dame, Boston University and the frequently borrowed Brown University were among the award winners. Congratulations!

A video of the award ceremony is after the cut.

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It would seem that Brown University’s homepage design has more than its fair share of fans. Brown’s website design has already been ripped off by UAH. The College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at The Ohio State University has decided to fully implement Brown University’s code and call it their own.

Unbelievable.

Found within the CSS of the OSU site:
“Why did Pentagram design this at such a small width?”

Pentagram Inc., in collaboration with Brown University’s Public Affairs and University Relation’s staff, created the BU homepage design. Why is a comment about Pentagram Inc. in the CSS file for the OSU website? Because the OSU site “borrowed” the BU code. Verbatim!

Tip via eduStyle.

This came first: Brown University

Then this showed up: The University of Alabama in Huntsville

“The copyright for this material rests with Pentagram Inc and Brown University. You may not alter this information, repost or sell it without prior permission.”

Umm. I don’t think that the University of Alabama in Huntsville got the message. Jump to UWebD and eduStyle for additional commentary. This is definitely more than just a case of borrowed design ideas, colors, grid, etc. Brown’s stylesheet is named “master.css”. UAH’s is named “master2.css.” The HTML looks like a badly synthesized genetic clone.

I’m a huge fan of Brown University’s home page design. It’s too bad that UAH took their fandom a bit too far.

PS: Brown’s site is so hip that it is even prepped and ready for iPhones! I found this little gem in their source code: sets width for iphones.

I remember the first time I closed my eyes, put on a pair of headphones and browsed the web using a screen reader. It was extremely challenging. Images without ALT attributes, Flash objects, and poorly coded websites left me feeling extremely frustrated and gave me even more empathy for web users with visual impairments. I think all website designers/coders should experience what it’s like to browse the web using a screen reader. This video shows Aaron Cannon, blind since birth, browsing a website using a screen reader.

The University of Iowa will be closed for at least a week due to flooding in Iowa City. The U of Iowa’s website has been stripped of almost all images and is providing important updates to university students and personnel. The University of Iowa News Services Department is using a combination of Blogger and Flickr to conserve the university’s bandwidth.

For more information, please consult the University of Iowa Flood Information Site hosted on Blogger. Photographs from the U of Iowa’s New Services Dept can be found on the UI News Flickr site. KSUI 91.7 on Iowa Public Radio is providing extensive regional news, flood and emergency updates for Iowa City, Cedar Rapids and other locations in eastern Iowa that are and will be heavily impacted in the coming days by flood waters.

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The eduStyle Higher-ed Web Awards People’s Choice voting has begun. People’s Choice voting will end on June 1st. Vote now!

The eduStyle Higher-ed Web Awards celebrate the best work in college and university websites. Eighteen categories recognize the most innovative and exciting developments in key areas of higher education web development.

Top-level prizes include best overall website, best redesign and most innovative. There are also awards in areas such as information architecture and video; awards for sub-sites (e.g. a faculty website) and special projects. Awards on blogging in higher-ed will be presented in partnership with CollegeWebEditor.com.

Some of my favorite nominees include: University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Oxford University, Biola University, Brown University, and Vassar College. I am surprised that the MIT Admissions blog didn’t get enough nominations for the People’s Choice award. The design and copy are superb! Unsurprisingly, the University of Tennessee website has been nominated in several different categories. What can I say, it’s awesome.

My post regarding Wells Fargo Financial’s “stone tablet and chisel” online bill pay technology was picked up by the Consumerist. Several commenters mentioned that they had encountered the same issues as I had when trying to log into their Wells Fargo Financial account. Many commenters suggested using various techniques to spoof the Wells Fargo “netscape-is-required” browser sniffer.

Ironically, my web site statistics showed several inbound visits from Wells Fargo IP addresses using web browsers that may or may not have been compatible with the Wells Fargo Financial online account access.

Well, here is where the power of blogging and user comments is revealed! The online account system is now compatible with Firefox and Safari!!! Hooray!

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I would like to introduce Wells Fargo Financial to my favorite web browser - Firefox. Apparently, the uber high tech features of the Wells Fargo Financial website are only accessible to Internet Explorer (note, they only list versions 5 and 6!), Netscape Navigator (is it 1999?), and the ever popular America Online browser!

Firefox users (as well as anyone using Safari) who attempt to login to the Wells Fargo Financial website will be greeted by the following Firefox-unfriendly message:

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