The sample for the survey was comprised of officials of AT service departments for 45 different colleges in Washington state who were selected based on online school directory listings. A total of 15 college officials gave consent to and completed the survey. This limited sample is not random. A total of 15 college officials gave consent to and completed the survey. This limited sample is not random.

An accessible web survey was developed online via SurveyMonkey, consisting of a combination of 27 multiple choice and open-ended questions. The survey is Section 508-compliant (“Web Accessibility: 508 Compliance & WCAG2”), and in compliance with the Human Subjects Review guidelines as outlined by The Evergreen State College. Participants were asked to provide voluntary and informed consent prior to the completion of the survey in the form of a written statement that was included at the beginning of the survey, which can replace a signed consent in cases where research “presents no more than minimal risk of harm to subjects and involves no procedures for which written consent is normally required outside of the research context” (“Informed Consent at Evergreen”). The survey did not meet the federally defined qualifications for human subjects research that require review by the Institutional Review Board, however since it did deal with human participants, care was taken to ensure “no more than minimal risk” was presented to the participants (“Guidelines for Student Work with Human Subjects at Evergreen”).

The first section of survey questions were designed to gain publicly available information that a student could find on a college’s website, such as the campus address and website, as well as phone, email, and office location of AT service departments on campus. The remainder of the questions were designed to gain a clear picture of the current state of AT services at the school, including, but not limited to, the assessment of assistive computer software and hardware available, the presence of AT labs and/or satellite AT on campus, requirements for documentation of disabilities in order to receive accommodations and procedures for handling requests and complaints. These questions were presented to participants in an open-ended format. Several multiple choice questions were also designed, which allowed officials to indicate which specific AT computer software and hardware options their schools had available for students.

Questions of the survey are available in Appendix 2, Section 8.1

The officials of assistive technology service departments were contacted via phone and email to request participation in the survey. For each college, several attempts were made to reach each official over the period the survey was open. The survey was open and available to the sample from February 2016 through April 2016.