Oklahoma’s Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility (EITA) law itself did not change. The EITA law went into effect in January of 2005.
The law applies to Oklahoma agencies under the Executive Branch, the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, institutions under the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education and Oklahoma’s Career and Technical System. The law requires that covered entities avoid discriminating against people with disabilities by making sure that information and communication technology provided by those entities is accessible. The law focuses on
[I]nformation and communication technology developed, procured, maintained or used by state departments or agencies directly; or used by a contractor under a contract with a state department or agency which requires the use of such product, or requires the use, to a significant extent, of such product in the performance of a service or the furnishing of a product; or when state departments or agencies administer contracts or grant programs that include a significant allotment of funding for the procurement, development or upgrading of information and communication technology
The documented complaint procedure (cite), accessibility compliance representative and other provisions of the EITA law and rules remain the same. What changed is the EITA standards that provide guidance to Oklahoma’s executive agencies, higher education institutions, Regents for Higher Education and Career and Technical Systems.
Oklahoma’s new EITA standards incorporate the refreshed standards from Section 508 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act. The refreshed Section 508 standards are effective as of January 18, 2018 for federal agencies and those that do business with them.
These refreshed Section 508 standards have a few notable differences from the old standards:
- Incorporate the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, Level AA (WCAG 2.0 AA)
- Explicitly apply WCAG 2.0 AA to non-web content, such as Microsoft Office and Adobe PDF files
- Explicitly include internal agency communication in web and non-web formats
- Incorporation of PDF/UA-1 as a technical standard for authoring and conversion tools that create PDF documents