Governance, Roles & Responsibilities
Resources in this section
The "Governance" criteria of the plan ensure that IT accessibility is positioned appropriately within your organization and accessibility-related roles and responsibilities across the organization are defined, including the designation of an executive sponsor or accountable party. Visit these other resources to learn more about accessibility governance:
Governance Recommendations
Create an Accessibility Workgroup and determine the scope of the workgroup or create a charter to define goals and scope. The following roles are explained in more detail in the Accessibility Change Management Guide (Doc):
Executive Leadership: Executive sponsor, cultural change
Communications Team: All internal and external communication channels and tools
Web Managers/Authors: Those responsible for creating and managing agency website content
Finance: Procurement, contracting and vendor management
Human Resources (HR): Hiring and professional development
Product Directors, product owners: IT product management
Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) Team: EDI support and alignment of efforts
Project and/or program management
Other division or program roles
Most people in your organization: documents (including PDFs), presentations, meetings, etc.
Include point people who will be responsible for maintaining accessibility compliance of the technology within their domain.
Identify an accountable party who the accessibility point people will report to and communicate with about progress, opportunities and resource requirements. Use OIT’s Accessibility Guide to communicate the responsibilities of the accountable parties.
Identify directives, policies, procedures and guidelines that will need to be in place or updated (use the six core criteria within the accessibility checklist to inform this work).
Example of a Procedural Directive: CDOT Website Development and Web Accessibility (PDF)
Example of a policy: OEDIT Accessibility Governance Policy
Website Governance
It is strongly recommended that each agency has a formal website team in place that can:
Establish and maintain agency website strategy, policies, standards, and guidelines. This includes having a statement and contact on each page in the same place.
Implement content and technology that support specific business needs and provide input on policies, standards, and guidelines.
Website Product Owner: minimum website governance recommendation (Doc)
Example of guidance for managing accessible website content