Global Customer Support Accessibility

The Oracle Global Customer Support (GCS) Accessibility project began in 2002 with the task of assessing Support's accessibility. Since then it has evolved into a comprehensive program encompassing and addressing the two sides of Support: making Support accessible, and enhancing the accessibility of Oracle's products.

The Accessibility Program's primary focus is to recommend strategies to internal developers, based on awareness of Section 508 and WCAG 1.0 standards, for ensuring accessible support. The Program supplements this focus with outreach to organizations such as Lighthouse International, coordinating resources to create specialized training for Support engineers and providing advocates for the blind with opportunities to reach the Oracle Support community.

Oracle Support offers a range of services, and all services provide for two types of customer interface: MetaLink (internet) or telephone support. Oracle MetaLink offers 24x7 web support services. https://metalink.oracle.com/. MetaLink is a legacy system that has varying degrees of accessibility in both navigation and content. Legacy documentation will be made accessible upon request. The new accessible interface is in limited production and will be rolled out to customers progressively in order to provide the most robust service available.

GCS has developed a formal team and internal process addressing issues related to assistive technology. This team works with the assigned Oracle engineer to analyze and help replicate the customer's problem using the appropriate assistive technology. They then make recommendations to the customer, Support and Development to resolve the issue.

Accessibility awareness training is required for all Support employees. The program hosts events around the world highlighting accessibility for more than 13,000 employees, including presentations and training by Freedom Scientific and other vendors, participation by local resources for the blind and visually disabled, and interactive demonstrations of Oracle's products working with various assistive technologies. We estimated that more than 1,000 GCS engineers worldwide have participated directly in these events, gaining valuable hands-on experience with accessibility.