Website Accessibility
NOAA's National
Center for Coastal Ocean Science is committed to
providing access to our web pages for individuals with disabilities, both members
of the public and Federal employees.
To meet this commitment, we will comply with the requirements of
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. Section 508 requires that individuals
with disabilities, who are members of the public seeking information or services
from us, have access to and use of information and data that is comparable to that
provided to the public who are not individuals with disabilities, unless an undue
burden would be imposed on us.
Section 508 also requires us to ensure that Federal
employees with disabilities have access to and use of information and data that
is comparable to the access to and use of information and data by Federal employees
who are not individuals with disabilities, unless an undue burden would be imposed
on us. To learn more about the regulations governing the accessibility of Federal
electronic information, please read the
Synopsis of Section 508 Accessibility Requirements.
If you use assistive technology (such as a Braille reader, a screen reader, or a
TTY) and the format of any material on our web sites interfere with your ability
to access the information, please contact the
nccos.webcontent@noaa.gov for assistance. To enable us to respond in a manner most
helpful to you, please indicate the nature of your accessibility problem, the preferred
format in which to receive the material, the web address of the requested material,
and your contact information.
Adobe Acrobat
Many links on the NCCOS website reference files which exist in a portable document format (PDF). In most cases, these links will be tagged with (PDF) after them. PDF files can be opened using either Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader (available for free).
This software does two things:
- The software installs a plug-in for your internet browser so you can view PDFs online while connected to the internet;
- The software also installs Adobe Reader, which will allow
you to read any PDF file on your computer, whether or not you are online.
The portable document format (PDF) is the best for some documents, which, due to its size,
can be more effectively read by downloading and/or printing instead of reading online (though you can read
these online if you wish).