Accessibility

Accessible Environments, Products, & Communications

For many people in higher education, the topic of accessibility has strong associations with risk and compliance. And rightly so. Over the past thirty years, remarkable progress has been made in making accessible the workplaces, transportation systems, paths of travel, buildings, classrooms, and furniture we deploy. Thanks to the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, students, instructors, and staff have legal protections that allow them more fully to engage in higher education. It takes tremendous advocacy and more than a few legal actions to nudge institutions in the right direction. Today accessibility programs and a culture of barrier-free environments are the norm, but there is always more progress to be made.
The accessibility of websites or videos in educational settings is another major focus of institutional policy. Near the start of every term, great efforts are undertaken to remediate course materials (e.g., online readings, problem sets, slide decks) in time for use in instruction. As they should, institutions put a premium on providing versions of the material for students with disabilities. Performing remediation in this fashion at the last minute, most alternative media specialists would say, requires a tremendous effort.
From a UDL perspective, a better approach would be for the authors and creators of the instructional materials to build in accessibility from the very start. Also, the accessibility-from-the-start approach would not see users with disabilities as special edge cases. In UDL, accessibility considerations apply to the broader range of different capabilities across all users.
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Disability Access & Compliance (UC Berkeley)

Supporting a university environment accessible to all people, regardless of their relative level of ability.

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National Center on Accessible Educational Materials

The National Center on Accessible Educational Materials serves as a resource for learning more about and implementing accessible instructional materials.

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Accessibility Online Resource Center (NFB)

The National Federation of the Blind’s Center of Excellence in Nonvisual Access has created this online resource center to help colleges be accessible, so that your student body can be the diverse gathering of students you seek, and so that blind college students can achieve their true potential and not be limited by accessibility barriers.

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Accessibile Technology (DO-IT)

The University of Washington's Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology (DO-IT) center curates resources provide information about assistive technology, accessible technology design, and the design of technology spaces.

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EDUCAUSE Accessibility Library

EDUCAUSE maintains an Accessibility resource page in its Library.  EDUCAUSE also sponsors an IT Accessibility Community Group.

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Accessibility (Mozilla Developer Network)

The Mozilla Developer Network provides guides and learning modules to help software developers understand the requirements, strategies, and tools for effectively coding accessible software.

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E-Learning Accessibility (W3C)

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) provides guidance on technical standards that are applicable for Learning Content accessibility, E-learning platform accessibility, Learner profiling, Evaluating e-learning systems accessibility, Massive Open Online Courseware (MOOC) accessibility.

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Web Accessibility In Mind (WebAIM)

 Based at Utah State University, WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind) provides web accessibility guidance and solution for expanding the potential of the web for people with disabilities.

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Accessibility, Usability, and Inclusion (WAI)

The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) develops standards and support materials to help you understand and implement accessibility.

Coming to Terms: The Meaning of "Accessible"

Coming to Terms: The Meaning of "Accessible"

ADA 30th Anniversary Tribute (Ability360)

ADA 30th Anniversary Tribute /Sign Language and Audio Descriptions