Accessibility

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 are major federal legislative acts that are designed to protect the civil rights of individuals with disabilities. The intent of these two laws is to prevent any form of discrimination against individuals with disabilities who are otherwise qualified to participate in programs or receive services offered to the public. Section 504 applies to entities that receive federal funds. This applies to the delivery of courses at SU, regardless of delivery type. The utilization of the university's Learning Management System (MyClasses) is already ADA compliant, but there are additional steps that need to be taken by the instructor to ensure the content they provide is also compliant. 

All students who may need reasonable accommodations should be referred to the Disability Resource Center. However, it's important to avoid making assumptions about students, so ID&D does not recommend singling out students to send them to DRC; instead, a DRC statement should be included in your syllabus so that students who may need assistance know where they can get it.

Aside from meeting the obvious legal requirements, ADA compliant content makes it accessible to a broad audience who may benefit from the accessible content in various ways.

In many cases, people think of of the disabilities that are more obvious, either from physical appearance or immediate need for accommodation, but there are many other disabilities, or in varying environments, that can benefit from the content being made accessible.

Examples of this may include second language learners who can benefit from transcripts or closed captioning to clarify the content being taught, those in a noisy environment or in areas where they must keep silent, those with temporary disabilities (injuries or lost glasses), those with varying levels of auditory issues, and those experiencing vision impairments.

Accessible design should start at the beginning of course development so that when a student adds to your course last minute, they can dive into the content and have the same student experience as everyone else right away. Not only can this save time and reduce stress and frustration during the semester (for both you and the student), other students benefit from the changes you make as well.

With the release of the Sixth Edition of the QM rubric, standard 8.3 is an essential standard and has been modified to state “The course provides accessible text and images in files, documents, LMS pages and web pages to meet the needs of diverse learners.” So let's dig a little deeper into what this means for your course development.

The video below demonstrates the impact accessible design has on those using screen readers for digital accessibility:

When discussing accessibility in relation to classroom spaces, accessibility relates to a student's ability to access and participate in the in-person classroom space. Some of these considerations you may need assistance with, such as the weight of doors (if the door is heavy, you may need to help someone in and out of the classroom until Facilities can help provide a more permanent solution!); however, potential classroom issues can be mitigated through considering classroom activities and access in advance such as through a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework.

For example, do you have students move around the classroom? Can someone with mobility issues engage fully in that activity?

Do you have someone with vision issues and they have trouble seeing the PowerPoint on the screen (due to glare and lack of color contrast)? You might plan to have your PowerPoints uploaded in MyClasses the morning of class so that students can follow along online. (Note: in alignment with Universal Design principles, this strategy supports ALL student needs instead of just mitigating potential issues for a single student).

Often, when a student is registered through the Disability Resource Center (DRC), the DRC will contact you to make you aware of the students' needs and request accommodations for that student, or strategies to support that students' needs to ensure they have the same level of access and quality educational experience that those different abilities are able to take advantage of. However, if you have designed your course with UDL strategies from the beginning, when the DRC requests accommodations, you can reply with "already in place" instead of reworking your in-class plans (if needed).

When discussing accessibility in relation to course material, accessibility refers not just to if a student can access resources, but also if they can use those resources.

Content in your course that should be accessible, or usable by all students may include:

• Documents (Word, PDF, PowerPoint)

• Content pages

• Website links and outside resources

• Images and graphics

• Tables

• Videos or audio (podcasts)

• Publisher Content

It's important to ask questions such as:

1. Can my documents be read by a screen reader?

2. Are users easily able to tab through my course content using headings?

3. Are my videos accurately closed captioned?

4. Do I have transcripts available for audio files?