Accessibility

What is Accessibility?

Section 504 and ADA

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 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. Accessibility considerations include:

• Facilities – Ensuring that buildings, classrooms, restrooms, and other physical spaces are accessible to individuals with disabilities through ramps, elevators, signage, and other accommodations.

• Programs and Services – Modifying policies and procedures as necessary to provide equal access to academic programs, extracurricular activities, and support services.

• Digital Accessibility – Making websites, online learning platforms, digital documents, mobile applications and other electronic resources accessible to individuals with disabilities, including compatibility with screen readers and other assistive technologies. This include all course content within MyClasses.

Digital Accessibility is Useful for Everyone

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 the disabilities that are more obvious, either from physical appearance or immediate need for accommodation (such as temporary disabilities due to injuries, auditory issues or vision impairments), but there are many other benefits to digital accessibility:

• Second language learners, neuro-diverse individuals, can benefit from transcripts or closed captioning to clarify the content being taught

• Individuals in a noisy environment or in areas where they must keep silent can benefit from transcripts or open captions during presentations

• Ease of use for everyone, such as ensuring that the wording of hyperlinks reflect the content linked to is important for those with screen readers to ensure that they are finding the appropriate information, but also provides pertinent information to all users on what information they may find if they click on that same link (therefore avoid using the phrase “click here” in hyperlinks).

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.” All digital content that we create needs to be accessible - so keep accessibility in mind when creating digital content. Not only can this save time and reduce stress and frustration during the semester (for both you and the student), anyone can benefit from the changes you make as well.

Digital Accessibility Basics

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 on websites and MyClasses

• 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?

Related articles