Accessibility Resources: Home

• Web accessibility: When web sites, online technologies, and web tools make content more accessible to people with disabilities, including visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, language, learning, and neurological disabilities
• Assistive technology: Any piece of equipment, product, or system that is used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of people with disabilities
• Cognitive disability: Individuals with cognitive disabilities may struggle with reading, math, and/or visual comprehension
• Motor disability: Individuals with motor disabilities often have partial or total loss of physical function of a body part, usually a limb or limbs. These limitations affect the way individuals use computer equipment and operate in their surroundings
• Auditory disability: Individuals with auditory disabilities have complete deafness or varying degrees of functional hearing loss
• Visual disability: Individuals with visual disabilities have limited functional vision or complete vision loss (blindness)
• Universal design: The design and composition of an environment so that it can be accessed, understood, and used to the greatest extent possible by all people regardless of their age, size, ability, or disability

Designing Accessible Online Courses

Technology is increasingly used in delivering academic courses and resources. Some courses are offered completely online; others combine on-site and online components into a hybrid format.

It is important to ensure components of a course are accessible to and usable by all students. These include documents, videos, and websites. These digital resources often need to be remediated for accessibility as an accommodation to one or more students with disabilities. This presents tremendous challenges for faculty and staff, and creates a burden for students as they fall behind while waiting for accessible resources. Therefore, it is always best to proactively ensure all digital resources are accessible from the onset. This enables all students with and without disabilities to participate fully in the course, and the accessibility solutions often benefits all students.

Accessibility Resources

Below are some additional resources to help make your course content accessible.