Library: Faculty Resources: Accessibility Resources

Accessibility Resources

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

CCC Accessibility Center
"The CCC Accessibility Center proactively assesses the California community college system's web and information technology accessibility needs and offers services, guidance and technical assistance to help colleges in realizing an accessible technology environment."
WebAIM
Articles, resources, and more on various accessibility topics and tools.
OER Accessibility Toolkit 2nd Edition
"The goal of the Accessibility Toolkit - 2nd Edition is to provide resources for each content creator, instructional designer, educational technologist, librarian, administrator, and teaching assistant to create a truly open textbook—one that is free and accessible for all students."
Creating Accessible Education Materials
How to create accessible education materials from the National Center on Accessible Education Materials.
Cheatsheets
Cheatsheets for creating accessible content in Microsoft applications, Adobe, and other online programs.
General Accessibility Design Guidelines for Canvas
Best practices in Canvas.

Testing Accessibility

How can you test your resources to ensure they are accessible? Use the below tools to help. If you are using Microsoft Word, Adobe PDF, or Canvas keep in mind that these programs have built in accessibility checkers that work to varying degrees.

WAVE Tool by Webaim
WAVE is a web accessibility evaluation tool.
NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access)
Free screen reading software can be used to test resources.
Canvas Accessibility Checker
Instructions on how to use the accessibility checker in Canvas.
Grackle Docs
Accessibility checker for Google Docs. Add-on to Chrome browser.
Toptal - Colorblind Web Page Filter
Use the colorblind filter to test web pages for color blind anomalies.
WebAIM Resources
A list of helpful resources for evaluating accessibility.
Vischeck
Vischeck simulates color blind vision.
Adobe Acrobat Pro - Accessibility Checker
Create and verify PDF accessibility in Acrobat Pro.
Read Out Loud for Acrobat Reader
Read Out Loud is a Text-to-Speech (TTS) tool that is built into Adobe Reader.
Link Contrast Checker
Check the contrast of your links.
Accessibility Bookmarklets
"These bookmarklets help web developers and designers see the "big picture" regarding web accessibility."
The Screen Curtain Bookmarklet
The Screen Curtain Bookmarklet allows engineers, testers, educators, and students to temporarily obscure web technologies while using screen readers in order to simulate the experience of using such technologies without sight.

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.

Additional Resources

Accessibility Guide