Accessible Educational Materials FAQs

We cannot release identifying information about a student until the student requests their approved accommodations and you receive an accommodation memorandum.

Emails are sent at various times before the beginning of a semester to:

• Encourage instructors to work with ADRC to learn how to revise or create documents with an inclusive design that follows WCAG Level AA conformance, Section 508, Section 504, and is aligned with the University’s Lead On Strategic Plan.
• Provide as much time as possible for instructors to revise content that requires substantial changes. 
• Capture and update any enrollment changes.

Creating/converting a document into a digital format does not mean it is inherently accessible. Documents, such as PDFs, especially PDFs that are scanned, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, and exams, need to be constructed or remediated in such a way that assistive technology applications can render the content perceivable by the student.

Access to the course does not mean your materials meet accessibility standards

We encourage you to reach out to the ADRC's Digital Accessibility Team to discuss how to implement and follow accessibility guidelines. The ADRC has created Accessible Educational Materials guidelines as well as the University follows WCAG 2.0 AA Standards.

If you would like to confirm your accessibility with the ADRC, you can reach out to the Digital Accessibility Team. We suggest you express to your class to communicate with you about any accessibility issues with your materials.

• Screen Readers: a form of assistive technology that renders text and image content as speech. Screen readers are helpful to people who are blind, visually impaired, have a learning disability, or need assistance in interacting with content.
• ZoomText: a screen magnifier for Microsoft Windows.

• Creating an inclusive design that follows WCAG Level AA conformance, Section 508, Section 504, and is aligned with the University’s Lead On Strategic Plan allows assistive technology to properly work with your materials. 
• If the materials are not properly created or remediated for accessibility, then the assistive technology will not properly portray what has been created and the user will ultimately not be able to utilize the materials.

Accessible Educational Materials are meant to be inclusive of all disabilities, impairments, and barriers. This means that materials are to be created in a way that can be viewed and used in adaptive ways for those that may not be able to utilize them in the specific way they were initially designed. 

• Example: Solely using color to portray information is not accessible for someone with color blindness to view the material and utilize the information. 
• Example: A link is not masked with proper text to be used out of context is read out by a screen-reader and does not make sense to the user that cannot physically see it. 
• Example: The contrast between the background color and foreground text color does not meet WCAG Level AA compliance, so the text cannot be read easily by the user.