Introduction to Accessibility

What Is Accessibility?

There are many ways to define accessibility, but in simplest terms, accessibility allows learners to use your course and course materials without barriers. A course designed with accessibility in mind will enable users to participate and engage with the content. Accessibility standards encompass everything from color contrast to navigation. Though we highly recommend building a course following accessibility standards from the beginning, it’s not too late to implement these practices today! Designing your courses and course materials with accessibility in mind provides equal access to content, improves usability for all, and adheres to the law . Links to an external site.

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, 19.4% of undergraduate students, 11.9% of graduate students, and 14.4% of K-12 students can report living with a disability. These percentages translate to 570 undergrads on a small campus of 3000 or 2800 K-12 students in a school district of 20,000 who could experience barriers because of inaccessible course content.

Why Do We Need Accessible Content?

In our context of online learning, accessibility means providing students with diverse abilities the tools they need to perceive, understand, navigate, interact, and contribute to their web-based courses.

The importance of accessible content for learners cannot be overstated. It promotes equity in education by ensuring that individuals with diverse abilities have the opportunity to learn and succeed alongside their peers. In an increasingly digital and interconnected world, where information is shared and consumed through various mediums, creating accessible content is both a matter of compliance and a commitment to fostering an inclusive and diverse learning environment that benefits everyone.

In the efforts of the Continuing and Professional Education division towards creating an inclusive learning environment, our leadership has adopted Quality Matters standards Links to an external site. for our course design. We aim to ensure that all courses produced by our instructors are as accessible as possible to serve our learners.