Accessibility

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) 

Universal Design for Learning is a teaching framework based on scientific insights to help all learners participate in meaningful and challenging learning opportunities. It is applicable to all disciplines.  

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• UDL Guidelines (Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST)) – New to UDL? Start here to understand the principles and guidelines that make up the UDL framework. 

• UDL and 21st Century Learning (by Gwen Bass, PhD, and Michael Lawrence-Riddell in Faculty Focus) – How to integrate principles of UDL and multimedia theory. 

• UDL Checklist (National Center on Accessing the General Curriculum) – Mirroring the three principles and nine guidelines of UDL, this checklist provides examples of different ways instructors can follow UDL guidelines.

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Syllabus Resources  

• Accessible Syllabus (Anne-Marie Womack, Tulane University) -  Suggestions for how to make your syllabus accessible to all. Includes suggestions for effectively using pictures and text, ways to use positive rhetoric and connect course policies to course content. 

• Inclusion by Design: Survey Your Syllabus & Course Design  (Ed Brantmeier & Andreas Broscheid, James Madison University; Carl S. Moore, University of the District of Columbia) - A worksheet designed to help instructors understand the breadth of inclusion in their teaching practices. 

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Making Microsoft Office & Adobe Documents Accessible

• Accessibility via PowerPoint (by Michael Urban, University of New Haven) - In this video, Professor Michael Urban demonstrates the tools to make PowerPoint presentations accessible to all learners. He demonstrates how to use subtitles, AltText and the built-in accessibility checker. Dr. Urban has also made the presentation slides available to review.

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• Accessibility via Adobe & Microsoft Office (by Michael Urban, University of New Haven) - In this video Dr. Urban demonstrates how to make a PDF handout of PowerPoint slides accessible by using Microsoft Word's accessibility checker.

• Make your PowerPoint presentations accessible to all learners (Microsoft Office Support) – This guide provides instructions on how to make presentations that are suited for all audiences. It includes a list of “best practices” including tips for using links, arranging content, choosing color/text and more. 

• Make your Excel documents accessible to all learners (Microsoft Office Support) – Lean how add “Alternative Text” to your excel documents so they are easily understood by people using screen reading software. This article also introduces Microsoft’s built-in Accessibility Checker. 

• Make your Word documents accessible to all learners (Microsoft Office Support) – This resource covers items such as using the Accessibility Checker and key “best practices” in Word, such as marking images as “decorative,” using built-in headers, and ScreenTips (text that appears when the cursor hovers over text or images with a hyperlink.) 

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Low Vision/Blind Students 

• A Guide to a Successful College Experience (by Ardis Bazyn, Reposted with permission from the American Council of the Blind) – This is a comprehensive guide covering many aspects of the college experience to support blind students in having a successful college experience. 

• Colour Contrast Analyzer - The Colour Contrast Analyser (CCA) helps to determine the legibility of text and the contrast of visual elements, such as graphical controls and visual indicators. 

• SensusAccess - This service allows students, faculty, staff and alumni to automatically convert documents into a range of alternate media including audio books (MP3 and DAISY), e-books (EPUB, EPUB3 and Mobi), and digital Braille. 

• Perkins School for the Blind Blog & Resources – Perkins eLearning offers a large information bank of blogs, activities, teaching resources and more for supporting blind & low-vision students. 

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