In lieu of a toolkit this month, we have a roundup of updates and resources. Please share this information internally with colleagues as you see fit.
Dear colleagues,
As spring quarter wraps up, we have a few announcements related to digital accessibility to share before summer – a new exceptions process, guidance on making math accessible, and opportunities to make use of central services when they have more summer bandwidth to help.
A new exceptions process for individual faculty and departments is now available.
Details on requesting provisional approval via the new exceptions process can be found on the Digital Course Content Accessibility Exception Process webpage. Submitting requests early will allow units clarity on exceptions in advance of the new deadline. The process is open to individual faculty members with unique content or to departments to batch requests of content common across courses.
Software and digital learning tools follow a separate review process. Get a Digital Product Accessibility Review before using, purchasing, or renewing tools that are not provided by UW-IT.
New guidance for making math accessible.
UW-IT worked with colleagues in Engineering to create a new Making Math Content Accessible webpage with guidance for math in Microsoft, Canvas, and PDFs with MathML, LaTeX, and new tools available: MathPix and MathType.
Submit PDFs now for remediation by autumn quarter.
As spring quarter wraps up, now is the ideal time to prepare any PDFs in course materials for fall. The Little Forest PDF Remediation Tool helps improve the accessibility of PDFs and for most documents, the tool’s automated structure, tags, and alt text are sufficient. For the roughly 25% that need manual review, a new document remediation service is available, but the wait time is increasing. Submitting PDFs now provides central staff time to help ensure your content is ready for students when fall courses begin.
Take advantage of free captioning services before September.
The UW has a contract for captioning services that expires in September. Submit now those uncaptioned videos that you plan to use next year to take advantage of this service. Whether the contract will renew and under what terms are TBD so best not to wait.
Databases and library platforms are improving accessibility and PDF remediation.
Some library resources now offer expanded tools and services to support digital accessibility. JSTOR/Artstor offers an on-demand remediation tool that improves accessibility of PDFs and images by adding structure and tagging – typically within minutes. The O’Reilly Academic learning platform (formerly Safari Tech Books Online) has built-in accessibility features, including the platform-wide ability to control font size, color scheme, video closed captioning, and more.
Additional resources and workshops:
- NEW: June 3: Accessibility workshop – Canvas Spring Cleaning: Pathway to Autumn
- NEW: Making Math Content Accessible
- Teaching@UW’s Making course materials accessible
- Past communications toolkits for departments
- The Digital Accessibility website and blog
- Summer accessibility workshops will be announced in June on the ATS Events
Taking advantage of these opportunities and tools now will help you get a jump on your course accessibility for the next academic year. Thank you for your continued leadership, partnership and support for this work.
Best regards,
Philip J. Reid
Vice Provost, Academic Strategy and Affairs
Professor of Chemistry
University of Washington