Accessibility and Distance Education: Requirements & Resources

Accessibility standards, such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (Links to an external site.) or US Section 508 Standards (Links to an external site.), can be used to set institutional benchmarks and provide guidance in developing or procuring electronic and information technology (IT) supporting access for individuals with disabilities. Original article (Links to an external site.)Retrieved from Home - TechEDge

By law, all materials must be accessible to the public when posted and all learners at the start of the course, regardless of who is enrolled.

There are three major areas you need to consider when making your materials accessible:

1) making documents accessible to a screen reader

2) providing alternative text for images

3) ensuring videos are captioned accurately

View the next few pages (click next below) for instructions on each of these areas.

Expand Your Knowledge Base

A great collection of resources from the Online Education Initiative: Online Accessibility Resource Documents
@ONE video collection of archived webinars and short how-to videos: Taking a Closer Look at Accessibility Links to an external site.
WebAIM offers lots of resources on making web content accessible, including articles and tools: WebAIM Links to an external site.
The CCC Chancellor's Office guidelines for faculty: Distance Education Accessibility Guidelines Links to an external site.

Take a look at this video, where students share some of their experiences with the web and accessibility.