- Video Tip - Disability Language
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Announcements - Registrations: TOPkit Workshop 2025, FL-IDN Webinar, Teaching and Learning with AI Conference
- Top Tips - Preparing your Institution for ADA Title II Rule Changes
- From the Community - Accessible Education Beyond WCAG
- Top Community Topics
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Discomfort in discussing disability can hinder efforts to help instructors make their courses more accessible. By addressing disability directly, and confidently choosing your language, you can more effectively convey the importance of accessibility to others at your institution. Familiarizing yourself with appropriate disability language empowers you to support instructors in achieving their accessibility goals.
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Register for TOPkit Workshop 2025, a live, virtual event. Free registration for State University System of Florida and Florida State Colleges. Early bird registration for other attendees is extended to Friday, February 21, 2025.
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Next upcoming FL-IDN webinar "Exploring the Power of Universal Design for Learning: One College’s Story" hosted by Pasco-Hernando State College. Registration is free for this March 18, 2025 event. Sign up for other FL-IDN webinars.
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Attend the 3rd Annual Teaching and Learning with AI conference, in Orlando, Florida, May 28-30, 2025. Registration is open. Early bird registration ends March 14, 2025.
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Preparing your Institution for ADA Title II Rule Changes |
How Support Staff can Spearhead Change |
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Last year, the Department of Justice initiated a significant push to improve digital accessibility in public institutions when it updated its interpretation of Title II of the ADA to clarify that all digital content these institutions provide or host must be accessible. In higher education, that means that in addition to public websites, social media posts, and marketing materials, all online course content must be accessible regardless of whether any students in the class have formally disclosed a disability. Faculty developers, instructional designers, and other support staff who work with instructors could play a leading role in making sure that their institution can meet this goal. Here are some ways to contribute to the effort.
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Familiarize yourself with your institution's obligations under the new Title II regulations. This rule applies to state and local governments and their services and programs, which includes State of Florida public universities and colleges. The deadline for compliance depends on the size of the state or local government associated with the entity. For institutions in the State University System of Florida or Florida State Colleges, that deadline is April 24, 2026. Institutions affiliated with local governments may have an additional year if the government serves fewer than 50,000 people. The rule specifies that the benchmark for accessibility is meeting the WCAG 2.1 A and AA standards.
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Refresh your digital accessibility knowledge. We cannot effectively train faculty and instructors without a solid understanding of digital accessibility ourselves. You are likely familiar with basic digital accessibility best practices; now is a good time to review them if your knowledge is rusty. Schools should consider investing in additional training for staff to ensure they are confident in their recommendations.
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Get the Word Out. Does your school have a coordinated communications campaign to spread awareness among instructors? If so, boost them whenever possible and use them as a segue to conversations with instructors about accessibility in their own course. If a communication strategy is still pending, you can start laying the groundwork by incorporating accessibility into trainings or programming. Get in the habit of discussing accessibility during course developments as frequently as possible. If you have an instructor's ear, you also have an opportunity to make them part of the solution.
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Share knowledge and resources. You may not have time to teach instructors everything you want them to know about accessibility within the time you have to speak with them. It can help to curate a list of resources to share with them about general digital accessibility and about specific questions that come up frequently, such as how to make a PowerPoint presentation accessible. If your office has accessibility resources like instructor trainings, consultations, or document remediation services, reminding instructors about these assets can help them feel supported.
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You can check out what other institutions are doing as a model and see if any of their resources would also be beneficial for your community
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Develop accountability. How do you know whether the faculty you serve is taking your advice about accessible course design? How confident are you that they are correctly implementing the knowledge you share with them? It may be worthwhile to build into existing processes or to offer voluntary accessibility reviews for instructors who are uncertain about whether they have done things correctly. If your institution utilizes accessibility checkers in the LMS, this can be a good way to identify faculty or other instructors who need additional help.
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As a result of the updated Department of Justice interpretation of Title II of the ADA, public institutions, including higher education, must make all digital content accessible, including online course content, by 2026. Faculty developers and support staff can play a key role in ensuring compliance by familiarizing themselves with the regulations, brushing up on digital accessibility knowledge, and sharing resources and knowledge with instructors. By developing a coordinated communications campaign, sharing resources, and establishing accountability measures, institutions can ensure that their instructors create accessible online course content.
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Accessible Education Beyond WCAG |
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Considering Cognitive and Emotional Ability |
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Making education truly accessible takes more than just adherence to digital accessibility guidelines. Disability can impact us in many ways, and mood disorders such as anxiety and depression can impact a student’s ability to focus and impede executive functioning. Considering how instructors can support students’ mental health in appropriate ways and sharing strategies with faculty is another way support staff can help create a more welcoming and accessible campus culture.
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Generative AI may have been used to retrieve relevant research, generate suggested language, and enhance original content.
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Bren Bedford, MNM, SFC®, Web Project Analyst II, Center for Distributed Learning, University of Central Florida
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Florence Williams, Ph.D., Associate Instructional Designer, Center for Distributed Learning, University of Central Florida
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