The Title II ADA final rule requires public colleges and universities to ensure that digital materials, including websites and mobile applications, meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA standards by April 2026, for institutions with a total population of 50,000 or more, or April 2027, for institutions with a total population less than 50,000. Instructional designers and faculty developers play a key role in creating accessible online courses, multimedia, digital materials, and webpages. As such, it is important to stay up to date with federal, state, and institutional accessibility requirements. Below are six tips to help you start now to ensure your institution is ready for the new ADA standards and to reduce accessibility barriers for everyone.
1. Become familiar with the new requirements. Review the Title II ADA final rule. The ADA Fact Sheet provides a reader-friendly summary of the new requirements and answers common questions.
This final rule explicitly identifies the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA Standards as the minimum requirements to meet. To help you become familiar with these standards that were created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), use W3C's How to Meet WCAG Quick Reference to filter by WCAG version and see descriptions and examples for each guideline to help you start applying these standards to your work.
2. Identify the resources available to help you and your colleagues meet the new accessibility requirements. Are you aware of all the digital accessibility resources (e.g., training, services, software) available to you at your institution? Are your colleagues and faculty aware of these? If you don’t already have a list of digital accessibility resources available at your institution, create one. If possible, publish this list in a centralized location and designate it as the authoritative source for faculty development participants.
3. Conduct an audit of your digital assets and develop a plan. Create an inventory of the digital assets (e.g., online courses, webpages, digital resources) within your faculty development ecosystem and develop a plan to review and update the digital assets to meet WCAG 2.1 AA standards. As you develop your plan, prioritize the items in your inventory based on frequency of use and impact. For example, if one of your faculty development offerings has a higher enrollment and the digital assets are more frequently accessed as compared to other offerings, move it to the top of the priority list.
Don’t forget to review the exceptions listed in the final rule, including archived digital content, since this will most likely impact your plan to review and improve the accessibility of digital assets in your faculty development ecosystem.
4. Evaluate and update your digital assets. Now that you have a plan in place, you can start evaluating the digital assets within specific components of your faculty development ecosystem and updating them to meet the WCAG 2.1 AA standards. Utilize built-in accessibility checkers (e.g., Canvas, Microsoft) to identify and address accessibility issues. Additionally, tools like UDOIT (Universal Design Online Content Inspection Tool) can be utilized to scan an entire course, generate a report, and provide resources on how to address common accessibility issues.
Since the final rule emphasizes mobile accessibility, be sure to test digital materials on mobile devices as well as on laptops and desktops.
When appropriate, artificial Intelligence (AI) tools may be utilized to assist. For example, Arizona State University’s Image Accessibility Generator may be utilized to help generate alt text for images.
5. Seek training and additional resources to continue improving digital accessibility skills. You may realize there are gaps in the technical skills needed to update your digital assets to meet WCAG 2.1 AA standards. If you identify gaps, seek training that aligns with your goals and training needs. For example, the Online Learning Consortium (OLC) offers workshops, webinars, and conferences and EDUCAUSE offers training and has an IT Accessibility Community Group which you can join to network and share ideas with others. Additionally, WebAIM offers a wealth of free resources and training as well as paid training opportunities for individuals and groups. Deque also offers a variety of paid accessibility training and tools including online self-paced web and digital accessibility courses.
6. Embed accessibility in your daily workflows. Keep accessibility in the forefront of your faculty development planning, design, and development processes. Don’t let accessibility become an afterthought. Proactively addressing accessibility when creating new faculty development workflows, offerings, and digital assets will save time by reducing the need to continuously audit, evaluate, and update.
