Accessible Online and Hybrid Courses at UC Davis

Faculty Responsibility:

Plan for and create basically accessible content (including revising if necessary) and communicate with students and SDC and ATS. Inforporate principles of universal design for learning to serve a wide rance of students.

Institutional/ATS Responsibility:

Make the LMS accessible, provide consulting for faculty making their course content accessible, and communicate with SDC and faculty. 

Student Disability Center Responsibility:

Tailor accommodation to specific student needs as they arise, and communicate with students, faculty, and ATS. 

Student Responsibility:

Have up-to-date technology, know how to use it, communicate with faculty and SDC, and do good work. 

Basic accessibility means that users have multiple means of representation, engagement, and expression. For instance, multiple means of representation might mean that anything written can also be heard, anything heard can also be read, and any course critical images can be described in writing. Here's a checklist for faculty making course content accessible:

Are my instructions clear and consistent in:

Content?

Formatting?

Have I built-in flexibility and student choice in assignments and activities?

Did I use correct formatting and save-as functions in:

Word?

Excel?

PDF?

Other formats?

Did I keep all my source documents in electronic form in case of revisions?

Did I provide a text equivalent for every non-text element?

Did I provide caption/transcript for multimedia?

Did I use a basic web–accessibility checker on any web pages I include (WAVE, etc.)?

Did I use color appropriately (contrast, symbols, graphs, etc.)?

Did I compare my list of tools to the matrix [coming soon!] of tool accessibility strengths and weaknesses? Did I consider alternative tools that will let me accomplish pedagogical goals in the most accessible way?

Did I include a statement on my syllabus encouraging students to talk to me about concerns and accommodations, and providing students with information to contact SDC is they need more help?

Accessibility does not stop after course materials are finished. You can do simple things in the classrooms during the course that will help all of your students, including those with disabilities, master materials and skills. If you have questions about this process, which you like to learn how to do what is listed here, or would you like to know what else you can do, help is available! Please contact the Center for Educational Effectiveness or to Student Disability Center.