Keep C.A.L.M. for Title II digital accessibility

From: Office for Civil Rights Compliance and Prevention Education, Technology-enhanced Learning and Online Strategies 

Virginia Tech is advancing an initiative aimed at achieving compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title II, which mandates equal access for individuals with disabilities in all public services and programs. The Office for Civil Rights Compliance and Prevention Education (CRCPE), in coordination with Technology-enhanced Learning and Online Strategies (TLOS), emphasize that all employees, including teaching faculty, are responsible for ensuring that the digital materials they create, share, or use are accessible to people of all abilities. This includes materials in all formats, including documents, websites, videos, and other media. 

The choosing accessible learning materials (C.A.L.M.) initiative offers an easy way to understand the core elements of digital accessibility and the goals of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). In the context of developing teaching and learning materials, UDL considers the needs of people with disabilities at a foundational level, making learning available to the broadest possible audience. The C.A.L.M. initiative consists of nine concise campaigns that focus attention on one key step toward creating accessible digital materials.

Keep C.A.L.M. and get started today.

Following the guidance of each campaign will help you create accessible digital documents. While you can use these tips in any order, starting with Ally (for Canvas documents) and following the order of the list as shown below is an optimal path to review and remediate your existing documents or create new ones.

• Use Ally: Use this special program to check content accessibility within Canvas, which helps meet the requirements of VT Policy 7215 to ensure conformance with WCAG 2.1 AA.
• Describe images: Make sure to describe all images verbally and write alternative text for images, which will increase clarity and effectiveness.
• Use headings: Add hierarchal headings to organize and describe the content that follows, overall improving the readability, accessibility, and usability of webpages, digital documents, and presentations.
• Check reading order: Verify that content appears in the correct reading order in documents, slide decks, and webpages.
• Simplify slides: Ensure slides are simple and accessible, so the audience will be able to engage and learn from your content.
• Check contrast: Test all the colors used in digital resources to make sure they provide enough contrast for people to read comfortably.
• Caption on: Choose already closed-captioned video content or add closed captions to provide access to deaf, hard of hearing, and multilingual audience members, plus those in loud environments.
• Use meaningful links: Remove “click here” and write meaningful link text, instead.
• Simplify and summarize: Simplify and summarize communications to make content easier to read and understand.

The university has a variety of tools that you can use to assess your digital content and training options to help you learn more about creating accessible documents. 

Contact 4Help.vt.edu with questions or request support for training.