Making Course Materials More Accessible: Faculty-Friendly Guidance

Faculty are often exposed to the finer points of digital accessibility through intimidating technical language such as Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Faculty development programs typically present those technical standards alongside foundational concepts such as document tags, reading order, alt text, contrast, and remediation tools. For many faculty, these can feel like overwhelming compliance checklists. Put another way, one challenge of making learning more accessible is that it can appear to require significant technical expertise, while the faculty who are creating most learning materials are non-technical practitioners.

However, more faculty-friendly approaches to developing accessible digital learning experiences are possible, according to the expert guests in a recent webinar, Keep Calm and Make It Accessible, presented by Every Learner Everywhere and Northwest Higher Education Accessibility Technology Group (NWHeat). In the presentation, Tasha Biesinger, LMS Product Manager & Canvas Administrator at Oregon State University, and Justi Echeles, Course Development Manager & Accessibility Specialist at Oregon Health & Science University, discussed how faculty can translate accessibility requirements into practical choices. (Like all of Every Learner’s public webinars and workshops, the archived recording of “Keep Calm and Make It Accessible” is available in the Resources section of our website.)

Biesinger and Echeles emphasized that a faculty-friendly approach to digital accessibility means faculty do not have to abandon familiar teaching practices. It preserves the essence of an instructor’s preferred methods while ensuring that student-facing artifacts are accessible. For example, Biesinger talked through the example of a math instructor working through problems by hand on a whiteboard, which can be a difficult experience for students with visual impairments. It’s not necessary for the instructor to give up that practice to ensure accessibility. Biesinger and Echeles outlined several practical guidelines for doing that without becoming an expert in technological solutions.

1. Build accessibility into existing faculty development

Accessibility is more likely to be understood and incorporated if it fits into faculty workflows. Echeles recommended attaching accessibility guidance to familiar faculty development events that may focus on topics such as presentations, slide design, Universal Design for Learning, and Quality Matters. Oregon Health & Science University recently integrated training on accessibility into its training for a transition to a new LMS.

2. Start with course material, not compliance language

Echeles described how in her own faculty development work, she has moved away from deep dives into the technical standards on accessibility. Now she guides faculty to identify the actual materials students encounter and then to check whether those materials have the structures students need to read, hear, navigate, or interpret them. Faculty development on accessibility starts with the actual PDFs, LMS pages, slides, scans, diagrams, equations, library links, and other materials faculty are asking students to use in a course. Those give context to questions about captions, transcripts, headings, and image descriptions.

3. Ask whether the format is necessary

The webinar used PDFs as a common example because they are easy for faculty to create yet are often the source of many accessibility problems. (For underlying technical reasons, screen readers and other assistive technology can have trouble with PDFs.) The presenters emphasized repeatedly that faculty should ask themselves if a PDF is the right format to begin with. In many cases, posting content on HTML pages or within the LMS may serve students better. Slowing the production of new PDFs limits the need to rebuild or remediate them later.

4. Use verbal description as part of accessible teaching

Accessibility also applies to live teaching, especially when faculty use whiteboards, chalkboards, drawings, equations, diagrams, or slides. Instructors can keep using those methods, but they should consider if they are effectively describing what they are writing or drawing in enough detail for all students to learn from it. Improving how an instructor narrates their own “board work” improves the in-the-moment experience for every student. Then it also improves the accessibility of any follow-up artifacts that are generated such as recordings, transcripts, summaries, or illustrated handouts.

5. Rebuilding a resource can improve it for everyone

Continuing the example of math problems, Biesinger described how it is common for some instructors to write them out, scan that page, and distribute it as a PDF. Irrespective of the technical challenges of the PDF for students using assistive technology, the handwriting itself can be a challenge for any student. Replacing that scan of handwriting with a Microsoft Word document results in a less ambiguous resource. Not only is the rebuilt version clearer for every learner, it becomes a “living document” that instructors can update.

6. Treat complex material as multiple parts, not one object

Many faculty feel overwhelmed by the technical work of making large individual files accessible. A more manageable approach, Biesinger described, is breaking complex materials into different kinds of parts — text, equations, images, graphs, diagrams, source data, and descriptions. That approach helps faculty decide which parts need alt text, captions, long descriptions, editable text, or another accessible format.

7. Include the institution’s library in the accessibility workflow

Both presenters repeatedly emphasized that the library is a critical resource to make courses accessible. Faculty can turn to the library for journal articles, book chapters, publisher materials, scans, and permalinks. Echeles said faculty should work with the library when they need scanned material and should check whether the library already provides the content in a more accessible form. Including library staff in accessibility work before faculty create or upload course copies can save a lot of remediation effort later.

8. Give faculty a place to bring hard cases

Some accessibility questions will resist easy answers and require judgment, institutional standards, or specialized technical approaches to remediation. A faculty-friendly approach to accessibility means giving them a place to get help in these cases. Oregon Health & Science University piloted Digital Accessibility Liaisons and trained them on accessibility checkers and remediation tools. Oregon State University developed documentation, decision guides, office hours, and a community on Microsoft Teams. Digital accessibility depends on institutional support, not individual willpower.

9. Some problems require vendor pressure

Faculty remain responsible for the material they place inside a digital platform or system, but institutions need vendors to make the shells of those tools accessible to begin with. Faculty work matters, but colleges also need procurement, contracts, and vendor conversations to support accessible teaching.

Breaking down faculty-friendly approaches to accessibility

Ensuring digital accessibility is more manageable when faculty can separate a challenge into two decisions. The first is to make simple adjustments that don’t require technical expertise. These include describing what is on the whiteboard, using headings in a document, checking whether a reading already exists through the library, or creating a page in the LMS instead of uploading another PDF. The second decision is when to seek technical help from accessibility staff, instructional designers, librarians, IT, or vendors.