Accessibility Frequently Asked Questions

Faculty are responsible for ensuring that publisher-provided digital content they use is accessible. The following is a sample email you can send to your publisher representative.

Dear <Representative>,

Recent changes to ADA Title II reinforce the requirement that digital course materials be accessible to students with disabilities. To meet institutional and federal accessibility obligations, we ask publishers to confirm that their products comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA standards and to provide any supporting accessibility documentation. I am writing to request this information regarding <insert name of text>.

Would you please confirm:

1. Whether the platform and content currently meet WCAG 2.1 AA requirements.
2. Whether a current VPAT or accessibility conformance report is available and, if so, provide a copy.
3. If full compliance has not yet been achieved, whether you can share your roadmap and anticipated timeline for reaching compliance.

To help us meet internal deadlines for our students, we kindly request a response by <date>. Thank you for your assistance in ensuring equal access to education for all our students.

Captions should be in the same language as the spoken content. You can change the language of the auto-captions in Panopto, then edit them for accuracy. Essentially, you will create a new folder and change the caption settings. There are linked resources below to support you with these steps. You will then reupload your videos — you can't change the caption language on a video that's already uploaded or has been copied from another folder. 

To learn how to change the language for captions in Panopto, visit the Panopto help page’s How to Use Multiple Language ASR Captioning. Instructions for editing the captions can be found at Editing Auto-Captions in Panopto [PDF].

You can also outsource the captioning to a professional service. There will, of course, be a cost for this option, but your department may decide it's worth the cost to save faculty time. 

Blackboard Ally is a helpful diagnostic tool, and it will catch many common issues such as missing alternative text, insufficient headings or inaccessible documents. However:

• No automated checker can identify every accessibility problem.
• Some requirements, such as avoiding color-only communication or ensuring meaningful link text, require human review.
• Ally does not evaluate content directly against WCAG 2.1 AA, which is the required standard.

Ally should be used as part of your workflow (and is a good starting point) but should not be the only measure of accessibility compliance.

No. WCAG compliance ensures your course follows internationally recognized best practices, but individual students’ needs may still require additional adjustments. Building accessible materials now reduces the amount of work required later, but it does not replace the accommodation process.