Accessibility for Online Courses Workshops

This session provides a clear overview of the updated ADA Title II requirements, with a focus on how these changes directly impact instructors who teach or design online courses. You’ll gain a better understanding of your role in creating accessible content and how to ensure your courses meet compliance expectations moving forward.

You'll also learn about the university’s available resources, training opportunities and support structures to help you prepare your courses without feeling overwhelmed.

Participants will learn about:

• ADA Title II (2026 updates): Identify and describe key regulatory changes that affect online course content.
• Instructor responsibilities: Recognize your role in meeting accessibility requirements before students with disabilities enroll.
• Implications for online teaching: Understand how the new regulations may impact course design, planning and delivery.
• Support and resources: Locate institutional tools, training and support services available to help prepare your courses for compliance.

This session will help you feel more informed and prepared as we move toward a more inclusive and accessible learning environment—one where all students can succeed from the very start.

Are your digital course materials and third-party tools accessible to all learners? In this session, you’ll learn how to evaluate both internal course content within Blackboard and external educational technologies to support a more inclusive and compliant learning environment.

You’ll explore how to use Blackboard Ally to assess and improve the accessibility of content within your Blackboard courses, and how to critically review third-party tools to ensure they align with accessibility standards. 

Participants will learn about:

• Blackboard Ally: Generate an accessibility report and interpret its indicators.
• Accessibility improvements in Blackboard: Apply remediation techniques to improve accessibility of course materials using Blackboard Ally's guidance.
• VPAT: Locate and summarize key information from a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) for a third-party tool.
• Third-party tool accessibility statements: Locate and include your tools’ accessibility statements in your Blackboard course accessibility information

This session will empower you to take actionable steps toward creating more accessible and equitable learning experiences within your LMS and beyond.

Making course materials accessible is an important part of supporting all learners and meeting current expectations for inclusive teaching. This session will introduce practical strategies you can use to improve the accessibility of documents, multimedia and other course content.

Through a series of demonstrations, we’ll highlight common accessibility issues and show simple ways to address them using tools available in widely used software. We'll also review how to use built-in accessibility checkers to identify potential problems and take initial steps toward improvement.

This session is designed for instructors and course designers who are new to accessibility or looking for manageable ways to begin making their courses more inclusive.

• Common accessibility barriers: Identify typical issues in course content that can affect access for students.
• Foundational strategies: Describe practical approaches to improve accessibility in documents, multimedia, and course materials.
• Accessibility checkers: Locate and use built-in tools to review content for accessibility concerns.
• Inclusive course design: Understand how small changes support a more equitable learning environment for all students.

The pop-in is similar to office hours — come and go as you please. There won't be a presentation, this time is yours to bring your questions and get one-on-one support.