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Faculty Responsibilities for Digital Accessibility

(Make your course materials inclusive, compliant, and learner-ready)

As a faculty member, you are the architect of the student learning experience. That includes ensuring every student — with or without a disclosed disability — can access and engage with your course materials. Under ADA Title II and Section 504, this is not just good practice — it’s a legal obligation.

A side-by-side infographic compares accessible and inaccessible digital course content. On the left, labeled "Accessible Content," a video player shows a woman speaking with accurate captions displayed: “And our agenda for today includes a couple of key points.” Below it are structured blue headings labeled "Heading 1," "Heading 2," and "Heading 3." On the right, labeled "Inaccessible Content," the same video lacks captions, with "No captions" shown on screen. Beneath it is a dense block of unformatted text — A side-by-side infographic compares accessible and inaccessible digital course content.

Digital Accessibility: What are the faculty responsibilites?

Digital Accessibility: What faculty are responsible for Video Transcript

Get Support / Contact the Accessibility Team

Need help making your course content accessible? We’re here to support you.

Whether you're revising a syllabus, adding captions, or checking Ally scores in your LMS, our team offers one-on-one consultations to guide you through every step.

As the State of Mobile App Accessibility Report (ArcTouch, 2025) reminds us,

“A partially accessible experience is a broken experience.”

Examples of Barriers to content

Format	Barrier	Accessible Alternative
Printed text(paper)	Incompatible with screen readers used by blind/low vision students and students with learning disabilities	Supplement with audio, provide an electronic copy of text
Audio	Hearing impaired students may not hear it, students with LD (auditory processing) may have difficulty understanding it.	Supplement with printed text/Electronic copy of text
Video	Blind/low vision students may not see it, students with LD (auditory processing) may have difficulty understanding it.	Provide description, captions or written transcript
Picture/Images	Blind/low vision students may not see it, students with LD (auditory processing) may have difficulty understanding it.	Provide description, captions or written transcript
Synchronous ( real time) discussion	Blind/low vision students, students with LD and ADHD, students with medical/physical/ physiological disabilities may have difficulty following up and keeping up	Use asynchronous (online) format for all or some discussions to allow more time for processing and responding
Tests/quizzes	Many students with disabilities have slower processing speeds that impact performance	Provide extended time/ Supplement with audio/provide large text size option