Digital Accessibility
Digital content is considered accessible when all users, regardless of physical or developmental abilities or impairments, are able to access the presented information. Class materials are created using a wide range of media from PowerPoint to video, word processing to specialized tools.
Accessibility best practices apply to all digital content you create, whether on your website, LATTE or other sites used for class, as well as any documents, slide presentations, videos, audio, etc.
What We Do
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Serve as an advocate for digital accessibility on campus
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Set and enforce the university's digital accessibility guidelines
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Train university faculty, staff and students to make digital materials accessible
- Manage relationships with third-party accessibility vendors
How to Reach Us
Things to Remember
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It's the law. Websites are considered places of public accommodation and must therefore comply with Title III of the federal Americans With Disabilities Act.
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Hop on the "train." Asynchronous workshops are available in LATTE (UNet login req.).
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PDFs are a last resort. If at all possible, convert your PDFs to html pages.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Web content is considered accessible when all visitors — regardless of physical or developmental abilities or impairments — are able to access the presented information. Brandeis strives to meet the standards for web accessibility known as WCAG 2.0 AA. WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) is a set of web accessibility guidelines published by the W3C, which is the main standards organization for the World Wide Web. WCAG is the most widely adopted standard for creating accessible web content. Check out a simplified checklist.
Yes. Federal law states that websites and digital content created and distributed by educational institutions must be accessible for all potential users.
Yes, all content on a Brandeis website or shared electronically must be accessible This includes documents (Word, PDF), PowerPoint, forms, videos, audio, images and embedded material. Learn more about making various types of content accessible through asynchronous training.
There are several resources available for making your content accessible:
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Visit our web page on creating accessible content. There, you'll find information on making accessible web pages, documents, multimedia, graphics and more.
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Self-paced how-to workshops are available on LATTE. We offer many online units, several of which are mandatory for university web editors and document creators and recommended for everyone:
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Digital Accessibility 101
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Fixing Inaccessible Word Documents
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Fixing Inaccessible PDFs
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Social Media Accessibility Training (mandatory for university social media managers only)
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LATTE Accessibility Training (open to all, recommended for faculty and academic administrators)
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Outsource the work. The university contracts with third-party vendors who specialize in PDF remediation (Crawford Technologies) and video captioning (Kaltura and Rev). Contact webaccessibility@brandeis.edu for pricing and more information.
Yes. As stated above, Brandeis websites are considered places of public accommodation and must therefore comply with Title III of the federal Americans With Disabilities Act.