Digital Accessibility
What is Digital Accessibility?
Digital Accessibility (DA) and corresponding Federal and Illinois State regulations and Institutional guidelines aim to provide inclusive content for all people accessing online content offered by SIUE. Requirements include online course content related to teaching and learning, as well as other publicly available content. To ensure DA, content should include components such as, but not limited to:
- Captions and transcripts for videos
- Alternative-text (alt-text) for graphics and pictures
- Structure within documents by using titles, headers, and other formatting tools
- Careful use of tables and other graphic organizers to ensure proper formatting for assistive technology
Digital Accessibility Resources for Faculty, Staff, and Administrators
Many popular document creation applications, such as those within the Microsoft Suite, have embedded accessibility checkers that help identify and confirm that text has structure, images have alt-text, and tables have repeating headers. A KnowledgeBase article on file accessibility is also available for quick tips.
Digital Accessibility Supports for Faculty
The Center for Faculty Development and Innovation is providing faculty with resources to be ready for the April 24, 2026, enforcement date. This includes a workshop series (available in-person, via Teams, and asynchronously), walk-in help desk (M-F 8am-4:30pm in Lovejoy 2040), remediation assistance, open labs, and the 2026 Continuous Improvement Conference. For questions or support, stop by or email facultycenter@siue.edu.
Ally in Blackboard
If you have access to Blackboard, our subscription includes Ally. Ally provides a simple visual indicator to convey how accessible uploaded content may be. The Ally visual indicators use red (nearly inaccessible), orange (accessible with room for improvement), and green (accessible) speedometers to quickly communicate where DA may need further attention.
Captioning in YuJa
When recording videos using YuJa, SIUE's video recording and streaming service, review the auto-generated captions. Auto-generated captions provide a strong foundation for ensuring video accessibility, but a human must review them for accuracy. It is also recommended to download the transcript and provide it alongside the video. For assistance with this task, please see Digital Content Captioning Support.
SIUE Office for ACCESS
Another resource for providing accessible content and ensuring content is accessible to all students is the SIUE Office for Accessible Campus Community & Equitable Student Support, or ACCESS. ACCESS regularly communicates student, faculty, and staff accessibility needs and supports efforts to ensure educational content is accessible to the broader community. ACCESS offers an accessibility checklist to assist the SIUE community with ensuring accessibility of content.
ITS IDLT
The ITS Instructional Design & Learning Technologies team is staffed by instructional designers who can consult and offer assistance with accessible course design and course content.
