Title II, Digital Accessibility and Instruction at UWSP

Americans With Disabilities Act logo

What you need to know

In April 2024, the Department of Justice updated the regulations for Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to include specific requirements for the accessibility of online content, including public higher education institutions. Starting in April 2026, all digital course content must conform to higher standards of digital accessibility (specifically, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA) to ensure that course materials are accessible to all students and ensuring equitable access to education.


What this means for your teaching

All digital course content you provide to your students, whether developed by you or obtained from third parties, like the publisher, must meet the new accessibility standards. Course content includes everything you share with your students, including

  • word processing documents
  • PowerPoint presentations
  • spreadsheets
  • PDFs
  • videos
  • audio content
  • Canvas content such as pages and quizzes

NOTE: New resources are being developed and will be added to this webpage as they become available from UWSP and the Universities of Wisconsin. Please check back frequently.

Here is a list of the most common issues that need to be fixed to bring instructional content into compliance. Please note that this is a simplified and non-comprehensive list. For a comprehensive list, see the WCAG Quick Reference Guide.
  1. Hyperlinks: All hyperlinks should be descriptive (not “click here”) and contain real words. Don’t use the URL of the site you are linking to as the link text.
  2. Captions and Audio Descriptions: Captions should be provided for all prerecorded media and should be as descriptive as possible. Machine-generated captions are not sufficient.
  3. Text Alternatives: Provide text alternatives (alt-text) for any non-text content (images, graphs, equations) that is not already described in the text. Alt-text should be in plain language so that it is understandable to students.
  4. Heading Levels: Heading levels should be used and respected (Heading 3 follows Heading 2, no skipping levels) in documents and Canvas pages. Heading styles should be used only as page hierarchy, not for decorative reasons.
  5. Color Contrast: Contrast between text and background should meet WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines. Black text on a white background is always sufficient contrast ratio.
  6. Color to Convey Meaning: Color should not be the sole method used to convey meaning. Text that is highlighted or colored to make it stand out should also be bold or italicized.

QUALTRICS USERS - NOTICE OF CHANGES FOR ACCESSIBILITY:
Beginning on July 1, 2025, accessibility in Qualtrics will be enforced. This means inaccessible question types will be removed, and surveys that are inaccessible will not publish unless they pass Qualtrics accessibility testing.

If you need assistance revising a Qualtrics survey to meet accessibility requirements, contact CITL to book an appointment with a team member.


How CITL can support you

CITL has created a variety of resources and has a variety of services that can provide support as you work to make your course compliant. In the coming months, additional tools and resources will be made available to assist you in this work.

Teaching Tip ADA Title II
In this video, you will learn what faculty and instructors need to do to comply with Federal ADA Title II requirements by the government’s deadline.

Making Course Material Accessible
This document provides an overview of some of the most common issues to pay attention to when examining your course content, as well as sharing information about built-in tools you can use in Canvas, MS Office, and Adobe to help you on your accessibility journey.

Teaching Tip Accessibility video 1
In this video, you’ll learn about why you should be creating accessible content and the difference between creating accessible content and providing an accommodation.

Teaching Tip Accessibility video 2
In this video, you’ll learn about the fundamental features of digital accessibility, including using headers, properly formatting tables, using closed captioning, hyperlinks, color contrast, alt-text, and more.

Teaching Tip Accessibility video 3
In this video, you’ll learn about more advanced features of accessibility, including more on color contrast and live captioning.

You can also schedule a one-on-one appointment or a small group or department consultation on accessibility. To schedule a one-on-one appointment, please use our Bookings link. To schedule a group consultation, please send us an email.



TRAINING AND TOOLS


UW-STEVENS POINT
Accessibility Training


UDOIT

UDOIT is a third-party accessibility checker integrated with Canvas sites. You can find it in the left side course navigation in any course. It is enabled by default in all courses. We will adopt a more feature-filled UDOIT version soon.




Non-UWSP Resources






This website provides a checklist that presents Web Aim’s recommendations for implementing the most common accessibility principles and techniques for those seeking WCAG conformance. It simplifies and condenses the WCAG guidance. A PDF version of the checklist is also available.



This website provides various resources for evaluating and creating accessible Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files.




This website, by the Center for Transformative Teaching at UNL, provides a variety of downloadable accessibility checklists for different types of course content.