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 was 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.

Where do you start

All UWSP faculty and staff members should click the UWSP Accessibility Training button on this web page and select the correct Digital Accessibility 101 course to complete. Faculty and instructors can also review the TRACK flyer for the steps we will be walking you through in the upcoming weeks. There are also additional training opportunities in the planning stages. They will be added to the Accessibility Training web page as details are finalized.

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.


Frequently Asked Questions

What is the process IT, CITL, and the DRC will use to determine whether a course is exempt from accessibility requirements?
IT, CITL, and the DRC will not be making these determinations. The Title II working group is in early discussions about what form the exemption process should take, and agrees that CITL, DRC, and IT are not the correct bodies to form and lead the exemption process committee. We are also waiting on guidance from UW System Legal on what form exemptions need to take.

We expect exemptions to come with specific targets within a course, not the whole course (i.e. map images in a geography course may be exempted from having long description text, while the rest of the course content will be expected to be remediated.)

If you feel like you have course content that will need exempted content, we recommend you set that content aside until we have more definitive standards and processes in place.

What is the target date for accessibility remediation?
We’ve heard instructors discuss rumored enforcement dates in Canvas courses for as early as Fall 2025. Title II requires compliance by April 26, 2026. Our campus administration has decided that our target for Title II is courses offered during the SUMMER 2026 Term. For Summer 2026 and beyond, our initial target is that the courses pass UDOIT checks with no (user correctable) errors, and documents pass Microsoft Office or Adobe Acrobat accessibility checks without errors. We expect other tasks to take much longer. We have a Spring 2028 goal for caption corrections to be completed. Other aspects, such as audio description tracks and compliance of 3rd party links, aren’t in consideration right now and will be targeted with campaigns after caption remediation is complete.

What about courses offered in past semesters?
We recently heard concern that courses would need to be remediated into the past; that previous offerings of courses would need to be remediated as well. This is not true. Courses in past terms are considered archived content and do not need to meet compliance standards.
​ ​​ ​
UWSP Accessibility Training



Tools and Resources


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 have recently adopted the more feature-filled UDOIT Advantage.

 

TidyUP

TidyUP is a new tool added to Canvas to allow you to more easily identify and remove unused content. Removing unused content from your courses will reduce the number of errors and suggestions you’ll need to correct.