Scheduled at 9:00 am in Penrose 1 on Wednesday, November 13.
#39457Speaker(s)
- Jim Stachowiak, Accessible Technology Strategy and Operations Lead, Northwestern University
Session Details
- Length of Session: 1-hr
- Format: Lecture
- Expertise Level: All Levels
- Type of session: General Conference
Summary
With the new ADA Title II digital accessibility rules, ensuring all course material is accessible is critical for all schools. Over the past two years, Northwestern has built and implemented the Canvas Accessibility Project in multiple phases resulting in a 55% improvement in accessibility errors across Canvas. This session will detail Northwestern’s phased approach, highlighting successes, roadblocks, and lessons learned to help others looking to implement similar programs on their campus.
Abstract
With the new ADA Title II rules on digital accessibility, schools must ensure that all course sites and course material meet WCAG 2.1 AA compliance in relatively short order. That is no small task considering the size and siloed layouts of academic departments. Two years ago, Northwestern launched the Canvas Accessibility Project to proactively address digital accessibility in course materials. Through a phased approach, first addressing Canvas content, then course documents, the Canvas Accessibility Project has resulted in a 55% improvement (and growing) in accessibility errors on Canvas sites across the university and 200+ courses certified as fully accessible.
This session will explore Northwestern’s two-year path to a sustainable course digital accessibility program, focusing on the key decisions that supported success and how roadblocks were navigated. We’ll discuss how first addressing content in Canvas sites, then later addressing course document accessibility eased instructors into the process, creating greater buy in. This will include highlighting the Mission: Accessible challenge – gamifying digital accessibility with support and recognition – the primary component of our approach to working with faculty. We’ll also highlight tools used (Pope Tech Accessibility Guide and Dashboard) to make the process easier for instructors and measure progress. We’ll also explore a partnership with the Medill School of Journalism to create a model school for digital accessibility and the ripple effects this had throughout campus. Finally, we’ll discuss our approach to ensuring documents provided on course sites are accessible, including strategic partnerships, funding, staffing, and tool (Equidox) support.
This model, which started as a proactive approach, not because of an OCR settlement, has produced significant success at Northwestern. This session will offer a thorough walk through of the Northwestern system to help others replicate success on their campus.
Keypoints
- Instructors aren’t digital accessibility experts, make it easy for them.
- Find, create, and highlight strategic partnerships to grow and sustain your digital accessibility efforts.
- Publicly recognizing instructor’s accessibility work reinforces its importance and gets more buy-in.
Disability Areas
All Areas
Topic Areas
Accessible Course Design, Uncategorized
Speaker Bio(s)
Jim Stachowiak
As Director of Assistive Technology and Assistant Director of AccessibleNU, Jim assists students with determining, using, and troubleshooting assistive technology (AT) solutions for reading, writing, computer access, note taking, organization, and other academic needs. He enjoys keeping up to date on the latest AT tools and figuring out how to best implement them in education settings. Jim has also played a key role in Northwestern's digital accessibility initiative, developing the digital accessibility liaisons program and helping develop Northwestern's digital accessibility policy. Prior to Northwestern, Jim was the Associate Director of the Iowa Center for Assistive Technology Education and Research (ICATER) at the University of Iowa where he taught classes on AT and worked to prepare teacher education students to work with AT in their classrooms.
Jim holds a Bachelor's of Science in Engineering degree in Industrial and Operations Engineering and a Master's of Science in Engineering degree in Biomedical Engineering, both from the University of Michigan. He is also a RESNA certified Assistive Technology Professional (ATP).