Accessibility

 

The Stats on Accessibility

 

1 in 4 people have a disability

 

6.2% of Americans experience deafness or serious difficulty hearing

 

5.5% of Americans deal with blindness or serious difficulty seeing

 

46% of adults in the U.S. use voice-controlled digital assistants regularly

Data from the CDC and Pew Research Center

 

 

 

 

Accessibility Training

All ETSU employees are responsible for making their digital content accessible.

The Office of University Marketing and Communications offers several recorded training sessions to assist faculty, staff, and students in creating accessible digital content.

Get Trained

Content Audit and Clean Up

To ensure all public-facing content meets accessibility standards, the Office of University Marketing and Communications is working closely with content creators and managers across campus  to clean up and remove outdated content and content that may not be fully accessible. 

Any website content that has not been updated in the last five years OR that is not fully accessible will be subject to automatic removal by the UMC web team.

Why is this important?

• Quality control: many of these public-facing files are outdated or inaccurate
• Accessibility: many of these older files fall short of current standards for accessibility
• Storage: continuing to accumulate files in perpetuity is a waste of digital resources

Next Steps

1. Content creators and managers should watch the recorded Accessibility Training Videos UMC has created in order to learn how to make digital content accessible. They should also review our Digital Documents Guide to learn where digital documents should be stored moving forward.
2. Website managers should audit the content, particularly the PDF files, on their websites. Content that is no longer relevant or needed should be removed. Content that must be maintained should be updated to comply with current standards of accessibility. 

FAQs

• What types of files must be updated? 

  • Webpages
  • PDFs
  • Any file that is housed on the etsu.edu domain or subdomains for downloading 
• How do I learn to optimize for accessibility?

  Please watch our content accessibility training videos. 

  *You will need Acrobat Pro rather than Acrobat Reader to remediate PDFs.

• Where do I get Acrobat Pro?

  You need Acrobat Pro in order to remediate PDF documents.

  ETSU has purchased an Acrobat license via an ETLA (Enterprise Term License Agreement) or VIP program, you can download the installers from this Adobe Acrobat Download page.You do not need to pay for or have an Adobe Creative Cloud License.

  After the download is complete, follow the installation instructions on the Adobe Acrobat Download page to begin the installation. 

• What about files I am linking to on other sites or embeds?

  If a file is housed on another site and your page is merely linking to it, you are not responsible for updating the linked file. Embeds such as YouTube videos do not need to be updated. However, you should strive to optimize all content you produce for accessibility. 
• I have a lot of files to update. Are there any quick tips?

  Yes! First, think twice about whether or not the files in question really need to be available to the public. Could you instead move them to a shared drive for access by a limited group? 

  Second, consider whether it might be better to move the content to a webpage (html) instead of attaching a linked file. ETSU's website content management system has accessibility tools built in, so it is often easier to ensure accessibility by placing the content on a webpage instead of linking to an attachment. 

• What if I need more time to update my files?

  If you have several files that need updating and need more time to review, please email the UMC web team at cms@etsu.edu to request an extension. 

• What if I need to archive or preserve documents but do not want the stored in the Modern Campus CMS?

  Please review our Digital Documents Guide for best practices on where to store digital documents moving forward. 

Where Do I Direct My Questions About Accessibility? 

For Public-Facing Content: Contact University Marketing and Communications (UMC) 

Public-facing content is anything on your website that a member of the public can see, read, hear, or interact with — without needing a login or special access. This includes things like your webpages, PDFs, images, videos,  audio files, and more. It's the opposite of internal tools, employee portals, or anything behind a password. 

For questions regarding the public-facing content on your website, please submit a Web Support Request Form, which will be directed to the University Marketing and Communications (UMC) web team.  

For Course Materials: Contact Academic Technology Services (ATS) 

Course materials are any documents, media, or HTML content included in your course through a learning management system or third-party software provider. These materials are directly presented to students in digital format as part of an online or on-ground course. Materials presented in person are NOT subject to digital accessibility requirements. 

Digital course materials include but are not limited to Microsoft 365 files, PDF files, video/audio files, text, images, assignments, and assessments. 

For questions regarding accessible course materials, please reach out to ATS at ats@etsu.edu.