Any documents that are distributed or used in coursework need to follow digital accessibility standards.
What's been happening?
Documents are generated at the College every day, emailed to students, faculty, and staff, posted online, and used in courses.
Lake Forest College has begun a comprehensive review of documents hosted on lakeforest.edu and is identifying which ones need to be made accessible vs. which ones are no longer used and can be removed from the website. In many cases this will involve turning inaccessible pdfs into accessible html webpages. The first candidates for this are college-wide policies, and affected departments and offices will be contacted.
What comes next?
Who is responsible for document accessibility?
To put it simply, all of us. Anyone who creates documents intended for distribution will need to ensure that their work follows digital accessibility guidelines. The College will of course be providing training to help everyone understand what is expected and how to use accessibility tools.
Opportunities, not barriers
This should be viewed as an opportunity to make better documents for everyone, not a barrier that must be overcome in your work. Documents with consistent heading structures, properly formatted tables, and captioned images are easier to read and understand, regardless of how you consume them.
Existing documents
There are thousands of documents posted on websites like lakeforest.edu and my.lakeforest.edu. The first step is identifying what we actually still need and what can be done away with. Then, the work of remdiating those documents can begin.