Digital Accessibility Requirements

In April 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a final rule revising the regulation implementing Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to establish specific requirements, including the adoption of technical standards, for making accessible the services, programs, and activities that state and local government entities offer to the public through their web content and mobile applications. These requirements apply to public colleges and universities and require Broward College to ensure that its digital programs, services, and activities, including instructional, administrative, and public‑facing content, are accessible to disabled individuals. Broward College must comply with these requirements by April 26, 2027.

To support these efforts, Broward College has developed this Digital Accessibility Hub that will serve as a centralized resource for faculty and staff. The Hub will provide guidance, tools, training materials, standards, and practical resources to help employees create, maintain, procure, and share accessible digital content and services.

Accessibility is not a one‑time initiative but an ongoing responsibility that must be integrated into the College’s day‑to‑day operations. The goal of the Hub is to provide clear, easy‑to‑use information that supports accessibility and helps ensure equitable access to the College’s digital programs, services, and activities.

What This Means for All Employees (New and Ongoing Content)

Any employee who creates, posts, shares, or maintains digital content as part of their role is responsible for ensuring that the content is accessible. This includes (but is not limited to):

  • Course materials and instructional content
  • Flyers and promotional materials shared through digital platforms, including email, websites, and electronic distribution
  • Department websites and webpages
  • Documents, forms, and PDFs
  • Presentations and training materials
  • Videos, audio recordings, and virtual events

Accessibility should be addressed whenever content is created, updated, or reviewed, and progress toward accessibility should continue over time for existing materials. Employees should incorporate accessibility practices into all stages of digital content development and maintenance to support compliance and equitable access.

Responsibilities for Existing Digital Content (Legacy and Active Materials)

In addition to creating accessible new content, all employees are responsible for ensuring that existing digital content within their area of responsibility is remediated for accessibility if the material continues to be used. This means confirming that accessibility barriers are identified, addressed, and resolved through appropriate processes and support channels.

As the College continues its progress toward compliance:

  • Priority support is directed toward content, essential to current instruction.
  • Employees remain responsible for ensuring that additional or legacy content within their area is brought into compliance when those materials remain in use.
  • Employees should identify accessibility barriers in existing content and take steps to ensure remediation occurs, including requesting assistance as needed, coordinating with appropriate support resources, or initiating remediation workflows.

Employee Responsibilities (By Role)

All Employees Who Create or Maintain Digital Content

Use accessibility features built into instructional and workplace tools when creating new content, such as:

  • Heading styles in Word and D2L pages
  • Captions or transcripts for newly created video and audio
  • Alternative text for images added to documents, slides, flyers, or webpages
  • Built-in accessibility checkers in Microsoft 365, D2L, and Ally

Faculty and Instructional Staff

  • Ensure that the course content provided to students is accessible at the point of use.
  • Continue working toward remediation of existing course materials, prioritizing content currently in use.
  • Seek assistance when content is complex or difficult to remediate independently.

Staff and Administrators

  • Ensure that digital materials used for communication, training, services, and outreach are accessible.
  • Continue remediation of existing digital materials within their units as part of ongoing operations.
  • Seek assistance when needed to support progress.

What Employees Are Not Expected to Do Alone

  • Employees are not expected to be accessibility experts.
  • Employees are not expected to independently remediate complex or high-volume content.
  • Accessibility work should be approached progressively and sustainably, focusing first on essential content while continuing remediation of other materials over time.

Responsibility for making progress remains with the content owner.

Resources and Professional Development

Accessibility guidance, tools, and training are available for all academic pathways, divisions, and departments. Below is a list of helpful resources to guide your digital accessibility journey. To schedule group trainings, please contact adacoordinator@broward.edu.

Resources

Videos

Ally for Instructors: Microlearning for Accessible Teaching

Watch on Vimeo

Getting Started with Accessibility using Ally's Course Accessibility Report

In this video, instructors are guided through Ally's Course Accessibility Report, and how it can be used as a springboard for determining your remediation strategy. You'll also explore the three guided remediation approaches available to help improve course content.

Watch on Vimeo

Strategically Prioritizing Accessibility using the Course Accessibility Report

This video shows how instructors can use Ally's Course Accessibility Report to strategically prioritize accessibility through four real-world scenarios. Each scenario highlights which guided remediation approaches are the best fit for addressing the identified issues.

Watch on Vimeo

Using Ally's AI Alt Text Assistant

This video in the Ally for Instructors microlearning series provides an overview of alt text and introduces Ally's AI Alt Text Assistant. It explains how the feature works and demonstrates its use across five different types of images, including handwritten content, WYSIWYG-embedded images, equations, campaign posters, and charts.

Watch on Vimeo

PDF Accessibility Challenges for Instructors and Learners

This video provides an overview of why PDFs are notoriously inaccessible, common accessibility issues found within them, and how Ally can help.

Watch on Vimeo

Ally's PDF Quick Fix Missing Language Set

Watch on Vimeo

PDF Quick Fix Auto-Tagging

This short video provides context on what tags in a PDF are, and how to use Ally's newest PDF Quick Fix: Auto-Tagging. Captions have been reviewed for accuracy.

Guides
(must be logged in to Microsoft 365 with an employee account)

Training

(Technical Accessibility Standard - Broward College follows the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA as its technical standard for digital accessibility under ADA Title II.)

Document Remediation Request
Remediation and development assistance requests are available through the Broward College Service Portal.