Digital Accessibility Project
A new ADA Title II rule requires that all digital content maintained by public entities—including websites, mobile apps, and other platforms—meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA standards by April 24, 2026. It is essential that everyone who publishes content or provides files to be published on the website complies with the new regulations. You can find a summary of the new regulations here: https://www.ada.gov/resources/2024-03-08-web-rule/
It is important to recognize that anyone who is creating digital content on behalf of the university is responsible for meeting these guidelines. This includes documents (docx, pdf, etc.), presentations, course content, email, web pages & other file types. Currently, ULM is working to secure software/tools to help us meet those standards. Expect to see more communications from IT & other ULM departments in the coming months.
Feel free to contact us in the event you have an issue that you do not easily know how to fix. This will help us understand the needs of our web contributors. Please submit your questions or concerns via the web accessibility form
Training Opportunities
Please check your email, registration links were sent to all employees.
Recordings of these sessions will be made available at a future date. These sessions are provided by our UL System colleagues.
September 24 Access Starts Here: ADA Compliance for Documents
Learn the fundamentals of accessible document design. This session will cover practical
tips for making Word, Excel, PDF, and other common file formats ADA-compliant equipping
you with tools to ensure your course and campus materials meet accessibility standards
from the start.
Video | Presentation pptx | Documents pdf
October 22 (3:00–4:30 PM) Beyond the Transcript: ADA and Accessible Media
This session dives into best practices for captioning, audio descriptions, and multimedia
accessibility. Whether you use videos, podcasts, or interactive media in your work,
you'll walk away with actionable strategies to make your content inclusive and compliant.
Video | Presentation pptx | Documents pdf
November 19 (3:00–4:30 PM) Designing for All: ADA Compliance in Course Structure
Explore how thoughtful course design can remove barriers to learning. From syllabus
to final assessment, this webinar will highlight strategies for building accessible
courses that support diverse learners and align with ADA standards.
Video | Presentation pptx | Documents pdf (to be posted)
What you can do now...
ULM is working to secure software/tools to help us diagnose and remediate accessibility issues. In the meantime, you can get started today.
Automated Checkers
ULM's primary web systems have built-in accessibility checking tools. While an automated checker is a valuable tool for finding issues, it can only do automated checks. For example, it can check to make sure you have an alternative description for an image, it cannot check how well the description is written. That would fall under the category of needing a “manual check.”
CANVAS (LMS) has a built-in accessibility checker. It can help you identify common issues on your CANVAS pages. In the rich text editor look for the accessibility icon (person in a circle). Select this button to run a check on your page.
ModernCampus (formerly Omni CMS) has a built-in accessibility checker as well.
Using the Automated Accessibility Checker on Publish
When publishing a file to the webserver, you have the option to run the automated
accessibility checker first.
Using the Automated Accessibility Checker on Staging Server
When viewing a web page on the staging server, make sure the file is checked out to
you (light bulb icon should be yellow). To the right of the publish button, select
the "•••" more actions icon, then select "Page Check" to access the "Accessibility"
checker.
Feel free to contact us in the event you have a 'checker' error or issue that you do not easily know how to fix. This will help us understand the needs of our web contributors. Please submit your questions or concerns via the web accessibility form
Depending on the complexity of your site, additional manual checks may be required. More information regarding accessibility checks, images, media, and other topics will communicated in the future.
Common Issues
The following items are common issues, regardless of file type.
Image Description or Alt Tag Missing
Whether it be course content in CANVAS, a web page on your departmental site, or even
a electronic document (ex: .docx), ALT or Descriptions are required for images. The
automated checkers can verify if there is a alt/descriptions present, but it cannot check how well the description is written. See sample from our University Week Session. The alt/description text should convey the same meaning and content as the image.
Users in ModernCampus CMS and CANVAS have that feature built in when inserting images.
Most document editors have this feature as well, for example in Microsoft Word double-clicking
an image on your page will bring up the "Picture Format" menu, select the "Alt Text"
button to insert an image description.
Color Contrast
There is a specific formula to meeting color contrast (foreground-to-background).
While there is different criteria for larger vs. smaller text, it is recommended that
you choose colors that work for both (keep it simple). There are several contrast
checkers online, luckily for CANVAS users, there is a tool built-in. Explore more
with the resources below:
For specific questions or concerns, please contact us via the web accessibility form
-this page will continue to be updated