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The Busy Instructor’s Guide to Course Accessibility

This guide offers realistic, step-by-step recommendations for busy instructors like you to effectively work toward compliance without sacrificing your well-being.

As of April 24, 2027, all digital course materials must meet defined accessibility standards. If you’re wondering where to start in remediating materials that were not developed with these standards in mind, the steps in this article will help you work toward compliance with the least amount of overwhelm possible. By going through these materials you can also learn to create new materials that meet the required standards. We’ve listed the steps below from simplest to most involved.

A few things to note:

  • It’s not necessary for you to memorize the standards, but if you’re curious, you can find more information here: WebAim’s WCAG 2 Checklist. Note that the required standard is WCAG 2.1 level AA.
  • If you regularly teach STEM courses, you likely have some uniquely challenging content to make accessible, including mathematical expressions, charts, graphs and other content. Please see STEM Accessibility for more help.
  • If you need 1:1 guidance for your course materials, you may request an accessibility consultation with DELTA staff.

Step 1: Learn the basics.

Just as you introduce your students to core concepts before they tackle complex tasks, learning the accessibility basics will dramatically improve your efficiency in the subsequent steps.

Action: Complete OIT’s Digital Accessibility Basics self-paced training (takes < 1 hour).

This foundational knowledge is your most valuable tool. Once completed, you can use the content from the training and DELTA’s Digital Accessibility Guide as quick, reliable references whenever you need to check a key principle or definition. Getting this initial step done will make every following action faster and simpler.

Step 2: Start with the lowest-hanging fruit.

Documents and slides: Begin with the easiest materials first—your Google and Microsoft documents and presentations. Accessibility checkers are available for both Microsoft and Google, which can help you identify and resolve common issues. While these documents are relatively simple to remediate, if you have many of them with lots of errors it may be time consuming! Still, starting here will give you immediate wins and build your confidence.

Captions and transcripts are relatively simple to provide and are required by accessibility standards. Some videos may need additional work to verbally explain visual content that isn’t conveyed through speech or captions (we’ll cover this in Step 7). If you’re creating new videos, review the proactive approaches section of the guide below to save yourself some work later!

[DELTA Accessibility Guide] Course Multimedia – See the section on captions and transcripts

Step 3: Check websites you use and share

Checking the accessibility of a website you create and maintain is generally simple; fixing problems may be quick or may take time, depending on the site. You are also responsible for ensuring that all websites you link to meet required standards, even if those sites are intended as supplemental or optional resources. Again, checking the sites is quick, but finding a solution if you discover a problem site may require time.

Step 4: Check and fix Moodle content (moderately simple)

The Brickfield Accessibility+ Toolkit is a checker available for any resources and activities that are native to and live inside of Moodle. As this is largely web-based (i.e. HTML) content, it’s often quite straightforward to fix, but the number of errors and ease of remediation will vary depending on what you’ve created and your discipline.

Step 5: Examine content delivered in external tools

Enterprise tools that DELTA supports have accessible functionality, but proper and informed, accessible use is necessary to ensure that all instructional material and activities can be accessed by everyone. We suggest starting with tools you use to deliver content, often with interactive elements.

Step 6: Address your PDF’s (potentially more challenging)

PDFs are often the most challenging course documents to make accessible. Instead of spending significant time remediating them, consider a strategic shift first: prioritize alternatives! Link to view-only versions of your Microsoft/Google documents or slides or use another web-based format. It’s easier to ensure these file types meet required standards. Additionally, you may find that published articles you provide via PDF likely have versions available from University Libraries that meet the standards. Simply email library_reserves@ncsu.edu with the details of the article you need in an accessible format.

If a PDF is necessary, be aware that remediation can be complex, but it is critical for achieving course accessibility. Dedicate time to these files only when a web-based alternative is truly unavailable.

Step 7: Address visuals within videos needing text description (potentially more challenging)

You worked on video and audio captions and transcripts in Step 2. It’s time to assess if your videos require audio descriptions in order to fully meet the required standards. Audio descriptions function like alt text for video. They are crucial when important instructional content is presented visually without being spoken aloud. If a student who cannot see the screen would miss key information, an audio description is necessary. This is the final step in making your videos meet required standards.

Step 8: Consider accessibility of student-generated content

If you use social learning and collaboration tools in your courses, plan how you’ll make sure that student-generated content is accessible. Learning digital accessibility is an important 21st century skill for your students, and your course is a great opportunity to help them be prepared for the work of the future.