LTC Podcast: Accessibility in Higher Education

The Learning Technology Coach (LTC) podcast is hosted by two learning technology coaches and produced by the Centre for Innovation in Teaching and Learning (CITL) at Memorial University. Learning technology coaches are current graduate students at Memorial who use their research and teaching experience to support instructors across the institution by investigating and proposing learning technologies to address instructional challenges. The podcast was initiated by the coaches to broaden their understanding of how pedagogy and technology intersect to create meaningful teaching and learning experiences. This six-episode series themed, “Accessibility in Higher Education”, features the voices of academics, students, administrators and accessibility advocates as they discuss opportunities and challenges in creating equitable and accessible learning experiences for all.

GitHub reviews READMEs

May 18 – May 26: We are encouraging Hubbers to take time to review their personal README for accessibility. We will have a Day of Learning session during GAAD to help guide through the accessibility review. Then we will allow people time to update over the next week. We have a baseline metric and will re-run our analysis to evaluate the improvement.

GitHub Accessibility Champions

Accessibility Champions will participate in a day of validating the color contrast issues that have been resolved through the recent Primer color update. We’re excited to have a dedicated day for our Champions to go through and bring the backlog down.

Awareness campaign through 50 personal profiles on Instagram

Every year, the AccessBoost course (about digital accessibility) participates in some way with GAAD promotion actions. This year the action will be different and unprecedented. Through 50 profiles (of friends and acquaintances), at 9 am on May 18, 2023, posts will be published with a black screen (with nothing written) and only the following caption: “This post contains the alternative text “. There will only be the alternative text explaining the campaign. We know that many people will not know what it is about this will generate curiosity. After 1 hour of the post, all profiles will include a response informing what the campaign was about and the importance of having alternative text in posts on social networks. There will be the dissemination of both the GAAD and the AccessBoost courses.

UiPath Accessibility Awareness Day for People with Disabilities

We are excited to announce that in celebration of the Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), UiPath UX Research and Accesibility Program invites users with diverse disabilities to explore our RPA UiPath tools. At UiPath, accessibility is a core value that we take seriously. We are committed to creating products that are not only functional but also inclusive and accessible to everyone, regardless of their disabilities. As part of our ongoing efforts to promote inclusivity and diversity, we are organizing this event to better understand the unique needs and challenges that users with diverse disabilities face when interacting with our products.

Designing Accessible Learning Content programme – free Taster module

Our goal at eLaHub is to make all learning content ‘accessible as the default’. To help achieve this we’ve transformed Susi Miller’s Designing Accessible Learning Content book into an online self-access programme. The course shows L&D professionals how to create inclusive, legally compliant learning content using a range of authoring tools. The full course is available in Autumn. Sign up: https://www.elahub.net/sign-up-taster/ to unlock 7 free showcase lessons we’re releasing to celebrate GAAD.

Fronta11y

Since 2018 the working group for accessibility in the German UPA (professional association of german usability and user experience professionals) publishes several articles to raise awareness of digital accessibility and make existing knowledge and information accessible for UX professionals. All articles (including those from previous years) are publicly accessible all times. The CfP is still open: https://forms.gle/DFwGRzGfBfYVZjEC8 (german) + https://forms.gle/h8ZHjzBwaX74nUi4A (english)

The Rock Round Up Radio Show

This is a two hour rock radio show dedicated to Global Accessibility Awareness. The Station can be accessed from anywhere via the Internet. Hosted by DJ Loretta MElena. 90.1 FM WUSB or WUSB.fm Songs that inspire people to overcome obstacles will be featured.

#CleanUpTheWeb Challenge

Let’s catch some accessibility bugs and reduce the number of barriers across the web together. To help collect and share helpful issue data, we’re opening up axe DevTools Pro features surrounding #GAAD for free 3-day trials, even if you’ve started one before. By finding and sharing Critical and Serious accessibility issues for the sites you love – in a positive and helpful way – you can help trigger the change in culture some orgs need.

Global Accessibility Awareness Day with xDesign

Every user deserves a first-class digital experience, including the one billion worldwide who have disabilities. Global Accessibility Awareness Day (or GAAD) is an annual event that shines a light on digital access and inclusion for people with disabilities. And now it’s your time to get involved in the conversation. Join us in our Edinburgh office, where you’ll hear from a variety of speakers sharing past experiences, industry insights and best practices on how to make digital accessible for everyone.