Universal Design Training
Terminology
- Universal Design is a design principle aimed at ensuring that an environment, object, or experience has been thoughtfully designed in such a way that it can be accessed by, ideally, anyone and everyone.
- Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an educational framework for the development of teaching that includes diverse learners. Developed by CAST, the framework’s UDL Guidelines encourage instructors to develop curriculum with “multiple means of engagement, representation, and expression.”
- Assistive Technology (AT) is any tool that assists its user in accessing the world. Examples of AT run the gamut from wheelchairs to screen-reading apps.
- further reading: World Health Organization: Assistive Technology
- Digital Content is all media developed, procured, maintained, used, or otherwise provided by the University for use by its personnel, students, or the public, whether that content is text, documents, images, audio, video, or software endorsed or provided by the University. This includes (but is not limited to) the University website and everything on it, digital course materials, courseware and digital textbook platforms, social media, and ITS-approved software.
- Digital Accessibility (DA) is the guiding principle that digital content will be created or designed so that it may be accessed in a number of ways, including by using Assistive Technology. Digital Accessibility is a tenet of both Universal Design and UDL.
Getting Started
Digital Accessibility (DA), along with corresponding Federal and Illinois State regulations and Institutional guidelines, aims to provide inclusive content for all people accessing online content offered by SIUE. The requirements include online course content on teaching and learning, as well as other publicly available content. To ensure DA, content should consist of components such as, but not limited to:
- Captions and transcripts for videos
- Alternative-text (alt-text) for graphics and pictures
- Structure within documents by using titles, headers, and other formatting tools
- Careful use of tables and other graphic organizers to ensure proper formatting for assistive technology
Digital Accessibility Resources for Faculty, Staff, and Administrators
Many popular document creation applications, such as those in the Microsoft Suite, include accessibility checkers that help identify and confirm that text has structure, images have alt text, and tables have repeating headers. A KnowledgeBase article on file accessibility is also available for quick tips.
Accessible By Design Faculty Workshop Series
Faculty interested in incorporating Universal Design principles in their courses are invited to attend Accessible by Design: A Faculty Workshop Series, offered throughout Spring 2026. Current resources for faculty can also be found in the Center For Faculty Development & Innovation.
Anthology Ally in Blackboard
For employees with Blackboard access, our subscription includes Anthology Ally. Ally provides a simple visual indicator to show how accessible uploaded content is. The Ally visual indicators use red (nearly inaccessible), orange (accessible with room for improvement), and green (very accessible) speedometers to indicate where DA may need quick attention. By clicking the red, orange, or green speedometer next to an uploaded file, faculty can view the accessibility concerns and, in most cases, receive steps to remediate the document. To ensure your students are aware of and taking full use of Ally, please follow these instructions to add a blurb about Ally to your course shell.
Captioning in YuJa
When recording videos using YuJa, the video recording and streaming service for SIUE, be sure to review the auto-generated captions. The auto-generated captions provide a strong foundation for ensuring video content accessibility, but a human must review them to ensure accuracy. It is also recommended that the captioning transcript be exported and provided alongside the video, For assistance with this task, please see Digital Content Captioning Support.
Course Accessibility Rubrics
ACCESS offers a Course Accessibility Checklist to help the SIUE community ensure course content is accessible. A more-detailed Course Accessibility Review that breaks things down by individual WCAG standards is also available.
ACCESS
Another resource for providing accessible content and ensuring content is accessible to all students is the SIUE Office for Accessible Campus Community & Equitable Student Support, or ACCESS. ACCESS regularly communicates student, faculty, and staff accessibility needs and provides support to ensure educational content is accessible to the greater community.
ITS IDLT
The ITS Instructional Design & Learning Technologies team is staffed by instructional designers who can consult and assist with accessible course design and content.
Detailed Guidance
- An “alt” Decision Tree: A helpful guide for how and when to craft good alt text to describe your images.
