Reframing Web Accessibility in Higher Education: Examining The Role of the Educator in the Curation and Creation of Accessible Course Content

Web accessibility is emerging as a key issue and opportunity for educators in higher education institutions who are using the internet to address a wide range of learner needs (Brown, 2018; Gronseth, 2018). Many factors affect web accessibility in higher education. Commonly, factors stemming from technology procurement, staff training, and support, policy and oversight are in the institution’s domain. These and other factors relevant to libraries, and third-party vendors are typically well-supported by technical or policy research and guidelines. By comparison, little literature examines web accessibility factors relative to literacy, pedagogy, course culture, course content curation and information design for learning; areas that rest firmly within the educator’s domain. What facets of web accessibility are specifically relevant to post-secondary educators? This paper reexamines web accessibility from within the educator’s domain drawing on web accessibility, literacy and pedagogy literature and guidelines. The presentation aims to focus educators on the what, why and how of web accessibility that are relevant to them, and (distributing an in-process cheat sheet of skills and resources) ignite discussions about educators’ agency and self-efficacy to curate and create (or co-create with students) accessible course content.