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Being Accessible

What does it mean to be "accessible?"

The University of South Alabama is welcoming of every student regardless of their abilities. Being accessible simply means that your course documents are able to be taken in by every student. I have found a resource that will assist our faculty in ensuring all of our courses are accessible. It is a very easy read and it will show you how to make these documents accessible right out of the box using the tools you are already familiar with. It is a great resource and I think that it will discern some of the most commonly misunderstood myths and provide easy to understand answers to many of the most commonly asked questions about how to create accessible documents for people who are blind or visually impaired. The good news is that you do not have to have a PH.D. in computer Science in order to make your instructional materials and documents accessible. - Jessica Hultquist, Ed.S., Sensory Impaired Technology Coordinator

Best Practices

• Use of digital text, not scanned images of text

• Use of Microsoft Word (*.DOC and *.DOCX) and HTML (*.HTM) formats, which are nearly universally accessible with little or no cleanup or processing.

• Use of Alt tags for graphic images, with concise text conveying the message a sighted reader would be expected to get from the graphic.

• Use of Heading and table tags to make document navigation simpler and make the document more readable for screen reader users.

If you require more information, please download this Word document:

If anyone needs their documents tested for accessibility, please send them to our Sensory Impaired Technology Coordinator, Jessica Hultquist, Ed.S., via the email address: jessicahultquist@southÃÞ»¨ÌÇÖ±²¥.edu