New resources and supports aim to make McMaster’s virtual spaces more accessible
On Global Accessibility Awareness Day, learn more about new resources to support a digitally accessible McMaster, including Accessibility in Online and Technology-Enhanced Learning, and Accessible Digital Content Training. (Shutterstock image)
May 20 is Global Accessibility Awareness Day, which highlights the digital barriers experienced by those with disabilities, and particularly those persons who use assistive technologies, in accessing online spaces.
As work and study spaces shifted to online environments because of the pandemic, McMaster community members’ relationships to accessibility and disability inclusion work has grown demonstrably.
This growth was most evident in the areas of digital accessibility, with unprecedented numbers of instructors, staff and students connecting with colleagues, peers, and the AccessMac Program, to update and create new integrative approaches to enhancing accessibility within their digital contexts.
As the pandemic amplified existing inequities and barriers to access for persons with disabilities, Students, staff and faculty with disabilities responded with advocacy for inclusion into the digital (and non-digital) decisions impacting McMaster disability communities directly and indirectly.
To mark Global Accessibility Awareness Day, McMaster’s Office of Equity and Inclusion is highlighting two free, asynchronous resources developed in collaboration with the MacPherson Institute and the Faculty of Science to support the continued growth of a digitally accessible McMaster:
- *New* Accessibility in Online and Technology-Enhanced Learning, a new chapter available from McMaster’s FLEX Forward: Accessibility and Inclusion Teaching and Learning Resource in Avenue to Learn, and
- *New* Accessible Digital Content Training, a continuously evolving McMaster Pressbook containing principled and skills development-focused approaches to authoring barrier-free digital content.
These resources work to sustainably support the integration of accessibility and disability-centric approaches into online and technology-enhanced spaces for instructors, staff and students, and are accompanied by bookable, in-person training and information-sharing sessions for McMaster campus community members.
Please connect with the AccessMac Program within the Equity and Inclusion Office for more information or to book sessions for your faculty or unit.
