Building a Strategic Plan for Online Course Accessibility: A Simple Template to Get You to Compliance

Online courses offered through Penn State's World Campus are developed both by the World Campus learning design team and by learning design units located in the individual colleges of the university. Learning designers and accessibility experts from various units came together to develop a strategic plan template, which would ensure all colleges addressed pertinent accessibility issues and would be in compliance with the university's agreement with the National Federation of the Blind. This presentation will discuss the resulting template, which consists of accessibility issues to consider, a means of prioritizing the work, and checklists to assist in the process.

OUTCOMES: Understand the need for establishing university-wide recommendation for achieving online course accessibility * Identify the challenges faced by universities seeking to make online courses accessible * Explain the benefit of units working collaboratively to address accessibility issues * Modify a strategic plan for an accessibility template to your institution's needs and challenges * List the sections of a strategic plan template that are useful for incorporating accessibility into online course development