Event Experience

By April 24, 2026, most public colleges and universities will need to meet prescriptive requirements for digital accessibility under the Americans with Disabilities Act Title II regulations. The remaining public institutions will need to meet these requirements by April 26, 2027. Get up to speed with one of the nation’s top experts in accessibility regulations for education. Learn about the new and existing regulations, the limited exemptions and possible enforcement for noncompliance, and understand the impacts of these new regulations on universities, colleges, community colleges, and medical schools.

Judith Risch, Equity Access Services Special Advisor, Grand River Solutions, Inc.

Most of us know how to implement Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in individual activities, courses, and service interactions. But how do we go from having a few people who know a lot about inclusive design to helping everyone to know and enact a few keystone practices based on the UDL framework?

In this lightning session, you will learn how the principles and considerations in the UDL framework translate into action plans along the three UDL strategic pillars of access, inclusion, and predictability. You will take away models for attracting funding, resources, and time for systemic UDL application.

We’ll reflect and collaborate on five UDL-at-scale key practices:

1. Adopt UDL principles and goals in the institution’s vision and strategic plan.
2. Define core UDL applications to be implemented institution-wide, along with milestones for measuring success (like the Faculty Four).
3. Convince campus leaders to direct funding, time, and people toward the development, assessment, growth, and maintenance of core UDL implementations.
4. Provide options within and beyond campus-wide levels of implementation.
5. Create faculty development programming, staff development programming, IT-level changes, and media services enhancements that expand the culture and practices of the entire institution.

Thomas J. Tobin, Senior Teaching & Learning Developer, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Universal Design for Learning is a proven framework for creating more equitable learning environments. Yet, its power goes beyond simply offering our students options for engaging with course content. In this session, we will briefly explore the ways that joy and access are intertwined from a disability justice perspective. Participants will leave with concrete strategies for infusing more joy into their teaching and learning experiences as an avenue to boosting access for themselves and their learners.

Carly Lesoski, Dartmouth College

In this session, we will prepare for the implementation of Title II of the ADA and explore strategies for building and sustaining a broad culture of digital accessibility. At Northwestern University, the first phase of a digital accessibility project has seen remarkable adoption across the campus. The keys to success include building partnerships, making it easy by supplying tools that fit the context, and rewarding achievements. Student-facing tools supplement instructors’ tools, making digital accessibility for course materials an achievable outcome.

The session will include links to resources others can adopt, including accessible Canvas templates, draft letters to partners and administrators, and web resources.

Victoria Getis, Senior Director, Teaching & Learning Technologies, Northwestern University

Faculty are primarily responsible for ensuring that course content is accessible. Unfortunately, their support structure to do so is often a patchwork of knowledge bases, tutorials, help desks, and tools. Faculty should be able to request services and receive help quickly within their primary content tool: the learning management system. This presentation will demonstrate how your organization can put together tools and automation to provide faculty with an experience that reduces the friction for ensuring the accessibility of their materials and gives them the time to focus on what they do best: teach.

Michael Mace, Manager, Assistive Technology and Accessibility Centers, Indiana University

In 2022, the provincial government of Ontario, Canada, released a proposed set of Postsecondary Education Standards under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). To help postsecondary instructors navigate the 185 recommendations included in these proposed standards, the Postsecondary Course Accessibility Guide (PCAG) was developed. The PCAG includes criteria based on the course-level Postsecondary Education Standards recommendations, existing accessibility requirements outlined by the AODA and the Ontario Human Rights Code, and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

This presentation describes the PCAG and how it is being used to improve accessibility.

Christine Zaza, Online Learning Consultant, University of Waterloo

Creating accessible content requires a multifaceted approach that connects training, standards, software, hardware, and content. Texas A&M University adopted a strategic, scalable approach to digital accessibility. We launched the Digital Accessibility Series—four 30-minute faculty workshops with key topics that include foundations of digital accessibility, accessible Word and PowerPoint documents, PDF remediation, and leveraging Canvas for accessibility. To reinforce learning, we offer hands-on sessions where faculty apply skills to their own materials. We also created a dedicated digital accessibility website focused on content creation. By eliminating much of the technical and legal jargon found on typical IT accessibility sites, the resources offer clear, practical guidance that faculty can apply.

Carlos Perez, Educational Consultant, Texas A&M University
Jamie Thompson, Assistant Director, Teaching Excellence, Texas A&M University

Integrating accessibility into product design can feel overwhelming, especially when the responsibility falls onto a single person. At Coforma, Homer Gaines and Jared Cunha are helping teams shift accessibility to the forefront of product decisions. This requires a deeper understanding of how users interact with digital content through assistive technology. In this lightning talk, they’ll share practical strategies for building foundational knowledge, designing with intent, and fostering a culture of continuous learning. Rather than treating accessibility as an afterthought or a checklist, they advocate for a holistic, user-centered approach—one that places assistive technology on equal footing in every user experience decision.

Jared Cunha, Sr. Director of Creative Technology, Coforma
Homer Gaines, Sr. Accessibility Engineer, Coforma

Otter.ai is redefining note-taking and reading support in higher education disability offices. Beyond live, searchable transcripts, its built-in AI chatbot lets students and staff “chat with their recordings” to extract summaries, action items, and follow-up emails—easing cognitive load for users with audio processing, attention, or executive function challenges. A simple transcript-editing hack extends these benefits to PDFs: paste the article text into an Otter conversation and query the chatbot for insights.

The result is an all-in-one, accessible study hub that transforms passive content into interactive learning. This helps users stay organized, engaged, and focused—and illustrates how learning with AI augmentation is fast becoming the new learning paradigm.

Joshua Hori, Assistive Technology Analyst, University of California, Davis

Purdue University is exploring innovative, AI-powered captioning solutions. This initiative focuses on reviewing the accuracy, efficiency, and scalability of captioning educational video content. In a market saturated with AI tools, our project takes a critical look at their real-world effectiveness. We evaluated multiple AI captioning services to identify strategies to enhance accuracy and improve the student experience, all while being mindful of cost and sustainability.

This cross-functional effort brought together developers, accessibility experts, educational technologists, video producers, and instructional designers. Using sample lecture videos and industry benchmarks like Word Error Rate (WER), we compared vendor tools trained on AI models to find a budget-conscious solution that supports faculty and benefits students.

While these tools are not a substitute for faculty oversight, they serve as powerful aids in the accessibility process, helping to ensure that quality remains in the hands of educators. Our goal is to empower educators with tools that reduce manual workload and accelerate their delivery of accessible content—especially captions. We’ll share insights into the vendors we’re currently using and evaluating, and describe how these tools fit into our long-term vision of supporting faculty as purveyors of quality, while achieving institutional time and cost savings.

Casey Wright, Senior Application Developer, Purdue University
Alex Mason, Assistive Technology Specialist, Purdue University

How do you move accessibility from a checklist to a shared campus value? This session will offer practical “power tips” for scaling accessibility initiatives by engaging content creators, support teams, and campus leaders. Drawing on lessons from working with over 100+ colleges and universities, Mark Pope will share insights on what Pope Tech has learned that works (and what doesn’t) when building momentum around digital accessibility.

In addition to strategies, the session will include real-world stories and insights from James Stachowiak, the Accessible Technology Strategy and Operations Lead at Northwestern University. Together, their discussion will highlight how to move beyond compliance and embed accessibility into content creation and institutional culture. Participants will leave with actionable strategies to strengthen accessibility across their institutions.

James Stachowiak, Assistive Technology Director, Northwestern University
Mark Pope, Director of Customer Success & Accessibility Specialist, Pope Tech Corporation