Accessibility for Instructors
See UT System’s guidance on universal course design and best practices, including their General Guidelines for Accessible Content Design.
Universal Design for Learning (UDL)
UDL is an educational approach based on the learning sciences with three primary principles — multiple means of representation of information, multiple means of student action and expression, and multiple means of student engagement.
AccessAbility Resource Center
The AccessAbility Resource Center provides disability and accessibility services to students and employees at UT Dallas, and provides helpful resources for instructors: Supporting Students with Disabilities.
Blackboard Ally
Blackboard Ally is a tool that helps improve the accessibility of course content. It is integrated with eLearning, UTD’s learning management system.
What Does Ally Do?
- It checks new and existing course content for accessibility, and assigns accessibility scores for review.
- It provides detailed feedback to help fix identified accessibility issues in course content.
- It provides a course accessibility report to check accessibility at the course level.
Resources for Instructors
- WebAIM’s Creating Accessible Microsoft Word Documents article
- WebAIM’s PDF Accessibility article
Not Just Webpages
Accessibility guidelines apply to more than webpages. Keep these rules in mind when creating:
- Word documents
- PDFs
- PowerPoint presentations
- Social media posts
- Emails
Planning an event? Check out the guide for accessible events.