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New Accessibility Requirements for Web Content and Mobile Applications for Public Entities

Regulation issued by the Civil Rights Division of

the Department of Justice

Presentation for CCCOER

April 8, 2025

Judith Sebesta, Ph.D.

Image: Accessibility Logo by Christy Blew of The University of Illinois created on behalf of the EDUCAUSE IT Accessibility Constituent Group. Licensed CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.

Except where otherwise noted.

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Community College Consortium for OER (CCCOER)

Professional development: webinars highlight best practices & emerging trends

CCCOER listserv: stay connected and informed, sharing events, resources, policy & research

Members: making connections & facilitating project collaborations

Partnerships: engaging the community through advocacy and projects

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Speaker

Judith Sebesta, Ph.D.

Sebesta Education Consulting, LLC

Moderator: Brandon Board

Digital Services Coordinator

Waubonsee Community College

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Accessibility Commitments

I have done my best to make these slides as accessible as possible by:

Using a slide template that has been vetted as accessible
Using accessible formatting (like numbered lists instead of bullets when order is important)
Including alt-text for all images (generated using the AI-powered ASU Image Accessibility Creator w/ editing for accuracy)
Sharing the presentation with you in a non-pdf format so that you can download it and more easily customize the appearance on your own device as needed

Image: “Accessibility logo” by Dave Braunschweig. Licensed Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International.

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Agenda

New Accessibility Requirements:

Overview

Compliance

Private Institutions

Exceptions

Impact & Enforcement

Strategies for Success

OER & Accessibility:

Overview

How to Start

Tips and Strategies

UNESCO Recommendations

For More Information

Caveat: I am not a lawyer!

Image: “IANAL” by Judith Sebesta was adapted from “Lawyer” by Nick Youngson via Pix4free. Licensed CC BY-SA 3.0.

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New Accessibility Requirements: Overview

Revises the regulation implementing Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Became effective June 24, 2024.
Establishes requirements for making accessible the services, programs, and activities offered by state and local government entities, including public universities and colleges, to the public through the web and mobile applications.
Must comply, at a minimum, with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA.

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New Accessibility Requirements:

Overview cont.

Public colleges and universities are responsible for contractual, licensed, or third-party services meeting the accessibility requirement.
With one limited special case, password-protected content

is not covered as an exception under this rule.

Entities still have their existing obligations under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which mandates that a variety of entities, including colleges and universities, ensure equal access for individuals with disabilities.

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New Accessibility Requirements:

Compliance Deadlines

Entities with populations ≥50,000: April 24, 2026.

Entities with populations <50,000 or special district governments: April 26, 2027.

**NOTE: "Population" refers to residents served, not institutional enrollment.

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New Accessibility Requirements: Compliance

Community Colleges and “Population”:

A community college would count the number of people in the district that supports the institution. Only colleges that serve a small county or service district, or are special district governments, will qualify for the later date.

Note: Depending on your state, a community college may or may not be considered a special district government.

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New Accessibility Requirements:

Private Institutions

Private colleges and universities receiving funding from the Department of Health and Human Services are subject to separate regulatory changes that recently imposed the same standards under a similar deadline.
Private institutions still have their existing obligations under Title III.

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New Accessibility Requirements: Exceptions

Exceptions include � 1. Archived web content that is not currently used (but must meet four conditions)

2. Pre-existing conventional electronic docs, unless such documents are currently used to apply for, gain access to, or participate in the public entity's services, programs, or activities. (CDEs = word processing, presentation, PDF, or spreadsheet file)

3. Content posted to an institution’s website or mobile app by third parties, unless those parties have a contract, license, or arrangement to post to institutional websites (e.g. an exception may = social media posts not originated from or controlled by the college)

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New Accessibility Requirements:

Exceptions cont.

However, all of these exceptions are in reality extremely narrow and some could require a significant amount of effort to implement.

4. Individualized documents that are password-protected, i.e., conventional electronic documents about a specific individual, their property, or their account and that are password-protected or otherwise secured

5. Preexisting social media posts made by an institution before the date the institution must comply.

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New Accessibility Requirements:

Impact & Enforcement

Nearly all digital material hosted by a public university or college must be compliant, including most content that is password protected.
This is a move from being reactive to being proactive. Instead of primarily responding to individual students’ accommodation requests, colleges will need to make content accessible from the outset.
Remediating documents like PDFs may be the greatest challenge in complying with the new regulations.
Institutions must ensure that all contractual, licensed, and third-party services meet accessibility standards.
Enforcement will occur primarily through complaints and lawsuits alleging non-compliance, not DOJ actions.

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New Accessibility Requirements:

Strategies for Success

Strategies = remediation of existing content + developing content that meets the technical standards right out of the gate.

Tips:

Identify priority areas. Look at the most frequently-visited sites and the ones that are likely to draw the most diverse group of users. Those could be made compliant first.
Begin archiving the least visited sites and pages (e.g., a webpage hosting a conference agenda from 2010).
Analyze how many users a certain vendor product or platform has, the types of users, and whether use is required for essential services (like a course) to set priorities.
Create guidelines and policies to prevent inconsistent approaches to compliance across an institution.

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Remember: Accessibility Benefits Everyone

Accessibility isn’t just about compliance—it’s about ensuring all students have equal access to education.

When digital resources are inaccessible, students with disabilities face unnecessary barriers that hinder their academic success.

Creating accessible content benefits everyone!

Image: https://pixy.org/4434160/

Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

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OER & Accessibility

All digital Open Educational Resources hosted and/or used by a public university or college must be compliant.
The institution is responsible to ensure the accessibility of content available through repositories and organizations like OER Commons, OpenStax, LibreTexts, Pressbooks, etc.
Presents a challenge for already often under-resourced OER development, adaptation, and adoption.
Thankfully, many (most?) OER are built with accessibility in mind! (The “ethos” of open)

Image: “Open Educational Resources - retrographic” by Lane Community College is licensed CC BY-NC 4.0.

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How to Start: VPATs

Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates (VPATs) are a form, filled out by vendors, that shows how a electronic resource or platform addresses accessibility.

The CUNY VPAT Repository is one place to search for an OER platform's VPAT and see if it is accessible. For example, is it usable by a person with low vision? Does the vendor check all the PDFs for that OER you are wanting to adopt? A vendor's VPAT will provide this information.

Also see Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR)

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How to Start: Accessibility Checklist

Headings
Images (alt text)
Text Styles and Design
Links
Lists
Tables
Media Elements (e.g. captioning)

OER Accessibility Evaluation Rubric, Tiffani Tijerina and Jeff Gallant,University System of Georgia, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Logo is licensed the same.

Also see “Do’s and Don’ts in Accessible Design” in WCET Closer Look – Creating Accessible Content

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Some Tips & Strategies

1. Collaborate with Colleagues e.g., Center for Teaching and Learning, Online Learning, Student Disability Services, Human Resources, Information Technology, and Communications and Marketing

2. Use Scalable Approaches

3. Proactively Plan for a diverse student population using Universal Design for Learning

Source: WCET Closer Look – Creating Accessible Content