Day: April 30, 2025

Richard Cartey is the Digital Accessibility Officer in the IT Governance, Risk and Compliance team at the University of Leeds 

How to become a digital accessibility ally 

Creating a digital environment free of accessibility barriers for staff and students is no small feat. It demands a collective effort from digital accessibility allies across the campus. 

What’s the challenge? 

Hundreds of websites, thousands of digital documents, and web pages in the hundreds of thousands. And this doesn’t include the wealth of products used through a web browser around the University.  

All this content must comply with 55 digital accessibility rules. Falling short doesn’t just let down our students, colleagues, and the public but also exposes the University to legal risks. 

It’s not a one-person job, and not even a one-team job. It’s a one-University job.  

Small steps, big impact 

To fix absolutely everything that doesn’t meet the 55 accessibility rules (known as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 AA) would take one team several years of work. But if everyone across the University started keeping accessibility in mind from now on, we could quickly reduce these issues.  

What would that look like in practice? It could mean avoiding a colour scheme that makes it hard to tell lines apart in a graph or switching to a mobile-friendly web form instead of a Word document. 

What is a digital accessible ally? 

Students and staff urgently need digital accessibility allies. Allies are individuals who actively advocate for inclusive digital practices, not experts. They are people who: 

• Offer small fixes and process tweaks. 

• Raise questions at critical moments. 

• Steer colleagues and partners away from digital exclusion. 

No one knows everything about digital accessibility. It is a vast topic, covering everything from colour contrast to coding for screen readers. 

But you do not need to know everything to be an ally. Even those who work in accessibility find themselves learning something new each week. 

By being an ally, you could: 

• Become a voice for disabled members of the University community 

• Support a student struggling with learning materials 

• Stop a colleague’s frustration because a PDF doesn’t work with their assistive technology. 

How do I find out more about digital accessibility? 

A good starting point is the Digital Accessibility site, which has advice for how to fix the things you’re working on. If you prefer to watch or listen, the University of Technology Sydney has a clear and concise set of videos explaining accessibility from a student perspective. 

Moving forward with digital accessibility 

Digital accessibility at the University should be seen as an opportunity to strengthen outcomes for students and help colleagues achieve their objectives by removing the problems their peers don’t experience. 

A smooth and accessible digital experience for everyone is only possible with the whole University working together. With some knowledge and working together, we can all be part of the change. 

Dr Zahara Batool is a Lecturer in Urban Systems & School Academic Lead for Inclusive Pedagogies (SALIP) in the Institute of Transport Studies at the University of Leeds  

The Institute for Transport Studies (ITS) is one of the UK’s leading departments for transport teaching and research, and welcomes a diverse range of international students each year for its Master’s courses.  

Why accessibility is important 

Our motivation for our work digital inclusivity is driven by the need to meet the accessibility requirements of all our learners, whether or not they have disabilities, and we’re especially keen to hear about the needs of disabled international students. 

One important issue we’ve found is the high non-disclosure of disabilities among this group, with cultural differences, stigma, and lack of awareness about available support contributing to this. As a result, many international students may struggle to access course materials and navigate digital systems effectively.  

Recognising the importance of digital accessibility for all our students, we started work to create a more inclusive digital environment for ITS. By looking at previous data and feeding back progress to meet and support institutionally agreed inclusivity and accessibility priorities, we worked to make Minerva an accessible and welcoming virtual learning environment for our learners. 

Building accessibility in Minerva 

As the School Academic Lead for Inclusive Pedagogies (SALIP), I began to monitor and understand the digital accessibility of our module content. Although the School has made significant progress in meeting the Inclusive Baseline Standards, it showed several areas where accessibility could be improved.  These included further work on Module Accessibility Statements, incomplete Ally scores, and the need for digital accessibility training and support for staff.   

Working together to make changes in ITS 

I collaborated with the Faculty of Environment Digital Education Enhancement team (ENV DEE) and the Director of Student Education at ITS to inform our local action plan with the aim of achieving a Green Ally score for all ITS modules, and to ensure that all staff can understand, measure, and improve the digital accessibility of their teaching resources.  

As a result, Digital inclusivity is now identified as a core expectation and priority for all our student education activities in the ITS Inclusive Practice Action Plan and work is in progress to integrate this into the main School Action Plan. 

What has changed 

To achieve our goals, we’ve embedded several baseline activities since the beginning of the 2024/25 academic year. These activities include: 

• checking that required items, such as reading lists and accessibility statements, are present in all modules 

• identifying modules with low Ally scores 

• sharing resources via email about improving digital accessibility 

• providing one-on-one support for module leaders in developing their accessibility statements 

• and delivering tailored training for ITS staff to develop their digital capabilities. 

As a result, our initial reviews of the ITS Minerva Dashboard revealed that all ITS modules have the required information. Feedback, especially from new members of teaching staff, shows that they found these support activities really useful. 

Next Steps for Digital Accessibility  

For the next academic year, we plan to deliver further training for staff on creating inclusive learning resources, with a focus on building and integrating module reading lists into learning units in Minerva and working with module leaders with low Ally scores to identify quick fixes. We’re also planning to offer a Course Accessibility Service to help resolve accessibility issues. 

During this process, we’ve also learned that the Ally Score is not always the best indicator of accessibility in module areas. We need to provide tailored support to modules that are heavy with data and statistical analysis or reliant on external web sources and to address this, ENV DEE is supporting us to create bitesize enhancement videos. 

With our commitment to deliver the Leeds Curriculum Framework and prioritising digital accessibility at ITS, our efforts reflect the University’s broader mission of providing an inclusive and supportive educational environment where every student can succeed.