Phil Vincent is Head of Digital Education Enhancement & Design, Digital Education Service and Co-Chair of DASEP (Digital Accessibility in Student Education Practice)
Making Digital Work for Everyone
Thursday 15 May 2025 marks this year’s Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), an opportunity to reflect on how we can all contribute to a more inclusive digital experiences for our students and colleagues.
Accessibility isn’t a specialist concern. It’s a core part of teaching, learning, and assessment. As someone who has worked across digital education for many years, I’ve seen how small, thoughtful changes can have a huge impact, not just for disabled students, but for everyone.
GAAD is a brilliant moment to pause, reflect, and commit to one new habit that makes a difference. What will yours be?
Digital Accessibility in Student Education Practice
At Leeds, we’ve made great strides in digital accessibility, but we know there’s more to do. Through the Digital Accessibility in Student Education Practice (DASEP) group, which I co-chair alongside Jenny Brady (Inclusive Learning and Teaching Manager), we’ve been working to support colleagues to build accessibility into everyday practice, from how we design learning materials, to how we communicate, to how we assess.
This year, we’ll be launching a set of minimum digital accessibility standards, giving students a clearer understanding of what they can expect and helping staff know where to focus their efforts.
Taking Part in Fix Your Content Day
One of the initiatives we’ve used to raise awareness is the Anthology Fix Your Content Day – a 24-hour global event where HE institutions compete to make the most improvements to digital content using Blackboard Ally. It’s a light-hearted way to spark change, but also a serious reminder of how many small, fixable issues sit in our virtual learning environments (missing headings, images with no alt text, scanned PDFs) things that can make it harder (or impossible) for some students to engage.
Fix Your Content Day has now moved to later in the calendar year, to hopefully allow more staff to engage as they prepare their module content for the start of the academic year. Look out for more information about how you can get involved when the time comes.
What I will be doing for GAAD
I’ll be marking GAAD by reviewing some of my own materials and working practices. I regularly give presentations and produce reports, and I know there’s always room to do better. This year, I’m committing to:
- Checking all my slides for colour contrast and reading order
- Adding meaningful alt text to images before I share documents
- Ensuring I use correct heading styles and document structures
- And reminding myself that accessibility isn’t a box to tick, it’s a mindset
Find out more
If you’re not sure where to start, our Inclusivity & Accessibility intranet site and Digital Accessibility at Leeds website are great places to explore. Or speak to your local School Academic Lead for Inclusive Pedagogies (SALIP) or Digital Education Enhancement team.
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