JONATHAN: As our culture continues to undergo significant digital transformation we increasingly live in a world where skill sets evolve rapidly and specialized expertise is in growing demand. As new opportunities emerge, the needs of learners also change. Students expect more in the classroom: mobile access, privacy, instant feedback and results. Higher education institutions are pivoting accordingly with their adoption decisions.

This digital transformation offers new engagement opportunities for all kinds of situations, especially for students with disabilities who are increasingly able to tap technology to level the field. Properly coded products can interface with assistive tools that allow for enhanced learning by students with physical and text-related challenges.

Accessibility (ensuring all learners have an equivalent experience in the classroom regardless of ability) is one of the factors that has leapfrogged in importance across educational institutions in the United States. With a shift in expectations, we are also witnessing a change in the way materials are considered before adoption. Increasingly, publisher sales hinge on how close their products align with universal accessibility standards (generally the WCAG 2.0 AA standards). This can often involve requests to content producers for accessibility conformance documentation, product audits, clarity on development roadmaps, and awareness of effective alternatives as needed.

We have passed the tipping point as accessibility becomes a requirement in the higher education market.

I am happy to share that Pearson has stepped up to this challenge in a big way. It is the right challenge to embrace and aligns with our core mission that all learners must have an equal opportunity to learn and succeed.

To better understand the situation on the ground, and how accessibility is becoming a universal requirement, I reached out to Philip Voorhees who has been working in the disability space for over 20 years. Philip is currently the Technology Accessibility Coordinator at the University of Nevada–Las Vegas. Prior to UNLV, Philip served as the Assistive Technology/Accessibility Specialist at the Tennessee Board of Regents and was the architect of TBR’s state wide accessibility initiative. 

JONATHAN: Hi Philip, thank you so much for your time today. Can you share some of your thoughts on why the procurement of “born accessible” educational materials has become increasingly important for institutions of higher education?

 PHILIP: Certainly Jonathan. Higher education institutions have a federal and possibly state obligation to ensure individuals with disabilities using our educational materials and technologies are able to independently acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same benefits and services within the same timeframe as their nondisabled peers, with substantially equivalent ease of use. We can no longer address the inaccessibility of adopted or procured educational materials and technologies as “ad-hoc, after-the-fact” workarounds leaving the end user with a disability unequal and often delayed access to those materials. As we have found in federal ADA/504 enforcement efforts in higher education, our actions need to promote adoption and procurement of accessible materials up front instead of methods of administration that create access barriers to persons with disabilities due to our decisions to remediate materials for accessibility post-adoption or purchase. Further, trying to remediate vendor materials for accessibility is not a sustainable business and service model for institutions of higher education and thus introducing the value of accessible materials to vendors operating in the higher education marketplace.

 Adopting a proactive approach of building a foundation of accessibility to help develop a universally designed environment will not only help meet our obligations to persons with disabilities, but will better address the variability of all end users. How many of us have benefited from the availability of captions in situations like not understanding the accent of an instructor or actor in a video, watching the news at the airport, or not wanting to disturb others around us in a quiet environment? While captions are a WCAG 2.0 conformance guideline for the deaf and hard of hearing community, more people benefit from using captions than the group the design was originally intended for. To wit, there is far more to be gained by using accessibility as a foundation to usability than just the minimum conformance it provides, and demonstrates the added value vendor and higher education partnerships bring to procuring “born accessible” materials.

 JONATHAN: You worked for the State of Tennessee Board of Regents to establish a rigorous accessibility program. Would you mind sharing a bit about this innovative program and how you rolled it out across the state?