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The Busy Instructor’s Guide to Course Accessibility
Academic Technology

The Busy Instructor’s Guide to Course Accessibility

December 4, 2025 5-min. read
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The Busy Instructor’s Guide to Course Accessibility

Introduction

A new policy is here, and we know you’re busy.

An October 22, 2025, 3D memo mandates that all digital course materials must meet new accessibility standards. This is a significant change, and the April 24, 2026, deadline is approaching fast. 

We understand you are juggling a demanding workload of teaching, research, and service. Adding accessibility compliance to that list can feel overwhelming. Please know: DELTA is here to support you. This guide offers realistic, step-by-step recommendations for busy instructors like you to effectively work toward compliance without sacrificing your well-being. You can skip around and do the steps in another order; we’ve listed them generally from simplest to most involved.

To dive deeper into the policy changes, consider registering for DELTA’s Workshop: Approaching Accessibility in Your Course, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026, 9:30-10:15 a.m. It’s also the kick-off for a whole series of accessibility workshops you can attend in the spring to get help with all the steps in this guide (albeit in a slightly different order than listed here). 

First, learn the basics

Just as you introduce your students to core concepts before they tackle complex tasks, dedicating a short amount of time (less than an hour) to learning the accessibility basics will dramatically improve your efficiency in the subsequent steps.

Action: Complete OIT’s Digital Accessibility Basics self-paced training.

This foundational knowledge is your most valuable tool. Once completed, you can use the course content and DELTA’s Digital Accessibility Guide as quick, reliable references whenever you need to check a key principle or definition. Getting this initial step done will make every following action faster and simpler.

Step 1: Start with low-hanging fruit: documents and slides

Begin with the easiest materials first — your Google and Microsoft documents and presentations, we’ll tackle PDFs later. Accessibility checkers are available for both Microsoft and Google to identify and resolve common issues. These documents are one type of “low-hanging fruit” in terms of simplicity, but if you have many of them with lots of errors, it may be time-consuming! Starting here will give you immediate wins and build your confidence.

Fixing your documents

Fixing your slides

Step 2: Work on more low-hanging fruit: captions and transcripts

Accurate captions and transcripts are the most critical starting point for multimedia and are relatively simple to provide. Some videos may need additional work to verbally explain visual content that isn’t conveyed through speech or captions (we’ll cover this in step 7). If you’re creating new videos, review the proactive approaches section of the guide below to save yourself some work later! We cover this topic fully in a later step.

Step 3: Tackle websites you use and share

Checking the accessibility of a website you create and maintain is generally simple; fixing problems may be quick or may take time, depending on the site. You are also responsible for ensuring that all websites you link to are fully accessible to every student, even if those sites are intended as supplemental or optional resources. Again, checking the sites is quick, but finding a solution if you discover a problem site may require time.

Step 4: Check and fix your Moodle

The Brickfield Accessibility+ Toolkit is a checker available for any resources and activities that are native to and live inside of Moodle. As this is largely web-based (i.e., HTML) content, it’s often quite straightforward to fix, but the number of errors and ease of remediation will vary depending on what you’ve created and your discipline.

Step 5: Check how you’re using external tools to deliver content

Enterprise tools that DELTA supports have accessible functionality, but proper and informed, accessible use is necessary to ensure that all instructional material and activities can be accessed by everyone. We suggest starting with tools you use to deliver content, often with interactive elements.

Step 6: Address more challenging content: PDF’s

PDFs are often the most challenging course documents to make accessible. Instead of spending significant time remediating them, consider a strategic shift first: prioritize alternatives! Link to view-only versions of your Microsoft/Google documents or slides, or use another web-based format. These file types are significantly easier to make accessible from the start.

If a PDF is necessary, be aware that this is not “low-hanging fruit.” Remediation can be complex, but it is critical for achieving course accessibility. Dedicate time to these files only when a web-based alternative is truly unavailable.

Step 7: Address more challenging content: Video visuals needing descriptions

You worked on video and audio captions and transcripts in step 2. It’s time to assess if your videos require audio descriptions for full legal compliance. Audio descriptions function like alt text for video. They are crucial when important instructional content is presented visually without being spoken aloud. If a student who cannot see the screen would miss key information, an audio description is necessary. This is the final step in making your videos fully accessible.

Step 8: Plan for accessible use of social learning and collaboration tools

If you use social learning and collaboration tools in your courses, plan how you’ll make sure that student-generated content is accessible. Learning digital accessibility is an important 21st-century skill for your students, and your course is a great opportunity to help them be prepared for the work of the future.

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