Building Digital Inclusion Into the Fabric of a University
Leading American University's digital accessibility initiative — from federal compliance requirements and faculty governance to practical frameworks for the hardest-to-remediate content.
A top university. A decentralized content ecosystem. Federal accountability.
American University is a research institution with hundreds of faculty, dozens of departments, labs, centers, and offices — each producing digital content independently. In practice, this means thousands of web pages, documents, videos, and downloadable files, created by people with varying levels of technical skill and no shared standard for accessibility.
Federal law — Sections 508 and 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the ADA — requires that universities provide equal access, opportunity, and experience to people with disabilities. Compliance is interpreted through WCAG 2.0 Level AA. And enforcement was intensifying: hundreds of universities were under active federal investigation, and experts agreed that the only path to truly accessible content was a change in institutional culture.
The challenge wasn't just technical. It was organizational. Creating an accessible university required a governance model, practical frameworks for the hardest cases, and a way to bring hundreds of content creators along — without making compliance feel impossible.
Sections 508 & 504 of the Rehabilitation Act require federal agencies — and institutions receiving federal funding — to make electronic information accessible to people with disabilities.
WCAG 2.0 Level AA is the technical standard used to interpret compliance — covering four principles: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust.
The goal: equal access, opportunity, and experience — not just technical checkbox compliance.
Strategy, governance, and getting it done
Digital Accessibility Strategy
Served as Director of Digital Communication Strategy at American University, leading the initiative to bring the university into compliance with Sections 508 and 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and WCAG 2.0 Level AA — across a vast, decentralized content ecosystem spanning academic departments, labs, and administrative offices.
Faculty Working Group Leadership
Convened and facilitated a cross-disciplinary faculty working group to identify, assess, and resolve challenging accessibility cases — particularly for technical and scientific content such as data visualizations, mathematical equations, and complex PDFs. Partnered with CAS department chairs across Math/Statistics, Economics, and Arts Management.
Policy & Resource Development
Developed the remediation vs. accommodation framework adopted by the university — defining what constitutes a 'good faith effort,' how to handle content that cannot be fully remediated, and what accommodation looks like in practice. Benchmarked against George Mason University's model operation and presented findings to university leadership.
Grounding every decision in real user needs
Before writing a single policy, we built a shared understanding of the five disability categories that shape web accessibility requirements — and what each group actually needs to experience digital content.
From low vision to blindness and color blindness — requires screen reader compatibility, text resize, customizable fonts and colors, and audio descriptions for video.
From hard of hearing to deaf — requires captions and transcripts for all audio and video content, along with adjustable volume controls.
Motor disabilities affecting muscular control — requires full keyboard support, sufficient time to complete tasks, and consistent navigation that doesn't require fine motor precision.
Covers neurodiversity, learning disabilities, and behavioral/mental health — requires clear structure, consistent labeling, predictable interactions, and options to suppress distracting content.
Includes difficulty producing recognizable speech — requires alternatives to voice-dependent interactions (no voice-only authentication or navigation).
From assessment to institution-wide framework
Landscape Assessment
Mapped the full scope of AU's digital content — American.edu, department and lab sites, course materials, downloadable documents, video, and third-party platforms — against federal accessibility requirements to identify compliance gaps and prioritize remediation.
Audience & Barrier Analysis
Built a deep understanding of the five disability categories that shape web accessibility requirements — visual, auditory, physical, cognitive/neurological, and speech — and documented the specific technical accommodations each requires, grounding every policy decision in the real needs of users with disabilities.
Challenging Case Identification
Identified the content types that present the most significant accessibility challenges at scale: video (captioning), data visualizations (accessible color palettes, responsive display), downloadable documents (especially scientific PDFs with equations and complex figures), audio, and interactive interfaces.
Benchmarking & Best Practice Research
Researched best practices from leading publishing sources, academic institutions, and technical accessibility experts. Conducted a key interview with Korey Singleton at George Mason University, whose scalable faculty services model informed the AU pilot framework.
Remediation vs. Accommodation Framework
Developed AU's formal framework distinguishing content that can be remediated (corrected to be accessible) from content requiring accommodation (supplemented with descriptions, contacts, and context). Defined the 'good faith effort' standard: start from accessible templates, run Acrobat Pro scans, remediate what's possible, then apply accommodation with a standardized notice and follow-up contact.
Tools, Training & Next Steps
Identified enterprise tools (Kaltura for auto-captioning, Adobe Acrobat Pro for PDF remediation), created accessible color palette standards, developed captioning protocols, and defined a phased rollout: accessible templates, training, a pilot remediation model, and a dedicated Accessibility @ AU section on help.American.edu.
The cases that require more than a template
95% of digital content has a clear, quick fix. The remaining 5% — technical documents, complex visualizations, scientific figures — required the working group to develop tailored approaches.
Video & Captions
Video content was posted without captions, creating a significant barrier for users who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Established a new captioning protocol and adopted Kaltura as the enterprise video platform — which includes high-accuracy auto-captioning — so accessibility is built into the publishing workflow, not bolted on after the fact.
Data Visualization
Charts, graphs, and scientific figures relied on color to convey meaning, making them inaccessible to users with color blindness and unreadable by screen readers.
Created an accessible color palette required for all on-screen and document data visualizations, developed guidelines for breaking down complex data stories into accessible formats, and specified custom responsive display code for digital contexts.
Downloadable Documents & PDFs
Academic and scientific PDFs — including papers with equations, complex figures, and data tables — present unique challenges that go beyond what standard PDF tools can automate. Faculty often lacked the tools, training, or time to address these.
Implemented a two-track approach: remediation for content that can be made accessible using Acrobat Pro and source templates, and accommodation for content that cannot — with a standardized notice, alt-text for key figures, and a faculty contact for follow-up.
A layered model for decentralized accountability
Because AU's content is created across hundreds of independent units, the governance model had to be both standards-driven and practically implementable at the department level.
Sections 508, 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and WCAG 2.0 AA define the legal floor for all AU digital content.
University Communications and the Provost's office set AU's accessibility policy, define the good-faith effort standard, and establish governance accountability.
Cross-disciplinary faculty leads assess challenging cases by department, bring discipline-specific expertise, and drive adoption of accessibility practices within their units.
Individual faculty, staff, and department web managers implement accessible templates, run Acrobat scans, apply remediation or accommodation, and follow the captioning protocol.
A proven model for faculty accessibility services
George Mason University's accessibility services team — an interview with Korey Singleton — provided a proof of concept for a scalable faculty-facing model. Key findings:
VA Solid Start
The outreach program that changed federal law