Courtesy notifications are sent to faculty who have d/Deaf, Hard of Hearing, Blind, or Visually Impaired student enrolled in their course, The purpose of this communication is to allow faculty time to remediate any content so that it is accessible for all of their students.

The Office of Disability Access is here to partner with faculty in accomplishing this task. It is often easier to make content accessible when initially creating the content; however, if your content is already created, please reach out to us if we can help you in making it accessible.

Tips for Accessibility for Blind/Visually Impaired Student

  • When working with a Blind/Visually Impaired student, it's still okay to use visual words such as "see" or "watch", as they see/watch content -- just in a different way.
  • Please be descriptive when guiding a Blind/Visually Impaired student. "Over there" is not very helpful. 
  • All images need to have Alt Text for image descriptions. 
  • Please ensure there is high color contrast between the font text and the background color. 
  • If you are converting a PowerPoint file to a PDF, please retain the PowerPoint file format in case it is needed for accessibility purposes. 
  • PDFs can be difficult in terms of accessibility. If you use PDFs in your course with a Blind/Visually Impaired student, please meet with us to develop a plan to check the PDFs and remediate them as needed. 
  • Many pieces of assistive technology (AT) are not compatible with LockDown Browsers and our office will work with you to find another test proctoring solution, if notified.
  • When demonstrating anything to the class or writing on the board, please ensure everything that is displayed visually is also verbalized for accessibility.
  • iClickers can present specific accessibility challenges but there are workarounds. Please contact us if you have a Blind/Visually Impaired student in your course so we can proactively find a solution together. 

Tips for Accessibility for d/Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students

  • d/Deaf and Hard of Hearing students identify their hearing diagnosis differently based on their experiences and culture. For example, some use "big D Deaf," for more the cultural model whereas some associate more with the medical model of deafness and are "little d deaf." 
  • In general, it is more inclusive to steer away from terms such as "hearing impaired" and "hearing loss" as many of our students do not consider it to be an impairment or a loss. 
  • If content is being shared and a student did not hear it or wasn't able to access the full message and asks for it to be repeated, please do so. It is not accessible to let them know that it wasn't important or that you will tell them later.
  • American Sign Language (ASL) and English are not the same. American Sign Language has a very strong history behind it associated with Deaf culture, and has it's own grammar and syntax.
  • Not every d/Deaf person communicates in ASL
  • If you have a Service Provider, such as an ASL Interpreter or CART provider, assigned to your course, please contact ASLCART.ODA@unt.edu for best practices. 
  • When working with a d/Deaf or Hard of Hearing student, please talk directly to the student -- not their Service Provider. 
  • Maintain eye contact with the d/Deaf or Hard of Hearing student. Because they may not be able to hear what is going on in their environment, they may wonder what you are looking at. 
  • Speak at a normal space. Do not slow down or exaggerate your mouth movements as that actually negatively impacts the ability of the student to lipread, if they choose to lipread.
  • Every piece of Audio/Video content needs to be captioned. It is not sufficient to only have it auto captioned. They need to be checked and editted for accuracy

If you would like to meet with us to discuss content for an in-person class, please contact Keeley Glogau at Keeley.Glogau@unt.edu or by filing out the Digital Accessibility Consultations | University of North Texas.

If you have questions or concerns about an online course's content, please contact Dr. Tania Heap at CLEAR.Compliance@unt.edu or by filling out the CLEAR Accessibility Consultation Request Form. 

CLEAR also has an amazing resource for Digital Accessibility on their Accessibility Online page.