NYU IT’s Digital Accessibility Program, under the leadership of Chief Services Officer Kitty Bridges, has actively engaged community members across NYU in the remediation of their websites, web content and web applications to make them accessible for all. Major milestones have been met in terms of policy and procedures, with the design of a master NYU Accessibility Website, a Corrective Action Plan and ongoing training reports.
Two features of the NYU Accessibility website will prove particularly helpful in day-to-day operations around the university:
- The Faculty FAQ page on the digital accessibility website provides examples of accessible syllabi in several formats. There are also syllabus templates which can be easily filled in by Faculty and saved to an accessible PDF format.
- The Documents How-To Guide section provides an overview of how to create and save files in a variety of formats to make them accessible (e.g. for Word, PowerPoint, Acrobat, Excel, etc.). It also alerts writers to other potential resources available in frequently used software.
With the ambition of sharing its progress and raising awareness of developments, NYU IT has also begun producing a monthly newsletter on the topic of Digital Accessibility (beg. Jan 2019). More generally, NYU IT and the Digital Accessibility Program staff have been key partners in the project of raising awareness of digital accessibility issues. Kitty Bridges, in particular, has actively met with NYU departments to help them better understand the simple technical and practical steps that can be taken to enhance inclusion for all.