At the 2025 EDUCAUSE conference in Nashville last month, leaders from Binghamton University in New York shared their internal approach to taking on these updates, while vendors shared how they are updating their offerings to provide external solutions.
The U.S. Department of Justice’s final rule under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) now formally requires all state and local government entities, including public higher-ed institutions, to make their web content and mobile applications conform to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA.
The changes require schools to review learning management systems, course materials, videos, PDFs and student information portals — essentially anything a student, employee or member of the public must access online.
Specific requirements include providing text alternatives, like captions and descriptions for images, audio and video content; making documents and PDFs work with screen readers; and providing sufficient color contrast on materials. The rules also stipulate that schools create processes to maintain accessibility across updates.
Published in April 2024, the rule sets firm compliance deadlines that feel, to some education leaders, like they’re approaching fast. Schools and other government entities serving more than 50,000 people must meet the new requirements by April 2026, while smaller entities have an additional year.
BINGHAMTON’S APPROACH
Binghamton University, part of the State University of New York system, is taking an internal approach to updating their digital systems for Title II compliance, according to Digital Accessibility Compliance Coordinator Krista Poppe.
Poppe said the university created her role about 18 months ago, and she serves as its only full-time employee dedicated to digital accessibility. However, the school also formed a technology accessibility advisory group with faculty, staff, students and IT professionals. Their strategy to reach compliance includes internal audits and staff training to prevent issues in the future. She said a “traveling band” of accessibility advocates visits every academic and administrative department to deliver presentations on Title II requirements, accessible content creation and available campus tools.
For example, the school uses software that automatically captions videos like recorded lectures, and accessibility advocates can train instructors on how to use the software.
“We convey the importance of digital accessibility, that it benefits everyone, that it’s university policy, and it’s required by state and federal law,” Poppe said.
The team asks departments to inventory all their digital assets in a spreadsheet, tracking the audience, platform, point of contact and current accessibility status. Departments can also indicate which resources require audit or remediation assistance.
For those that need assistance, Binghamton directs content managers to tools like Grackle, designed to assess and remediate content in Google Workspace, and YuJa Panorama, which integrates accessibility assistance into learning management systems (LMS). Additionally, the school has tapped a team of 10 students who are trained on compliance and PDF remediation, a common hang-up for accessibility.
With this approach, the accessibility team has led 30 trainings and gathered as many digital inventories, audited nearly 250 websites, and scanned and stored more than 60,000 files in their LMS.
“Our expectation is not going to be 100 percent compliance, although we’re going to strive to do that, but the reality is, we don’t have unlimited time and money, and we have a lot of work to do,” said Paula Russell, senior director of the Center for Learning and Teaching at Binghamton. “But you’ve got to start somewhere.”
EXTERNAL TOOLS AND INDUSTRY PARTNERSHIPS
While institutions like Binghamton are building in-house capacity, vendors have created tools to help institutions meet this need. Katie Grennell, accessibility strategist at the ed-tech company Anthology, said their tool Anthology Ally integrates with LMS, content management systems and websites to detect accessibility issues and provide instructions on how to fix them. The platform automatically generates alternative formats like audio, tagged PDFs, Braille and translated versions.
While automated tools can help support staff working to meet the deadline, Grennell said new technologies alone will not create sustained accessibility in digital environments.
“That deadline is looming, and people get very anxious about it,” she said. “But the thing with accessibility … is that it’s not a one-and-done. It is a lifetime commitment.”
For example, at Binghamton, Russell said the ultimate goal goes beyond compliance and looks to the future of content accessibility. Part of this is considering accessibility earlier in the timeline of institutional processes rather than “tacking it on at the end,” she said. For example, the school is integrating accessibility into existing training, including orientations for new faculty, staff and students; professional development; and software training.
Grennell said that keeping a progress mindset, rather than focusing on the deadlines, will help make a more lasting difference.
“What we’re trying to do is make things as accessible as possible to as many students as possible, and expand that scope as much as you can,” she said. “Each increment, each fix you make to your content, you are making it better for your students.”
