Designing for All: Building a Truly Inclusive Campus

Building an Inclusive Campus: A Roadmap to Digital and Physical Accessibility for Higher Ed

Whether you’re tackling vendor procurement, improving online courses, or training staff, a structured approach can make a real difference. Let’s break down the process so you can take action and build a more accessible campus, one step at a time.

College Accessibility Policy: More than Just Words on Paper

A college accessibility policy is the game plan for ensuring every student, including those with disabilities, can fully access education. Whether it be digital tools or campus services, the policy covers all. One way to prevent problems from arising is to build accessibility into your everyday decisions. Decisions like choosing software, designing course materials, or setting up online services can all be set up for success.

A clear and actively enforced policy is a sign of trust. It tells learners, “We’ve got you covered, and we’re ready to support you.” Knowing that their institution takes accessibility seriously can make a huge difference in their enrollment decisions.

Vendors Are a Part of the Team

No accessibility? No deal.

Every tool, software, or service the college buys should be accessible from the start and not a subsequent consideration.

When vendors fail to adhere to accessibility standards, it can lead to significant challenges for organizations and their users. A case law, famously known as “the kindle case,” set an important precedent for the digital accessibility landscape. If universities use digital tools that aren’t fully accessible, they can face legal and ethical challenges. It also pushed tech companies like Amazon to improve accessibility in their products. This was a wake-up call, and it changed the view for the better.

Non-compliance can lead to legal actions, but more importantly, it excludes individuals with disabilities, contradicting principles of inclusivity and equal access.

To ensure vendor outputs are accessible, consider the following steps:

• Request a VPAT: Obtain a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template from vendors to assess their product’s compliance with accessibility standards.
• Include Accessibility Criteria: Integrate clear accessibility requirements into contracts and request proposals to set expectations from the outset.
• Use Accessibility Testing Tools: Perform evaluations, such as usability testing with assistive technologies, to verify the product’s accessibility.
• Testing via Users with Disabilities: Involve individuals with disabilities in testing to gather authentic feedback on the product’s usability.

Tools and Technology to Build Accessible Foundations

For students, inaccessibility can mean daily frustration, feeling left out, or constantly relying on others for help. It can impact confidence and even future career opportunities if they don’t have equal access to learning tools.

Scanned PDFs without proper text recognition, videos without captions, and long, dense paragraphs without clear structure make learning harder for those using screen readers, and the victims here are inevitably learners with disabilities. So whether it’s upgrading lecture hall smartboards or wheelchair ramps, using collaboration tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams becomes necessary. Every technical decision should be made with accessibility in mind.

Behind the scenes, accessibility testing tools like WAVE or Axe help universities audit their websites and tech platforms for compliance. A professor might upload PDFs for a course, but if those PDFs aren’t OCR-enabled, a student using a screen reader can’t access them.

Keeping Your Content Accessible

The POUR principles (Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust) help ensure accessibility in both physical and digital spaces.

• Perceivable – Information must be available through multiple sensory channels (e.g., text alternatives for images, captions for videos)
• Operable – Interfaces must be usable by all people, including those with mobility challenges (e.g., keyboard navigation, voice commands)
• Understandable – Content must be clear, predictable, and easy to follow (e.g., consistent navigation, readable fonts)
• Robust – Digital content should be compatible with assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers, Braille displays)

All instructional materials, including videos, documents, and presentations, should have captions, transcripts, and alternative text to ensure accessibility. Regular reviews of course materials in collaboration with instructional designers help maintain compliance. Finally, encouraging feedback mechanisms and channels allows you to make necessary adjustments and improvements.

Campus Accessibility & Inclusion Implementation Roadmap

A structured, multi-phase approach can help processes advance systematically. Making sure a plan enhances academic, digital, physical, and social accessibility while ensuring sustainability is the key.

First, audit accessibility gaps in digital spaces, classrooms, and campus facilities while bringing together key departments to collaborate. Next, strengthen support services by improving assistive tech, testing accommodations, and faculty training. Then, stay responsive by setting up an advisory committee, collecting student feedback, and making events fully accessible. Finally, make accessibility a long-term commitment by embedding it into policies, procurement, and annual progress reports. With a clear plan, colleges can ensure every student, faculty, and staff member, regardless of ability, has equal access and opportunities to thrive.

Partner-Up for the Goal Externally

No institution can achieve digital accessibility alone. You can get more people involved by creating task forces. Use data to track progress and see what’s working. These steps help make accessibility a real campus-wide effort, not just a rule to follow.

When reporting to stakeholders, share data and connect changes to campus goals. Keeping reports visual and actionable is one way of keeping everyone engaged.

Get outside help from organizations such as EDUCAUSE, AHEAD, and IAAP. These organizations can offer training, policy guidance, and networking opportunities. Government resources, such as the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative and the U.S. Department of Education’s guidelines, offer valuable frameworks for improving accessibility.

Working Together for Inclusion

Digital accessibility is an ongoing process, but with a structured, proactive approach, you can progress toward inclusion. Creating a fully accessible higher education environment needs a coordinated effort across all domains.

When colleges prioritize accessibility, they’re not just removing barriers; they’re creating opportunities for all students to thrive, no matter their abilities. It transforms learning by making education more flexible, inclusive, and innovative. This shift isn’t just reforming policies; it’s reshaping the entire student experience, cultivating a culture where everyone belongs.

The best part? It’s paving the way for a future where access isn’t an afterthought but the foundation of education, making learning truly open to all. To make your institution more inclusive and accessible, explore our accessibility and inclusion solutions here.