Overview
The Office of Accessibility collaborates with the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) to promote equitable access by providing digital accessibility training, resources, and support to faculty, staff, teaching assistants, and graduate students. The CTL offers document and course remediation services to align digital content with WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards. Additionally, the Office of Accessibility supports ITS through webpage testing, software reviews, and evaluations of electronic and information technology accessibility.
Benefits
Digital accessibility provides:
- Equal access: ensures that everyone, regardless of their abilities, can access and benefit from digital content.
- Legal compliance: ensures that digital content meets Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 level AA, ADA laws, and regulations requiring digital accessibility
- Better user experience: accessible design often leads to a better overall user experience for all users
Target Completion Date
Requests for digital accessibility services are processed within 2 to 14 days depending on the project's complexity. Requests can be sent to accessibility@usd.edu for non-academic requests. All requests related to document remediation and course accessibility should be sent to udl@usd.edu
Available To
Faculty, staff, teaching assistants, and graduate students.
Cost
There is no cost for digital accessibility services for faculty, GTAs, and staff provided by the CTL or Office of Accessibility. However, in certain circumstances such as expedited requests, a third-party remediation service fee may be charged of $80/hour. USD has a contract with Grackledocs for third-party remediation services.
Policies
The University of South Dakota is committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, including individuals with disabilities, and that complies with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and its implementing regulations, and other applicable federal and state laws and regulations. The University strives to have its website and other electronic resources provided to students, employees and visitors conform to the best practices and criteria defined in the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA.