University Senate clarifies ADA guidelines at meeting Thursday

Audrey Coleman
Tue, 18 Nov 2025 02:14:31 +0000
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Keesha Mitchell, L. Scott Lissner, Rich Nagle and Valerie Rake discuss the new ADA digital accessibility requirements at the University Senate meeting on Thursday. Credit: Audrey Coleman | Managing Editor for Design

Ohio State professors and faculty have been struggling to create accessible course materials by April 24, 2026. To respond, the leaders of the Digital Accessibility Compliance Conversation emphasized that the date isn’t a deadline, but rather a date to demonstrate the progress being made at a University Senate meeting Thursday.?

“We want you all to consider the enforcement date not as a deadline for perfection, but a milestone for demonstrating documented progress and possible prioritization in our accessibility efforts,” said Keesha Mitchell, associate vice president of the Civil Rights Compliance Office.?

In 2024, the Department of Justice created a rule mandating all web content and mobile apps to be readily accessible to people with disabilities by the April 24 deadline, according to the university’s ADA Disability Accessibility Center’s website.?

Previously, faculty members believed the date to be a hard deadline for their course materials to be fully compliant. Converting course materials into an accessible format can mean a variety of things for different types of content, some shifts include moving away from scanned documents and PDFs.?

Certain types of files cannot be converted to a screen-reading system without error, which is a common tool used by people with visual impairments.

STEM courses are one example of classes that are facing challenges in converting file types. A faculty member in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry addressed some of those concerns at the meeting.?

With visual-heavy materials including diagrams of molecules, anatomy and other scientific models, the department has been working with its digital accessibility coordinators to find a solution.?

“For a course that is 80 [percent] documents full of information that is not able to be converted, it’s progress on the 20 [percent] that you would be thinking about as progress,” Rich Nagle, chief information security officer for the Office of Technology and Digital Innovation, said. “We will look for ways to help you make those priorities.”?

Sabrina Durso, president of the Council of Graduate Students, expressed her personal experiences with the challenges she has faced and the importance of digital accessibility efforts.?

“The workload that it takes for your student who cannot access these things to pass your class because of your inaccessible material is something that you cannot measure,” Durso said.

Nagle also said that, moving forward, there is a priority system in place to establish what kinds of courses and their respective materials need to be made accessible first.?

High-impact courses, such as general education classes and required prerequisites, are first, followed by department and faculty-level goals.?

Nagle said that at the time of the meeting, the system used to track digital accessibility compliance was reporting close to 56 percent compliance with digital accessibility.?

This number comes a week after the system, Ally, was activated for CarmenCanvas pages. A software meant to make course content more accessible through interactive feedback, according to its website.

Progress will be defined on a case-by-case basis, but it starts with identifying barriers, documenting them and creating a plan to address them, Nagle said.?

Instructors are also encouraged to avoid creating new, inaccessible materials if there is an alternative available, according to the university’s website.?

Instructors were told by the committee to keep working toward the April 24, 2026 goal, and are reminded to reach out to their digital accessibility coordinator or curriculum committees for more assistance.