Campus Spotlights
University of Maryland, College Park
In 2017, UMD's Digital Accessibility Team, led by Dr. Ana Palla, Senior IT Accessibility and UX Specialist, developed the Six Essential Steps for Digital Accessibility. This practical framework identifies six of the most important, relevant, and easy-to-implement practices that can significantly improve accessibility in the digital content we create every day.
Whether you're...
- creating documents and presentations,
- building or editing websites,
- writing emails or newsletters,
- designing course materials,
- uploading files to your LMS such as Canvas or Blackboard, or
- posting event announcements and social media content,
...the Six Essential Steps provide a powerful starting point to make your content more usable and inclusive.
Importantly, these steps are aligned with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements for digital accessibility and based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), the global standard for accessible digital content.
Since its creation, UMD has trained hundreds of faculty and staff on this framework and continues to promote it as a cornerstone of digital accessibility efforts across campus.
We all create digital content, so digital accessibility is everyone's responsibility. The Six Essential Steps are the easiest and most impactful way to begin your accessibility journey and make a difference for all users.
UMD's Six Essential Steps will serve as a framework for the USM Kirwan Center's monthly newsletter and remediation sprint sessions. By embracing these practices, we can collectively enhance digital accessibility across our institutions. Let's continue to lead by example and make a positive impact for all users.
Student Perspectives on Digital Accessibility at Coppin
At Coppin, our Digital Accessibility Hub was designed with one clear intention: to center the human side of accessibility. While legal compliance is critical, we wanted to emphasize that accessibility is ultimately about people-especially our students, who are the reason we exist.
Inspired by the words of Lucy Greco, former accessibility specialist at UC Berkeley-"We don't teach to teach the privileged and the few. We teach to teach all-and if we don't become accessible, we are not teaching everyone"-we created the "Student Perspectives on Digital Accessibility" page to amplify student voices and lived experience.
Early in this work, we saw how sharing student narratives made a real difference. Accessibility became more than just policy-it became personal. Before we launched the hub, we shared these student perspectives during faculty training sessions, and the impact was immediate, faculty could see how their design choices affected real students in real time. That experience led us to build the "Student Perspectives on Digital Accessibility" page as a permanent space for faculty to read, learn, and reflect.
When faculty hear directly from students, they see the tangible impact of inaccessible content and the importance of inclusive design. Research confirms what we've witnessed: when instructors adopt an advocacy-oriented mindset and view themselves as partners in the learning process, student outcomes improve (Becker & Palladino, 2016; Burgstahler, 2015; Dowrick et al., 2005; Woolf & De Bie, 2022). When faculty communicate clearly, show respect, and respond to student needs, they help foster persistence and academic success. This is especially true when they offer flexibility and create a sense of belonging (Becker & Palladino, 2016; Dowrick et al., 2005; Woolf & De Bie, 2022). Building trust and strong student-faculty rapport is especially impactful for disabled students. Those disabled students who experience individualized, empathetic interactions with instructors are more likely to feel supported, persist through academic challenges, and complete their degrees (Becker & Palladino, 2016; Dowrick et al., 2005; National Disability Center for Student Success, 2025; Woolf & De Bie, 2022).
The "Student Perspectives on Digital Accessibility" page invites students to share their real experiences-both positive and negative-with digital access. We initially collected responses by reaching out to students registered with our Office of Accessibility Services. All contributions are anonymous unless students give explicit permission to be named.
For the most recent launch of our hub, we expanded outreach through both the Office of Accessibility and faculty in our Rehabilitation Counseling graduate program. They've committed to sharing the opportunity with students throughout the semester.
Students can submit their stories via text, audio, or video, responding to open-ended questions or offering quotes. Every submission is reviewed with the student before being published to ensure it accurately reflects their experiences.
As new responses come in, we'll update the hub regularly while keeping an archive so faculty can revisit and reflect.
Ultimately, disability is a spectrum-any of us can become part of this community at any point in our lives. When we fail to design accessible learning environments, we exclude people from fully participating in our digital spaces, whether they're students, colleagues, or future scholars. By listening to student voices and taking meaningful action, we can begin to rebuild trust and create truly inclusive learning environments.
References:
Becker, S., & Palladino, J. (2016). Assessing faculty perspectives about teaching and working with students with disabilities. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 29(1), 65-82.
Dowrick, P. W., Anderson, J., Heyer, K., & Acosta, J. (2005). Postsecondary education across the USA: Experiences of adults with disabilities. Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, 22(1), 41-47. https://doi.org/10.3233/JVR-2005-00272
Nationaldisabilitycenter.org (2025, January 25). A national report on Disabled College student experiences - National Disability center for student success. National Disability Center for Student Success. https://nationaldisabilitycenter.org/resources/national-report/
Woolf, E., & De Bie, A. (2022). Politicizing self-advocacy: Disabled students navigating ableist expectations in postsecondary education. Disability Studies Quarterly, 42(1). https://doi.org/10.18061/dsq.v42i1.8062
FSU Launches Accessibility Assistant Agent
Frostburg State University (FSU) has launched the FSU Accessibility Agent, an AI-powered tool designed to help faculty and staff improve compliance with the Department of Justice (DOJ) mandated accessibility standards.
Developed as a project by Rita Thomas, Instructional Design & Technology Manager, as a participant in Carnegie Mellon University's LearnLab this summer, the agent provides on-demand, conversational support to faculty and staff.
Its features and capabilities include guidance on best practices, step-by-step instructions, and links to key resources. It points faculty toward university resources,
external accessibility guidelines, and training materials when more detail is needed. Faculty can use the agent to quickly learn how to add alt text, caption videos in Studio, run accessibility checks with IDOIT, or clean up unused files and content using TidyUp.
When more in-depth information is needed, the agent points users to both FSU and external resources.
Accessible through the AI Tools icon on the FSU Bobcat portal, faculty and staff can interact with the FSU agent anytime. It empowers faculty and staff to remediate accessibility issues.
By embedding accessibility into everyday course design, it fosters a culture of inclusivity and supports the university in meeting the DOJ mandate.
We all create digital content, so digital accessibility is everyone's responsibility. This FSU Accessibility Agent is a useful tool to help FSU faculty and staff create more inclusive materials.
17 Faculty Selected for Boosting Course Accessibility Mini Grant Program
The USM Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation is pleased to announce that 17 faculty members have been selected to participate in the Boosting Course Accessibility mini grant program.
This initiative aims to enhance the digital accessibility of courses across USM institutions and help ensure that all students have equitable access to course materials.
The selected faculty will receive funding and support to redesign their courses with accessibility in mind, including implementing universal design principles that benefit all learners.
Participants will work closely with Kirwan Center staff to identify and address barriers in their course materials, learning activities, and assessments.
Through this initiative, we expect to see immediate improvements in course accessibility while building long-term capacity for inclusive design across departments.
The selected faculty span the System and represent diverse disciplines, resulting in accessibility course models across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; social sciences; humanities; business; education; and health professions.
The awardees will present their before/after examples of accessible course redesign at the USM Digital Accessibility Transformational Seminar: Celebrating Progress and Inspiring Future Innovation at the National Federation of the Blind Headquarters, in Baltimore, MD, this month.
Please join us in congratulating the faculty members who have been selected for this mini grant program:
- Dr. Haitham Alkhateeb, Professor of Mathematics, Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences, University of Baltimore
- Prof. Ellen Anderson, Clinical Associate Professor, School of Social Work, Salisbury University
- Dr. Katryna Andrusik, Assistant Clinical Professor, Counseling, Higher Education, Special Education, University of Maryland, College Park
- Dr. Maria Joao Lobo Antunes, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice, Towson University
- Dr. Amina Ayodeji-Ogundiran, Assistant Professor & Program Coordinator, Management, Marketing and Public Administration, Bowie State University
- Dr. Thomas Cadenazzi, Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator, Engineering and Sustainable Technologies, Frostburg State University
- Dr. Sarah Gunning, Associate Professor & Director, M.S. Professional Writing, English, Towson University
- Dr. Ahalya Hejmadi, Collegiate Professor, Social & Behavioral Sciences & Gerontology, University of Maryland Global Campus
- Dr. Nicole Hollywood, Interim Director of Assessment and Professor of Management, Office of Accreditation and Assessment, University of Maryland Eastern Shore
- Dr. Yewon Lee, Associate Clinical Professor, Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Education, University of Maryland, College Park
- Dr. Isabell May, Associate Professor, Health Sciences/Science Communication, University of Maryland, Baltimore
- Dr. Laura Rose, Associate Teaching Professor and Psychology Program Director at UMBC Shady Grove, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
- Prof. Sherida Morrison Santiago, Instructor, Management and Marketing, College of Business, Coppin State University
- Dr. Ellen Schaefer-Salins, Associate Professor of Social Work, School of Social Work, Salisbury University
- Dr. Hany F. Sobhi, Professor of Organic Chemistry, Natural Sciences, Coppin State University
- Dr. Wendy Whitner, Clinical Associate Professor & Allied Health Program Coordinator, Department of Health Sciences, Towson University
- Dr. Ming Xie, Assistant Professor, Department of Emergency and Disaster Health Systems, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Follow the Kirwan Center LinkedIn page where we'll be featuring mini-grantee successes in the coming months.
Accessibility Wins Across the USM
Coming Soon!
Student Testimonials
Coming soon!
Impact Metrics
Coming soon!
Do you have a digital accessibility win you'd like us to share? Email us at cai@usmd.edu to be featured on this page.
