Campus Initiative
About the digital accessibility initiative
Diversity and inclusion is paramount to the University of Delaware’s value of inclusive excellence.
As a result of this commitment, the digital accessibility initiative was established to develop a strategic plan to address digital accessibility at the University of Delaware. The digital accessibility initiative strives to break down barriers within our digital assets that could exclude members of our diverse community from our online programs, services, and activities.
Over the past year, the initiative has engaged with and received support from upper administration and departments across campus in the assessment of tools and resources to support digital accessibility, the development of policies, and goal setting for remediating digital content. As with any enterprise-wide change, it will be a process that begins with awareness, focuses on aligning existing roles and processes with new ones, engages stakeholders in outcomes through achievable goal setting, and aims for continuous improvement.
The accessibility remediation timeline below applies to all digital content, including website and digital products and services at the University of Delaware. The web accessibility remediation tiers are accessibility performance goals that are specific to website.
Web accessibility remediation tiers
Tier 4: Siteimprove score < 64%*
Use Siteimprove** to identify and start resolving accessibility blockers (the most severe issues) that affect global elements. These high priority, global fixes make it relatively easy to see big gains to the accessibility score of your website.
Request access to Siteimprove.
Tier 3: Siteimprove score 64 - 90%
Continue using Siteimprove to resolve individual accessibility blockers and less-severe accessibility issues in global elements.
Tier 2: Siteimprove score > 90%
Manually test your website for accessibility issues that an automated tool like Siteimprove won’t catch. Continue using Siteimprove to address remaining accessibility issues that are within your control to fix. You may not be able to achieve a score of 100%, but you must make an ongoing effort to continually improve the accessibility of your website(s).
Manual Accessibility Testing Issue Tracker, v1.0 tool
Tier 1: Ongoing maintenance
Your website should have few if any accessibility issues once you’ve reached this tier, however continuous monitoring and manual testing should be done on an ongoing basis to ensure your website maintains this rank over time.
*As of August 2018, the industry benchmark for web accessibility of educational institutions in Siteimprove is 64%.
**Automated web crawlers, such as Siteimprove, will only identify 10-30% of all accessibility issues and can be tricked or gamed. It is important to also complete manual accessibility testing to combat these gaps.
Campus accessibility remediation timeline
2018
Websites: All website owners should strive to reach the next tier, with the goal of achieving at least tier 3 by the end of 2018.
Products: Departments and administrative units should take inventory of all digital products and services procured, such as software, and cloud services, and begin assessing the accessibility of each by the end of 2018. All new digital products and services procured by the university must comply with the university’s Digital Accessibility Purchasing Policy and all contract renewals should be assessed for compliance with the university’s policy in advance.
Other digital media: All content owners should take inventory of their digital content (e.g., Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, Presentations, PDFs, videos, audio, Canvas courses, social media accounts, etc.) and begin assessing the accessibility of each and pursue training by the end of 2018. All new content should be made accessible immediately.
2019
Websites: All website owners should strive to reach the next tier, with the goal of achieving at least tier 2 by the end of 2019.
Products: Departments and administrative units should address accessibility concerns with vendors for digital products and services procured and plan for situations where a vendor may refuse to become compliant or will not be compliant within a reasonable amount of time.
Other digital media: All content owners should remediate one-third of previous digital content they created that is still in use by the end of 2019. All new content being created must be accessible.
2020
Websites: All website owners should strive to reach tier 1 by the end of 2020.
Products: Departments and administrative units should continue to address accessibility concerns with vendors for new digital products and services and renewal of existing digital products and services.
Other digital media: All content owners should remediate one-third of previous digital content they created that is still in use, striving for a goal of remediating a total of two-thirds of all content created (building off of 2019's goals). All new content being created is required to be accessible.
2021
Websites: All websites must be at tier 1 and all digital products and services must be compliant by the end of 2021.
Products: Departments and administrative units should continue to address accessibility concerns with vendors for new digital products and services and renewal of existing digital products and services.
Other digital media: All content owners must remediate any remaining digital content that is still in use by the end of 2021. All new content being created is required to be accessible.