Supporting Content Creators in Creating Accessible Digital Materials in Higher Education

Abstract

The recent growth of the digitalization of education has increased the importance of digital accessibility. In higher education, faculty members and administrative staff are the main content creators who are responsible for creating and publishing digital content for both students and university staff. Literature shows that these content creators do not have the necessary knowledge to create accessible digital content. At the same time, there is an abundance of information available online about how to create accessible digital content. However, due to the lack of time the content creators are often not able to find the necessary information to help them with the particular accessibility task they have at hand. In this study we have developed an online guide aiming at assisting content creators to create accessible content where target users have been involved in the iterative design, development and evaluation process. A summative evaluation was also conducted with a mixed-method approach, combining observation, survey, semi-structured interview, and document inspection. The results show that the online guide has potential to help faculty members and administrative staff to improve the accessibility of their digital content.