Document Accessibility Course

Due to COVID-19 and social distancing, many departments are sharing more information online. It’s vital that these electronic resources are built in a way that is inclusive and accessible to all users. To support our efforts to create an inclusive campus, WebAIM has generously made a document accessibility course available to the faculty and staff at USU. The course is always available to people with disabilities through the WebAIM scholarship program.

If you create Word documents, PowerPoint files, or Acrobat files, this is an incredible opportunity to learn how to create those documents in a way that is accessible. New cohorts begin each Monday, after which participants have 60 business days to access and complete the material.

A woman sitting on the floor working on a document on her laptop.

Participation in the Course

This course is available to Utah State University employees:

  • To join the course, simply email accessibility@usu.edu.
  • Once you are added to the course you will receive an email invitation with further instructions.

For more details, as well as a full description of the course, visit the course page on WebAIM.

WebAIM - web accessibility in mind.

Course Content

The online document accessibility course includes 4 modules:

  1. Document Content
  2. Document Structure
  3. Check Accessibility & Create PDFs
  4. Optimizing PDFs in Acrobat

The course focuses on the principles and processes behind creating accessible content in Word and PowerPoint, evaluating the accessibility of well-structured documents, and exporting accessible PDF files to Adobe Acrobat. A bonus module contains content about applying these principles to Excel files.

After completing the course, you can expect to be proficient in making many types of documents accessible. Sections of the course focus on everything from images, hyperlinks, and color contrast, to headings, layout, tables, and more.