Accessibility Help

Keep C.A.L.M

Western Connecticut State University is committed to assisting administrators, faculty and staff in Choosing Accessible Learning Materials (C.A.L.M). In the context of teaching and learning, one way to actively include individuals with disabilities is to create accessible digital material from the beginning. By creating a foundation of accessibility, we are able to teach to the broadest possible audience. In this section, you will find step-by-step guides, trainings, and resources to help you develop, procure or use accessible material.

Roadmap for Keep C.A.L.M

As part of our ongoing efforts to comply with the CSCU EIT Accessibility Policy and keep the university community up-to-date, we invite you to participate in our current and future Keep C.A.L.M campaigns.

• Fall 2021 – Spring 2022: Accessibility Policy Awareness
  • As part of our Keep C.A.L.M initiative, we are outreaching to website owners with the highest visibility within the University to provide workshops explaining the CSCU policy and a brief overview of accessibility.
• Fall 2022: Alt Tag Images & Use Headings
  • As part of our Keep C.A.L.M initiative, we are choosing to make describing images and writing alternative text for images a priority.
  • As part of our Keep C.A.L.M initiative, we are choosing to make adding headings and styles a priority to documents.
• Spring 2023: Caption On & Check Contrast
  • As part of our Keep C.A.L.M initiative, we are encouraging members of the university community to check colors used in their digital resources to make sure they provide enough contrast for individuals to read comfortably.
  • As part of our Keep C.A.L.M initiative, we are choosing to make closed captions a priority on public-facing platforms to help us meet federal regulations. By choosing or creating closed caption content, you increase the clarity and effectiveness of the information provided.
• Fall 2023: Describe Links & Check Accessibility
  • As part of our Keep C.A.L.M initiative, we are choosing to add descriptive links to website links to increase the ability for students to use assistive technology to read our documents.
  • As part of our Keep C.A.L.M initiative, we are choosing to check accessibility through Blackboard Ally, and Microsoft Accessibility Checkers.

Quick Tips

When creating digital content, make sure to consider the following:

• Do not rely on color as a navigational tool or as the sole way to differentiate items
• Images should include Alt text in the markup/code; complex images should have more extensive descriptions near the image (perhaps as a caption or descriptive summaries built right into a neighboring paragraph)
• Functionality should be accessible through mouse and keyboard and be tagged to worked with voice-control systems
• Provide transcripts for podcasts
• If you have a video on your site, you must provide visual access to the audio information through in-sync captioning

 

Keep C.A.L.M initiative is adapted from Virginia Tech Accessible Technologies.