News & Updates

Are you creating a spreadsheet using Microsoft Excel? Screen readers and other assistive technologies start reading the sheet from cell A1, which you can use to your advantage to benefit all users. If the sheet is long or complex, consider putting instructions or an overview of the sheet in cell A1. To learn more, visit our Digital Accessibility Office Hours. 

Building a webpage or online form? Use the WAVE evaluation tool to check for accessibility. WAVE quickly scans web content and identifies many barriers to persons with disabilities. To learn more, visit WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool. 

Before sending an Outlook email or sharing a Word doc, Excel sheet, or PowerPoint deck, run the Accessibility Checker located in the Review tab of your Microsoft application (or under Options in the Outlook web app). The checker identifies issues that could pose barriers to certain users and provides instructions on how to correct these issues. For additional support, visit our Digital Accessibility Office Hours. 

When leading presentations where visual content is displayed, consider audiences who cannot see the screen and use descriptive language to convey information. For example, instead of saying, “Review the bullets on the slide,” read the bullets out loud. Instead of saying, “Click here, then go here,” say, “From the navigation bar, select New, then choose Event.” To learn more, visit our Digital Accessibility Office Hours.  

Read&Write is a useful literacy support tool that can assist any individual with reading, writing, and comprehension. The robust toolbar offers numerous study aid functions including highlighting, word prediction, text-to-speech and speech-to-text. To learn more, visit TextHelp Read&Write. 

Did you know that instructors can use Ally in Blackboard Ultra to enhance course accessibility? Ally automatically scans your course content and delivers an accessibility score, as well as guidance for making your content more accessible. It can also be used to download course files in a variety of alternative formats. Visit Using Ally to Check for Accessibility to learn more.

The Digital Accessibility Services team (DAS) is in the process of moving resources for internal SU consumption to ITS-Digital Accessibility Services on SharePoint. This includes information about procurement of accessible ICT, the Digital Accessibility Liaison (DAL) network, and our DAS virtual office hours. For up-to-date information on all digital accessibility services, please reference our central hub, the ITS-DAS Website. If you have questions or encounter issues accessing any of these resources, please contact accessibleIT@syr.edu.

Did you know that all course content in Blackboard is automatically scanned for accessibility? As you migrate your course content into Blackboard Ultra, take the time to review the accessibility of your documents and other content. Select the accessibility “gauge” next to each item and learn how to correct any identified accessibility issues. Blackboard Ally also provides you with an overall accessibility score for your course. Visit Digital Accessibility Office Hours to learn more about Blackboard Ally and ways to make your Blackboard course accessible.

Information Technology Services (ITS) has announced a new partnership to make the Aira Visual Interpreting Service available to the campus community at no cost, effective Friday, May 3. The University’s designation as an Aira Access Partner means that anyone—including students, faculty, staff, families and other visitors who are blind or have low vision—can use the Aira Explorer mobile app’s on-demand visual interpreting service to navigate the campus environment and complete a variety of tasks. To learn more, visit the Aira Visual Interpreting Service page.