News & Updates

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.

ITS makes several assistive technology (AT) solutions available to the campus community. For example, community members can download a free version of JAWS screen reader and ZoomText screen magnification software from Freedom Scientific on their personal Windows machine using their @syr.edu email address. Visit the ITS Digital Accessibility Services Assistive Technology Solutions page for more information, including a complete list of campus-wide AT solutions. 

Consistent with a campus that is welcoming to all, SensusAccess makes electronic documents such as PDF files or Microsoft PowerPoint presentations more accessible to audiences of all abilities through remediation or conversion to more usable formats, including audio, e-books, digital Braille, digital large-print and BeeLine Reader. SensusAccess also can translate documents from one language into another. The service is available for use by students, faculty and staff at no cost. Stop by our ITS Digital Accessibility Office Hours to learn more about SensusAccess and other digital accessibility topics.

Adding alternative text descriptions (alt text) to images in your documents, emails and websites is a must for accessibility. But what should you include in your alt text? Avoid extraneous details and instead use concise language that conveys the purpose of the image. For example, “Syracuse University mascot Otto the Orange works on a laptop in the ITS Service Center” is appropriate alt text for the featured image of this post. Do not begin your alt text with phrases such as “a photo of” or “a picture of.” Finally, check any AI-generated alt text for accuracy. Visit Creating Accessible MS Word Documents to learn more about alt text for images or stop by our ITS Digital Accessibility Office Hours.

When designing your web page, electronic signage, presentations or emails, choose color combinations that ensure text and meaningful graphics are easy to see. Low contrast between the text color and the background color can be an access barrier for people with low vision. Free tools such as the TPGi Analyzer and the WAVE Evaluation Tool can test color contrast and let you know if your digital product meets accessibility standards. To learn more about use of color and color contrast, visit our Digital Accessibility Office Hours.

Before you send an Outlook email message or share a Word document, Excel spreadsheet or PowerPoint presentation, run the Accessibility Checker located in the Review tab of your Microsoft application. The checker will identify issues within your document or message that could pose barriers to certain users. The tool will also provide instructions on how to correct identified issues. For additional support, visit our Digital Accessibility Office Hours.