Digital accessibility a significant challenge for the community at DU

According to David Thomas, a professor at University College and an academic counsellor in the Learning Effectiveness Program, University of Denver (DU) has recently made substantial modifications to the digital platforms they employ. Thomas, who is entirely blind, typically accesses information online using a screen reader, which reads the material aloud in a synthesised voice and enables him to browse websites using keystrokes. But accessibility has been on a fairly steep decline since he first arrived at DU 16 years ago.

His ability to perform responsibilities like finding students’ grades, helping with registration, and publishing alerts about students of concern on the ‘Inspire’ student success platform has been hampered by the fact that these services need to be improved with his screen reader. 

‘Reality dictates that conformance to WCAG 2.0 Level AA [digital accessibility] guidelines may be an undue burden due to the nature of the [web] content, the purpose of the resource, the lack of accessible solutions, or an unreasonably high administrative or financial cost necessary to make the resource meet that goal’.

These are arguments made by similar other organisations against including digital accessibility for persons with disabilities in online platforms, and they’ve been criticised as ableist by advocates for persons with disabilities.