Web accessibility is a trend in online design that seeks to allow people with disabilities to, as Michigan State University (MSU) defines, "read, navigate, and contribute to the web." On July 1, 2008, MSU released its new policy, which lays out the plan implement more accessible websites campus-wide. Initial review summaries and modification plans for current university websites are due by December 31, 2008. Details on web accessibility and the university's entire policy can be found at webaccess.msu.edu.
The first step in making a website accessible is by appropriately structuring its HTML code. At a minimum, every course is required to have an accessible online syllabus. Conveniently, the steps taken to create a syllabus online are identical to those needed to make nearly any online content accessible. To assist personnel at MSU with this task, I created a web tutorial that introduces basic HTML structure and how it can be used to improve accessibility. It will likely be incorporated into MSU's webaccess and/or the vuDAT websites at some point. In the meantime, you can take the tutorial here.
