What instructors need to know about Title II accessibility

What is Title II?

Beginning April 24, 2027, Cortland must ensure that all its digital materials conform to Title II Regulations. If you'd like to read the full requirement, see the Americans with Disability Act, Title II Regulations.  

Title II is not a new requirement. It has been around for years.  Last year, the federal government established a timeline for satisfying the requirement. In doing so, they shifted the responsibility from the individual to the university. 

• Old rule: Students must request accommodations. The university must provide equal access in a timely manner.
• New rule: Digital course content must be accessible from the start.

Rather than waiting for a student to request an accommodation, we're now focusing on providing access for everyone. That's good news because Title II improves the user experience for all of us, regardless of need, and it supports Cortland's goals for equity, inclusion, and well-being. 

The changes required by Title II will enhance our students' learning experience and provide everyone in our community with a more equitable digital experience.

The (slight) downside is that many of us began designing our digital materials without considering accessibility, and some of us are stuck in our ways. Revising our old materials to fit Title II requirements can feel overwhelming for those of us who have years of material, and it can feel a bit limiting for those of us who enjoy design.  We will have to make a few design sacrifices and learn some new tricks to ensure our digital materials are accessible. Still, the benefits of accessible content outweigh a bit of extra work over the next year.  The learning we do now will pay dividends for years to come and help us demonstrate that we support all of our students. 

Accessibility is good for us all. We follow these guidelines because we believe in them, not because we are required to do so, and we hope this year's activities will give us all the support we need to become the teachers we always aspired to be. 

So What Does This Mean for Me?

If you teach at Cortland, the digital materials you share with students — Brightspace pages, documents, slides, PDFs, videos, and links — need to be accessible by April 24, 2027. That can sound like a lot, but you don't have to fix everything one file at a time. Start by sorting your materials using the three Rs of remediation, in order: reconsidering and replacing first means you only spend remediation time on the materials that truly need it.

1. Reconsider

Go through your course and retire anything you no longer use or that students don't need: old announcements, outdated readings, duplicate files, and “just in case” extras. Content that isn't there doesn't need to be made accessible, and a leaner course is easier for students to navigate.

2. Replace

For materials you still need but didn't create yourself, such as scanned articles, book chapters, and publisher slides, look for an accessible version before trying to fix the one you have. A library database copy, a publisher's accessible file, an openly licensed alternative, or an HTML version of an article is often faster to get than a fully remediated scan. Research librarians can help you find these.

3. Remediate

Whatever is left, usually the materials you created yourself, is what you fix. Common fixes include adding alt text to images, using built-in heading styles, writing descriptive link text, checking color contrast, captioning videos, and running the accessibility checker in Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat, or Brightspace.