Digital Accessibility: Learn How

We interact with digital content all of the time in our personal and professional lives, and there are all kinds of people with all kinds of abilities and devices who explore the work we present on the web, in documents, and in courses we offer. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) created the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to help us learn to create content in a way that makes it easier for anyone—regardless of ability or device—to access content.

General Accessibility Training

Learning about WCAG can be intimidating, but there are many ways to learn more about digital accessibility and increase inclusivity.

Recommended Courses

All Swarthmore employees have free access to LinkedIn Learning courses. Visit the ITS KnowledgeBase (KB) for instructions on logging into LinkedIn Learning.

Here are a few we recommend:

Document Accessibility

If you are interested in learning how to create documents that are accessible, consider signing up for the Deque Document Accessibility Course.  Only Swarthmore employees and students are eligible, and you need to apply to take this course. There are two primary application periods—June and December–but you can apply anytime.  If you apply in June and are accepted, you will have one year to complete the course.  If you apply in December, you will have 6 months to complete the course. 

The course covers the following topics in depth:

  • Accessibility Fundamentals: Disabilities, Guidelines, and Laws
  • Basic Web and Document Accessibility for Content Contributors
  • MS Word Accessibility
  • MS PowerPoint Accessibility
  • MS Excel Accessibility
  • InDesign Accessibility
  • PDF Accessibility Basic
  • PDF Accessibility Advanced
  • EPUB Accessibility Email
  • Accessibility in Outlook

In support of completing this training, we offer periodic study halls. Once accepted, all of this information is shared with you. We also encourage bringing real documents to work on and ask questions about during study halls.