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Accessibility Remediation Specialist

Application

Apply for the Accessibility Remediation Specialist

Description

It’s not well known, but up to 10% of Swarthmore students in any given semester seek out accommodations for a disability. An additional 10% to 20% may have an unidentified disability or may choose not to self-identify. Our goal is to move toward a model of equivalent access—proactively making all course content accessible—instead of waiting for a request to modify it. Historically, academic course content has been created without awareness or knowledge of accessibility. We will be working with professors to make their course content and assignments accessible to people with a wide range of disabilities.

You will assist the Accessibility team in supporting accessibility of electronic materials including but not limited to the preparation of course documents, documentation, communications, and collaboration in a feedback loop regarding our workflow and processes in order to better serve our students and wider College community in need of reasonable accommodations.

Work may include, but is not limited to: 

  • creating accessible digital media

  • working with HTML5 and CSS

  • being aware/becoming aware of WCAG standards

  • administering web content systems (currently Drupal, Wordpress, Moodle, but subject to change)

  • learning and understanding how assistive technologies work

  • and/or working with the community to evaluate, test, and remediate electronic materials.

The ideal candidates will enjoy

  • learning new technologies

  • working collaboratively

  • finding solutions to unique challenges

Experience

Essential experience

  • Organized

  • Detailed

  • Good communication skills

  • Enjoy working collaboratively as well as independently

  • Willingness to document and share lessons learned, and help develop processes and best practices

  • Comfortable with technology

  • Willing to try new technology

  • Interested in learning about accessibility, universal design for learning, and creating accessible electronic information

  • Comfortable creating audio recordings

  • Ability to learn how to create accessible content using tools such as Office, Google Suite, Pages, etc.

Desired experience

  • Knowledge of searching Tripod, library electronic resources, and open access resources

  • Knowledge of screen reader technology

  • Awareness of assistive tools like Kurzwell, Read & Write, Acrobat, VoiceOver, NVDA, JAWS, etc and they can be used

  • Interest in teaching others how to use assistive tools

  • Knowledge of remediation techniques for documents and audio and video files

Required Knowledge or Skill Areas

No specialized skills are required, but candidates must have comfort with technology, a desire to learn, and an interest in access to education for all.

There is an expectation that you will contribute substantially to the knowledge base of creating accessible electronic materials, utilizing assistive technology, and to the overall efficiency of our workflow and process.

Other Important Information

We are a collaborative office who do meet as a group regularly. If the idea of working on a team or as a team is something you'd like to learn to do better or something that excites you, please join us.