The MSU quest for digital accessibility

Picture yourself trying to access course materials, but the PDF your professor posted is difficult to search or read because it’s a screenshot. Or imagine watching a lecture video in a noisy setting with no captions available. For many students, these aren’t hypothetical frustrations but daily experiences that make learning harder than it needs to be.

While universities have prioritized physical accessibility following the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, by installing ramps, elevators and accessible parking, digital accessibility deserves equal attention.

As Disability Pride Month reminds us, the online barriers students face can be just as limiting as physical ones. Michigan State University is demonstrating what happens when a campus commits to making digital spaces work for everyone. From the Office of the ADA Coordinator to MSU Information Technology to the MSU Libraries’ accessibility team, the university is taking a comprehensive approach that's transforming how students, staff and faculty experience campus technology.

The ADA Coordinator's digital accessibility team works closely with partners, including the Libraries’ accessibility team, MSU IT's Educational Technology department and the University Health and Wellbeing’s Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities to coordinate these efforts.

Building a culture of accessibility

“I think that it’s most important for the campus to have a healthy culture of digital accessibility,” said Dennis Bond, MSU's digital accessibility coordinator. “People need to be aware of what digital accessibility is and what it entails so that they can participate in helping the university be accessible.”

That culture starts with awareness and education. MSU IT’s Educational Technology department leads comprehensive training programs across campus, teaching faculty and staff how to create accessible content from the beginning rather than fixing it later.

These practical workshops cover a range of topics, including how to add captions to videos, use proper heading structures in documents, select readable color contrasts and write descriptive alternative text for images.

According to Bond, the university relies on over 200 digital accessibility liaisons who provide coverage across every major MSU college and unit. These liaisons are either appointed or volunteer to serve as the point of contact for achieving accessibility compliance within their departments.

Technology that helps

To help these liaisons succeed, MSU has deployed automated tools that scan course materials, websites and videos for accessibility issues. The university monitors all MSU websites every five days, providing dashboards that share accessibility metrics with liaisons.

Using the Silktide website accessibility scanner, the university monitors over 135,000 web pages across 966 MSU websites every five days, providing dashboards that share accessibility metrics with liaisons. The university is also scanning over 21,000 academic courses and 278,000 videos for accessibility compliance. When instructors upload course materials, tools like Spartan Ally automatically flag potential problems and suggest fixes.

MSU Libraries leads by example

The MSU Libraries exemplify this campuswide commitment through its dedicated accessibility team, a rarity in academic libraries.

“The MSU Libraries is really unique and fortunate to have an entire team of people dedicated to accessibility,” said Heidi Schroeder, the MSU Libraries’ accessibility coordinator. This team has systematically examined every area of digital accessibility in the library, from the website and catalog to electronic resources and its digital repository.

When the MSU Libraries launched its redesigned website in August 2023, accessibility wasn’t an afterthought but central to the entire project.

“With new technology, we had the opportunity to ensure that our website was accessible,” said Austin Deneau, who works on the MSU Libraries’ web user experience and accessibility teams.

The redesign focused on enhancing color contrast for improved readability, maintaining a consistent visual design throughout the site and utilizing automatic accessibility checkers to identify potential issues during routine maintenance. The team also provided extensive training for the many librarians and staff who create and edit web content, ensuring that accessibility practices become standard across the organization.

Design that benefits everyone

The best part about accessible design? It helps everyone. Those captions essential for students with hearing loss work perfectly when you’re studying in a loud space or reviewing lectures with the sound off. Clear website navigation better supports people with cognitive disabilities, while making the experience more efficient for all users. Thoughtful alternative text on images helps those using screen readers and provides context when images are slow to load or unavailable.

“Some of these things make perfect sense,” Bond said. “When someone starts pointing out certain types of digital accessibility principles to you, like color contrast, then you just see it everywhere.”

This philosophy recognizes what Bond calls “situational disabilities,” a temporary circumstance in which accessibility features benefit someone who may not have ordinarily relied on them. Trying to listen to documents while commuting to and from campus? That’s when readable PDF versions become essential. You’re in a quiet library, but need to watch a video without headphones? Captions suddenly matter to everyone.

Students play integral roles throughout these efforts to identify opportunities to increase digital accessibility at MSU — from working as website accessibility auditors to advocating for improvements in their courses.

“Usually when students learn about digital accessibility, they want to advocate for it,” Bond said. “They want to bring things to the attention of their professors and report things to us.”

The path forward

Accessibility isn’t only about remediation. It’s about adopting standard practices.

“While library staff have fully embraced the importance of accessibility, we encourage our colleagues to proactively incorporate digital accessibility best practices into their everyday work,” said Schroeder. “If you get into the habit of making your digital content accessible, it becomes second nature.”

Deneau adds another crucial element of the process: “Listen to what people with disabilities need and want, and really take that into consideration when we’re creating content or services.”

For those looking to learn more or get involved, MSU's Digital Accessibility website at webaccess.msu.edu serves as a comprehensive resource hub, featuring training materials and tutorials, the basic accessibility checklist and a complete list of digital accessibility liaisons across campus.

During Disability Pride Month, MSU’s comprehensive approach reminds us that digital accessibility isn’t about compliance checkboxes but about recognizing that good design means accessible design. When digital spaces work for everyone, that’s when everyone succeeds. And at Michigan State, it’s becoming the standard we can all expect.