Title II Accessibility Resources

Close-up of a computer keyboard, with a button labeled 'Accessibility'.

In 2024, the Department of Justice updated its regulations for Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), mandating that all university web and mobile content conform to the WCAG 2.1 AA standards for web accessibility by April 24, 2026. This page includes resources for helping SEBS/NJAES faculty and staff create and maintain accessible web content that will comply with the updated standards while providing a positive experience for our community.

Contact the Web Team if you have questions about accessibility.

General Resources, Trainings & Concepts Creating Accessible Documents Creating Accessible Canvas Courses Creating Accessible Websites Archiving Old Documents Roles and Responsibilities for Accessibility Compliance

General Resources, Trainings & Concepts

General Resources

Rutgers Office of Information Technology Accessibility Services is Rutgers' main source of resources and tools for faculty members, web designers/developers, and other university staff, to aid in web accessibility, online course accessibility, instructional materials, assistive and adaptive technology, video/multimedia captioning, and software procurement.

General Training

Basic Concepts

Here are some basic digital accessibility concepts from Rutgers Information Technology's Web A11y Checklist. While some of the specifics are geared toward webpages, the basic concepts apply no matter what digital medium you are working with (PDFs, Canvas courses, etc.):

Creating Accessible Documents

Creating accessible documents is a multi-step process. It begins with the program you use to create your document. Find helpful tips below for commonly used programs at Rutgers:

Microsoft Office

Canva

Adobe InDesign

PDFs

Even if you do everything you can to make your original document accessible, and you properly generated a tagged PDF, there is usually still more work to be done to make your PDF fully accessible. Here are some resources for fixing accessibility issues with PDFs:

Creating Accessible Canvas Courses

Canvas includes some built-in tools for checking and fixing accessibility issues. See the below links for more information:

Are you including materials from the Rutgers University Libraries in your Canvas Courses? If so, read about best practices for obtaining accessible materials from the libraries.

Creating Accessible Websites

Website Accessibility Scans

The first step in making your website accessible is scanning the site for accessibility issues. SEBS Web Team staff members conduct monthly scans of SEBS websites using Deque Axe Monitor. When accessibility issues arise, we contact responsible parties to work out a remediation plan.

For scanning webpages on a page-by-page basis, use the Deque Axe DevTools Browser Extension.

General Website Accessibility

Documents on Websites

When you encounter documents on your website with accessibility issues, you have four ways to deal with them. Here are your options, in order of easiest to hardest:

  1. Remove: Before spending the time to fix a document, consider whether it still needs to be hosted on your website. It may be easier to remove old documents, and the links to those files, than it would be to complete the remediation process.
  2. Archive: Some content is exempt from meeting the WCAG 2.1, Level AA standards, if it meets the following criteria.
  3. Convert to a Webpage: Some PDFs that contain mostly text may better serve your users as webpages rather than PDFs. It is usually much easier to make a webpage accessible than it is to make a PDF accessible.
  4. Remediate: If you really need to keep a document on your website, and it can't be converted to a webpage, and it isn't eligible to be archived, then you will need to fix the accessibility issues. Use the resources in the Creating Accessible Documents section to fix accessibility issues in all documents on your website.

Archiving Old Documents

Under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), certain content is exempt from meeting the WCAG 2.1, Level AA standards. For example, archived web content that meets all four of the following points would not need to meet WCAG 2.1, Level AA:

  1. The content was created before the date the state or local government must comply with this rule, or reproduces paper documents or the contents of other physical media (audiotapes, film negatives, and CD-ROMs for example) that were created before the government must comply with this rule, AND
  2. The content is kept only for reference, research, or recordkeeping, AND
  3. The content is kept in a special area for archived content, AND
  4. The content has not been changed since it was archived.

The SEBS web team has created a special website for housing archived PDFs. If you need assistance archiving documents on your website, please submit a request and the web team will assist you.

Roles and Responsibilities for Accessibility Compliance

SEBS Web Team

  • Review and resolve issues on pages managed by the SEBS Team, including general content updates.

Faculty Members

  • Maintain accessibility for Canvas course content, research pages, and documents.
  • Convert PDFs and instructional materials for Canvas into accessible formats or move them into accessible web formats.
  • Support and guidance available from the SEBS Web Team as needed.

Department Administrative Staff

  • Verify that event and program materials including flyers and graphics meet accessibility standards on the department websites.
  • Support and guidance available from the SEBS Web Team as needed.