A campus message about digital accessibility

Editor's note: The digital accessibility team in IT services emailed this message to all university employees on April 28.

On Monday, April 20, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a one-year extension to the digital accessibility compliance deadline. The new deadline -- April 26, 2027 -- comes as the DOJ determined that the original timeline was not sufficient for the work required.

This allows all to shift from rapid remediation to steady, habit-building accessibility practices. It also means a PDF remediation solution will be available before the compliance deadline. The university’s digital accessibility policy will undergo review and revisions to make compliance standards clearer and easier to follow.

What now

For the next year, continued remediation and get into the routine of making new materials accessible from the start. 

• Check your completion status of the Core Digital Accessibility Training for Staff  and begin the course if needed.
• Use Microsoft’s built-in accessibility checker to continue remediating documents, presentations and spreadsheets
• Use the digital accessibility toolkit for resources and helpful how-to articles. 
• Join the Digital Accessibility Microsoft Teams group and enable notifications for channels of interest.
• Read the biweekly digital accessibility newsletter to stay up to date on solutions from working groups.