Accessibility

At ETSU, people come first, are treated with dignity and respect, and are encouraged to achieve their full potential. Because of this belief, we want everyone — regardless of ability — to be able to use and interact with all digital content produced by the university. Providing accessible content to everyone at ETSU is an ethical imperative, a university policy requirement, and a federal law.  

Read ETSU’s Public Content Accessibility Policy

 

The Stats on Accessibility

 

1 in 4 people have a disability

 

6.2% of Americans experience deafness or serious difficulty hearing

 

5.5% of Americans deal with blindness or serious difficulty seeing

 

46% of adults in the U.S. use voice-controlled digital assistants regularly

Data from the CDC and Pew Research Center

 

 

 

 

Accessibility Training

All ETSU employees are responsible for making their digital content accessible.

The Office of University Marketing and Communications offers several recorded training sessions to assist faculty, staff, and students in creating accessible digital content.

Get Trained

 

Content Audit and Clean Up

To ensure all public-facing content meets accessibility standards, the Office of University Marketing and Communications is working closely with content creators and managers across campus  to clean up and remove outdated content and content that may not be fully accessible. 

Effective July 1, 2024, any website content that has not been updated in the last five years will be subject to automatic removal by the UMC web team.

Why is this important?

• Quality control: many of these public-facing files are outdated or inaccurate
• Accessibility: many of these older files fall short of current standards for accessibility
• Storage: continuing to accumulate files in perpetuity is a waste of digital resources

Next Steps

1. Content creators and managers should watch the recorded Accessibility Training Videos UMC has created in order to learn how to make digital content accessible. 
2. Website managers should audit the content, particularly the PDF files, on their websites. Content that is no longer relevant or needed should be removed. Content that must be maintained should be updated to comply with current standards of accessibility. 

FAQs

• What types of files must be updated? 

  • Webpages
  • PDFs
  • Any file that is housed on the etsu.edu domain or subdomains for downloading 
• How do I learn to optimize for accessibility?

  Please watch our content accessibility training videos. 

  *You will need Acrobat Pro rather than Acrobat Reader to remediate PDFs.

• Where do I get Acrobat Pro?

  You need Acrobat Pro in order to remediate PDF documents.

  ETSU has purchased an Acrobat license via an ETLA (Enterprise Term License Agreement) or VIP program, you can download the installers from this Adobe Acrobat Download page.

  After the download is complete, follow the installation instructions on the Adobe Acrobat Download page to begin the installation. 

• What about files I am linking to on other sites or embeds?

  If a file is housed on another site and your page is merely linking to it, you are not responsible for updating the linked file. Embeds such as YouTube videos do not need to be updated. However, you should strive to optimize all content you produce for accessibility. 
• I have a lot of files to update. Are there any quick tips?

  Yes! First, think twice about whether or not the files in question really need to be available to the public. Could you instead move them to a shared drive for access by a limited group? 

  Second, consider whether it might be better to move the content to a webpage (html) instead of attaching a linked file. ETSU's website content management system has accessibility tools built in, so it is often easier to ensure accessibility by placing the content on a webpage instead of linking to an attachment. 

• What if I can't get all of my files updated by July 1, 2024?

  If you have several files that need updating and you are worried about the timeline, notify the UMC web team at cms@etsu.edu. 

• What if I need to archive or preserve documents but do not want the stored in the Modern Campus CMS?

  Sherrod Library and Archives of Appalachia are recommending the use of Digital Commons@ETSU for documents that need to be preserved and publicly shared such as minutes/agendas, newsletters/magazines, reports, etc.

  Learn More about Digital Commons

   

The ETSU Brand

 

Our brand guidelines ensure the university has a unified look and feel when telling the ETSU story. 

We invite you to become a brand ambassador and help us comunicate how ETSU makes an impact in our region and beyond. 

 

View the Brand Guidelines