Skip to main content
Dean's Office College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

ADA Compliance Resources

At the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, we are committed to providing an accessible and excellent digital experience for all users. This resource hub equips faculty and staff with the tools and guidance needed to ensure course materials and websites are fully Web Content Accessibility Guidelines  (WCAG) 2.1 or 2.2 level A/AA compliant.

What’s happening

By April 26, 2027, all websites, website-based applications, and mobile applications must meet WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 level A/AA.

As outlined in UF’s Electronic Information Technology and Communication Accessibility Policy, “The University of Florida (“UF”) is committed to ensuring that technology related to its programs, services and activities, directly or through contractual, licensing or other arrangements, will be accessible to individuals with disabilities. This policy sets forth provisions for UF’s compliance with relevant state and federal law and regulations, and details UF’s commitment to digital and electronic accessibility. This policy also provides guidance to UF employees, vendors and the UF community about their responsibilities regarding technology and digital accessibility.”

How this affects faculty and staff

This federal legal update requires you to review and update any course materials and/or content on your website to ensure it is compliant By April 26, 2027. This includes attached files such as PDF, DOCs, etc. The price of noncompliance with the ADA can result in an expensive legal judgement against the university, college and/or department.

Training sessions

Curate Your Course for Accessibility

View the recording

All UF course materials are required to be accessible by April 24 to comply with ADA Title II regulations. Join UFIT for this Tech Byte to watch Laura Jervis conduct a consultation where we will demonstrate using a checklist and tools to ensure that a Canvas course meets the requirements for accessibility. Afterwards, use the provided checklist to ensure that your own courses are ready for the April 24 deadline!

Departmental Training: Accessibility at UF

Does your team need to learn web accessibility basics? UFIT Training offers departmental training covering these topics:

  • Why accessibility matters
  • How to make websites & materials accessible
  • PDF remediation
  • Resources
  • Where to get help

Request a Departmental Training

Accessibility Office Hours

Wednesdays: 1:00 – 3:00 | In person at CSE Rom E112 | Online via Zoom

Drop in to get live support for course accessibility, websites, presentations, documents, or media projects.

Directions to CSE E112

UFIT also provides ongoing one‑on‑one consultations to help ensure your work meets accessibility standards.

For web accessibility assistance, email: ufit-training@ufl.edu

Resources

Faculty Access to Adobe Acrobat

To support faculty with PDF remediation efforts ahead of the updated regulations for Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, UFIT’s Software Licensing Services will provide Adobe Creative Cloud licenses, which include Acrobat Pro, to faculty by request. The license will be available at no cost and valid through Sunday, May 31, 2026.  

  • Faculty must directly request access.  Requests may not be placed on behalf on another person.
  • Access will be permitted through May 31st.  A license will need to be purchased for access beyond this date.
  • Requests will only be granted for users with a “Faculty” affiliation.  Those with a primary affiliation of Staff, Employee or Student will need to purchase a license at the standard pricing
  • Please request access using this form.

CLAS IT has created a web page with information on how faculty with CLAS IT managed computers can install Adobe Acrobat Pro themselves. Find it using this link.

FAQs

All online materials, including those shared via Canvas, UF Health websites, third-party party websites, social media platforms, etc. are required to meet the new accessibility standards, including but not limited to:

  • Website content (headlines, files, links, images, forms, videos, etc.)
  • PDFs
  • Microsoft Office files (Word, PowerPoint, etc.)
  • Videos
  • Social media

Yes, however, they must meet the new accessibility standards before they are shared on the website and on Canvas.

There are a variety of training videos available that show how to create accessible materials using Microsoft Office and Adobe. Please visit the UF Accessibility website to learn more about creating accessible documents.

Please also visit the UF Accessibility website to find tools that can help you with updating already created materials.

Yes, any tools and resources used by college faculty need to meet Title II ADA compliance. This includes learning management systems, websites, instructional software and even documents shared with students, ensuring that all participants have equal access regardless of disability.

Faculty can determine if a tool meets compliance standards by checking for an accessibility statement or Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) from the tool’s provider, consulting with their institution’s accessibility or IT office, and testing the tool’s key features with assistive technology.

  • A VPAT is a document prepared by a product, developer, vendor or third-party accessibility reviewer that describes how well the product conforms to accessibility standards. Watch the VPAT video series to learn more about talking to vendors, what to do once you receive the VPAT and more.

There are seven exceptions to website and mobile accessibility requirements, but access must still be provided as described elsewhere.

Exceptions include:

  • Archived content created or reproduced before April 26, 2027, kept only for reference and not updated (e.g., previous semester Canvas sites).
  • Content posted by third parties (unless contracted or employed by UF).
  • Changes that would fundamentally alter services, as determined by UF’s ADA Coordinator.
  • Individualized, password-protected documents such as PDFs or presentations about a specific person.
  • Preexisting documents (like PDFs or slides) made public before compliance rules, unless actively used for core services or participation.
  • Social media content posted before April 26, 2027.
  • Situations where meeting accessibility requirements would cause undue financial or administrative burden, as determined by UF’s ADA Coordinator.

For more information regarding exceptions, please visit the Electronic Information Technology and Communication Accessibility policy. 

There are two sides to consider in terms of website accessibility and compliance:

  1. The content you upload to these sites: This part is your/the editors responsibility.  This includes things like ensuring you provide alternative text descriptions when you upload images, that any videos you create have captions and audio descriptions and that you avoid using PDF and non-website documents (e.g., DOC, XLS, etc.), or if you do, you must make them accessible.
  2. The technical code/back-end side:
    1. If you are on the Mercury theme, this is handled by the CLAS Web Services team. You are on the Mercury theme if the bottom row in the footer area of a page lists: “@2026 University of Florida | Accessibility | Privacy Policy”.
    2. If you are not on the Mercury template, your site will be migrated to the Mercury theme as soon as possible.
    3. For more information about Mercury Migrations see Mercury Migration FAQ

Web pages should be your “go-to” method of adding content to your site to provide the best user experience. PDFs and other downloadable files should only be used if no other option is available. If a PDF or Microsoft Office file is the only means to post your content, you must make sure they are accessible.

Yes, this covers all websites, website-based applications and mobile applications that are associated with programs, services and activities operated by UF. 

Any third-party lab or official faculty page that is not on a .ufl.edu domain is out of compliance with UF policy. Our recommendation is to migrate all third-party lab and faculty pages to a CLAS WordPress site using the Mercury theme.

Resources for Documents and Instructional Materials

Creating accessible Word documentsIn this video, we provide instructions for accessible instructional and administrative documents created in Microsoft Word.
SensusAccessSensusAccess is a document conversion system that converts documents into accessible formats. SensusAccess is available to UF students, staff and faculty.
8 Steps to course accessibilityFollow these eight steps to course accessibility, and pace yourself so you don’t run out of time.
Accessibility in 5Short and informative videos that feature different accessibility skills that faculty can incorporate into their content design.
CITT Accessibility ConsultationThe UFIT Center for Instructional Technology and Training offers accessibility consultations to faculty and staff.
Top tips for accessibilityGet started with digital accessibility with a quick reference of what to consider when creating content and take advantage of links to more information.

Resources for Websites

Web Content Accessibility GuideProviding website content editors and administrators with specific and important examples of what is, and is not, accessible web content.
Siteimprove GuidanceSiteimprove is a tool provided to all UF Faculty and Staff that helps ensure coherence with accessibility guidelines.

More tools and resources

UF Accessibility website

Please refer to the UF Accessibility website for more information about the resources and strategies available to support compliance efforts.

Visit UF Accessibility website

UF Regulation and Policy Hub

For more information on UF’s Electronic Information Technology and Communication Accessibility Policy, including accessibility requirement exceptions for website and mobile applications, please visit the UF Regulation and Policy Hub.

Visit UF Regulation and Policy Hub

Additional Training

Questions?

If you have any additional questions about meeting Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 or 2.2 level A/AA, please don’t hesitate to reach out. The Communications Support team is here to help.

Name(Required)
Please select the item(s) your question pertains to.(Required)