Update on Federal Regulations Impacting Distance Education During the Pandemic

May 22, 2020.Reading time 13 minutes.

In Harold Ramis’ 1993 classic, Groundhog Day, Bill Murray portrays a television weatherman sent to cover Punxsutawney Phil on Groundhog Day who ends up repeating the day over and over again. At first, Murray’s character, Phil Connors, uses the time loop to his advantage—binge eating, having one night stands, committing robbery, and manipulating local residents […]

Promising Practices for Navigating “What’s Next”

April 23, 2020.Reading time 31 minutes.

I have long marveled at how quickly and effectively WCET pivots to support its members when we most need assistance. Remember the announcement of new guidelines that regional accreditors were going to use to evaluate distance education (CRAC-2001)? State authorization enforcement by the Department of Education? WCET helped us navigate around those icebergs. The Coronavirus […]

Keeping Accessibility in Mind During the COVID-19 Conversion of Courses

March 24, 2020.Reading time 20 minutes.

quote from text in an image: It is much, much harder to retrofit accessibility onto existing educational materials than it is to get it right the first time.

We welcome today’s guest post from Cyndi Rowland, Executive Director of WebAIM (at Utah State University) which empowers organizations to make their web content accessible to people with disabilities. Cyndi gives us great and compassionate advice for teachers and faculty suddenly thrust into teaching with technologies. Thank you for sharing your wisdom, Cyndi! — Russ […]

Meet AURS — Your Go-To Resource for Addressing Accessibility Challenges

September 27, 2019.Reading time 11 minutes.

Accessibility is not only one of the main areas of focus for WCET, but a consistent issue and opportunity for higher education institutions. In order to support faculty, instructional designers, and others who work in the area, Quality Matters, a WCET member, created a new resource site for educators to get information on how to […]

From Policy to Compliance: What do Faculty Need to Develop Accessible Course Content?

September 12, 2019.Reading time 15 minutes.

Geographic distribution of the responses. Note higher concentration of responses in the eastern United States.

Accessibility of college and university materials and services is an important topic for all those involved in education today. Higher Education institutions are working to develop policies and guidelines for ensuring accessible content for all learners. Do such policies result in more accessible digital environments? How can institutions help support faculty to develop more accessible […]

An Introspective Look at WCET’s Own Accessibility Practices, Part II

August 5, 2019.Reading time 10 minutes.

Photograph showing a pink accessibility sign, which points towards a “Step Free Route.”

Last week, I began to explain what WCET is doing – and potential areas of improvement – about web accessibility, based on different disabilities and barriers that people with those disabilities may encounter as described by The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Check out my first post for background information on what led me to […]

An Introspective Look at WCET’s Own Accessibility Practices, Part I

August 2, 2019.Reading time 15 minutes.

Alt text: Icon produced by the Accessible Icon Project showing a person in motion in a wheelchair.

Are your course materials and institutional websites accessible for all learners? Here at Frontiers, we discuss accessibility quite often, but today we have a very practical post that directly reviews content to determine accessibility for all. I’m excited to welcome Rosa Calabrese, WCET’s Digital Designer, who is here to discuss her review of the accessibility […]

Improving College Readiness for Every Student: the Importance of Accessibility

June 26, 2019.Reading time 9 minutes.

Today we welcome the President of the NROC Project, Ahrash Bissell, to discuss accessibility as an opportunity we should all be involved with, rather than a regulatory requirement that we should all worry about. We are excited to see this post from our friends at NROC, who have won a WOW award or have collaborated […]

Accessibility & Procurement: What do we need to know?

November 14, 2018.Reading time 22 minutes.

quote box: Higher education needs to “bake” accessibility into our activities rather than wait to “bolt” it on after the fact.

WCET and the Online Learning Consortium (OLC) jointly offer this blog post on a topic of national interest to education communities. This post is part of the on-going collaboration on accessibility issues between WCET and OLC. Thank you to Kelly Hermann, University of Phoenix, for today’s guest post on these important issues! If you’re attending OLC Accelerate […]

The Role of Procurement in Digital Accessibility

October 23, 2018.Reading time 27 minutes.

WCET and the Online Learning Consortium (OLC), in conjunction with the National Center on Disability and Access to Education (NCDAE is a partner with WebAIM), jointly offer this blog post on a topic of national interest to education communities. This post is part of the on-going collaboration on accessibility issues between WCET and OLC. Join […]