Key Takeaways:
- Higher education institutions must embrace accessibility to ensure a democratized education system.
- Students with disabilities still face difficulties with PDF accessibility and other barriers in an academic environment.
- Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act is one of the many higher education laws that protect students with disabilities. The best way to ensure ADA, WCAG, and 508-compliant PDFs is to choose a professional digital accessibility service.
What are the Accessibility Barriers Students Face in Higher Education?
- Videos that are without any, or sufficient captions
- Untagged PDF files make it hard for screen readers and other assistive technology tools to read them
PDFs without any alternative text or descriptions for the graphics and images
The poor color contrast between the background and the text
Poorly scanned documents for those who use assistive technologies.
While education institutions still face challenges regarding PDF accessibility, prioritizing digital access for all is a starting point.
What are the Higher Education Laws for Accessibility?
- Denied any benefits
- Excluded from participating in activities and programs
- Faced with any discrimination under a program or activity that receives governmental financial assistance.
How to Ensure PDF Accessibility For Higher Education?
PDF or Portable Document File documents comprise a large part of the study material distributed through the websites of colleges, universities, and other educational institutions. Though it is the most common format used in educational institutions, these PDFs may not always be accessible, making it difficult for people with disabilities to read them. That’s why colleges and universities must be careful while selecting and procuring digital learning materials and accessibility tools to ensure all students can access new learning opportunities.
PDF accessibility isn’t that simple—the best way to ensure compliant PDFs are to choose an expert who can help you make digital accessibility a priority.
PREP’s professional PDF remediation services simplify document remediation to achieve 100% compliance. Having assisted organizations and institutions across industries in implementing proper compliance protocols to make their resources accessible, PREP ensures PDF accessibility through:
- Cutting-edge AI-powered PDF remediation software that provides accurate results with every review
- Cost-saving and faster document remediation
- A cloud-based platform that is accessed anywhere, anytime
Easy-to-use PDF accessibility software that anyone can learn quickly
What Makes PREP the Right Choice for Your Institution?
Here’s a case study that demonstrates how PREP converted data for a higher education institution. The client was required to turn many low-quality scanned PDF documents into editable Word files. While preserving the content format, PREP’s automated PDF accessibility software identified and converted complex structures, including tables, lists, and equations. Subject matter experts then reviewed these Word files for quality and accuracy. PREP helped the client turn low-quality scanned PDFs into editable Word documents for their learners in less than three weeks. This enabled learners to access and edit documents easily.
Final Thoughts
- Creating a digitally accessible environment in a higher education institution consists of research, planning, and commitment.
- There are still many barriers regarding PDF accessibility in an academic environment.
- Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act protects students with disabilities who qualify for the academic and technical standards in educational activities.
- Higher education can select digital learning materials and accessibility tools to ensure that students with disabilities get equal access to learning opportunities.
- Professional PDF remediation service PREP is an expert solution to ensure ADA, WCAG, and 508-compliant PDFs.