Continuing to advance accessibility of digital content forward

Dear colleagues,

We hope that everyone had a wonderful fall break and Thanksgiving holiday. As we dive into December, we know this month always seems to move fast, inevitably ushering in the end of the fall semester in what will feel like no time at all. And as we look forward to ringing in the new year, we cannot help but acknowledge that the April 24, 2026, digital accessibility compliance deadline is also right around the corner.

At the end of October, we shared stories of faculty achievement — two exemplars of many who have made incredible strides in readying their course materials to meet WCAG 2.1 AA compliance standards.

This month, we have even more progress to share — and more opportunities to help you advance your digital content.

Advancing course accessibility

On Nov. 18, K-State participated in Fix Your Content Day 2025 — a worldwide competition among institutions using Ally for course accessibility advancement. We are proud to share that because of the remarkable efforts made by K-State faculty and staff on this day, K-State took 14th placed globally among participating institutions.

As part of our ongoing efforts, faculty and staff have been driving toward the goal of reaching an average 85% accessibility score across their courses, visible through the newly launched Ally dashboard, made available to college and departmental leaders late last month.

• To date, nearly 25,000 accessibility fixes to course content within Canvas have been completed by K-State faculty and staff.

• This semester, nearly 26,000 alternative formats have been downloaded by more than 4,000 students, showcasing the importance and reach of the accessible content being expanded within Canvas.

• Many departments have made impressive strides when looking at their overall average Canvas course accessibility scores in Ally, with several departments inching closer to that coveted 85% goal.

• We are proud to share that the Herbel Family School of Accountancy in the College of Business Administration is the first department to achieve and surpass that goal, now reporting an average 86% accessibility score across departmental courses. This achievement has earned the department a free lunch courtesy of Academic Affairs and Innovation — congratulations!

The instructional design team within the Center for Academic Innovation will be building out its next slate of training and workshop opportunities for spring 2026. Plan to circle back to their events calendar next year.

In early 2026, we also anticipate introducing a new tool to assist specifically with STEM content remediation and accessible content creation. We look forward to sharing more about that in the new year as that contracting process progresses forward.

Advancing website accessibility

Great work and effort also continue across K-State websites. Since our last update, DCM’s Web Services team has held two day-long working sessions — one in-person, one virtual — offering web content creators dedicated time and space to advance their website accessibility.

These initial sessions, which fostered discussions between web content creators and DCM technical leads, resulted in further direction on prioritization communicated to Siteimprove users, as well as an updated to-do list to be remediated by the DCM team directly and subsequently deployed across sites.

This collaboration is critical to the ongoing success of this effort, and we appreciate the participation and effort of web content owners.

There are two additional digital accessibility working sessions coming up yet this month. An in-person session will be held Dec. 5, while a virtual session will be Dec. 15. Mark your calendars and plan to advance your own site’s accessibility score on these dates.

Addressing large institutional PDF inventories

Over the past several months, the digital accessibility task force has also worked to quantify the largest collections of institutional PDFs, using this information to build an initial scope to inform a request for proposal for a mass PDF remediation tool and support services.

Large multi-unit PDF inventories, including those housed within systems like K-REx, New Prairie Press, the Extension bookstore, the university’s web content management system, and more are on the table for possible inclusion in this mass remediation effort.

The RFP for an automated PDF remediation tool — with white glove service for particularly complex PDFs — is expected to launch late this month or early next month. We will share more as that RFP process concludes and the final scope of the tool/support is confirmed in alignment with available budget.

Moving forward

As the digital accessibility task force approaches its final months of service in 2026, the team has their sights set on ensuring sustained and continued support and communication for faculty and staff.

This is critical because this initiative is more than a compliance deadline — we have to shift toward building capacity within our culture to create accessible-first content moving forward. You’ll be hearing more from the task force on that in the coming months.

As always, we thank you for your continued efforts around digital accessibility. This work is not the work of one or a few. It is the work of us all — the true embodiment of what it means to be mission-centered and people-first.

Go ‘Cats!

Jesse Perez Mendez
Provost and executive vice president

Thomas Lane
Vice president for academic success and student affairs and dean of students