Web and Digital Accessibility: Our Shared Responsibility

Dear Faculty and Staff,

Guided by our Jesuit mission to serve the whole person and build an inclusive community, digital accessibility is our responsibility to provide full and equal access to all students. While significant progress has been made on university website accessibility under the leadership of OMC and ITS, our commitment to every student demands that we go further. 

USF must comply with federal law and confirm “web content and mobile apps are made accessible to people with disabilities by ensuring conformance with WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards” by May 11, 2026. This includes course curriculum, course information, syllabus, and any online materials that are available in in-person, synchronous, and asynchronous modalities. Please refer to our University Digital Accessibility Policy for more information »

Digital accessibility ensures digital content works for all possible audiences. For many people, it’s easy to browse, point, click, and watch and listen to video clips. But for people with visual impairments who rely on screen readers and for those with hearing or physical impairments, a particular design choice or presentation may create barriers to access. If a video isn’t captioned appropriately, if the color contrast in graphics doesn’t meet accessibility standards, if text and images in a linked PDF are not available to all, we are not serving our entire community, and we are putting the university at risk of legal action.

Staff and faculty working with the VP of marketing and communications have been developing a plan for the remediation of existing materials, as well as training for faculty and staff to develop accessible digital content going forward. Additional information will be available starting next week, including a list of tools, trainings, and resources available for faculty and staff to support them in the remediation of existing materials. 

We will be developing accessibility audits that will be done on an ongoing basis to ensure that all content — especially documents and videos — is accessible. If content does not meet accessibility standards, it will need to be removed until the content has been fixed. 

Thank you for your cooperation and participation in this university-wide effort. If you have any questions, please contact:

Sincerely,

Eileen Fung
Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs

Opinder Bawa
Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer

Anneliese Mauch
Interim Vice President, Marketing and Communications