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Dear Colleagues,

The University of Michigan has announced it has entered the public phase of the Digital Accessibility Strategic Initiative, an effort designed to ensure digital accessibility and compliance with federal requirements across all university campuses and Michigan Medicine.

This initiative was developed to support the university mission, uphold the highest teaching standards and align with updates to Title II regulations of the Americans with Disabilities Act that require public universities to comply with digital accessibility standards by April 2026. An has been created for this initiative. also provides additional details on the requirements, exceptions and goals to meet compliance.

What does this mean for the ������-Dearborn campus? 

This is a complex initiative and no one person or department “owns” this work. There will be various departments working on areas that are public facing in nature.

Over the next fifteen months a team of people across our campus will be reaching out to faculty and staff to educate, guide and assist our community to become compliant with this new policy. Work has begun to ensure that digital content — including web pages, online courses and software — is usable by everyone. 

A few examples of this work include:

• Reviewing all documents linked to on the university website (including PDFs, Flipbooks, Google Documents, etc.) and either migrate content to a web page or remediate accessibility issues within the documents

• Ensuring faculty and staff have the proper accessibility tools and support available for teaching, research and other communications needs 

• Ensuring our purchased software meets accessibility standards

• Developing software that allows for equitable access

In the coming weeks the Offices of the Provost, Information Technology and External Relations will develop educational materials, information sessions and training workshops to address our campus needs. Outreach has already begun to some impacted groups. 

For faculty members, Associate Provost Joan Remski and Director of Digital Education Chris Casey will provide support as we work together toward compliance. Along with direct visits, which are already underway, to the units to discuss the impact on course materials, they will be setting up training for faculty on the new standards and with the accessibility tool, Yuja Panorama, on Canvas. Faculty should feel free to email [email protected] or reach out to the Office of Digital Education with questions.

The ������-Ann Arbor Office of Human Resources developed an if you would like to learn more about this initiative.  

This new policy is a large undertaking, but one that is consistent with our university’s mission to be a caring, inclusive and student-focused institution. 

Please watch for additional communications on this topic in the coming weeks. 

Sincerely, 

Gabriella Scarlatta
Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

Carrie Shumaker
Vice Chancellor for IT and Chief Strategy Officer 

Ken Kettenbeil
Vice Chancellor for External Relations