As public-facing divisions of the university, colleges, schools, departments, and academic units must ensure conformance with the information and communication technology (ICT) policies covered in the NSHE ICT and the UNLV ICT. In addition, UNLV's Top Tier 2.0 vision embraces and focuses on, among various areas: social justice, equity, and inclusion. All three ideas pertain to this issue of digital accessibility, regardless of one's abilities.

For more information about accessibility for colleges and schools, email Accessibility Resources Team Support.

Web Accessibility

It is beneficial for all university entities to work with UNLV Web & Digital Strategy to create and maintain their web presence. This partnership helps ensure accessibility in site design, look, structure, pages, and included attachments and media. UNLV Web & Digital Strategy team members have all been trained on accessibility principles and topics, so when a unit's website is run by UNLV, procurement vetting, ongoing paperwork, and review are not required.

Third Party Websites

If a department or unit hosts its web server and has projects created and maintained by a third party, the obligations or requirements for accessibility are not reduced. Because third-party web vendors are vetted for accessibility standards conformance and compliance by the Office of Accessibility Resources, units and colleges should be prepared for the initial and ongoing review process required.

Accessible Deliverables from Vendors

UNLV strives to be an inclusive environment. UNLV's vendors must create and provide contract deliverables that are digitally accessible and that conform to the expected Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and Section 508 standards. You don't have to know there's an individual with a disability; you do have to create content as if there is a person with a disability.

At UNLV, every internal and external website (including course sites) and any documents provided (such as but not limited to: PDFs, PowerPoint presentations, Word DOCX files, forms, etc.) are required to be digitally accessible. UNLV Web and Digital Strategy is only able to post accessible versions of PDFs and other digital documents. Content must be created with accessibility in mind and cannot be reliant on overlay technologies or "accessibility widgets" as these often interfere with the screen reader technology used by persons with disabilities.

All multimedia resources available to the general public and to UNLV's internal community must be appropriately captioned (i.e. human-correction and oversight are applied, not merely auto-generated). Text in the captioned media must be synchronized with a speaker's dialogue and include additional auditory information such as sound effects.

For questions or for further information, please contact the Office of Accessibility Resources at accessibilityresourceteam@unlv.edu.

Web Accessibility Resources for Campus Units

Regardless of how your unit's website is hosted or maintained, the following are some UNLV-supported resources for addressing the accessibility of your public- and student-facing content.

Siteimprove is a cloud-based service deployed across UNLV which provides several types of reports useful for website maintenance:

  • Accessibility: Problems with web pages and PDF documents in relation to the WCAG international standards.
  • Quality Assurance: Broken links, misspelled words, and readability issues, including an inventory of your pages, documents, media files, email addresses, and other content.
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Technical, content, user experience, and mobile-related website issues affecting your non-paid search ranking.
  • Policy: Style-guide violations or other issues (e.g., terminology, branding/trademarks, file sizes, page structure) based on industry best practices or your customized policies.

If you have questions about UNLV's implementation of SiteImprove, please contact your department or college's web liaison with Web & Digital Strategy. You may also contact the web accessibility specialist.

ProjectAlly is a tool available to those who are not creating academic content but would like to test the accessibility of their materials. PDFs, PowerPoint, and Word files can be reviewed before posting on their public-facing websites using Anthology Ally in a WebCampus. If you do not otherwise have access to a WebCampus-based course, you can complete an online request form to receive a course that is specifically for the testing and reporting of documents.

Note that this option is not for long-term storage of files. It is for short-term testing of documents, which are deleted once testing and fixing of the document has been completed. These purpose-specific course locations, called shells, should be cleared once you have completed your testing and subsequent fixes.

Request ProjectAlly

Complete your request for a ProjectAlly Webcampus-shell via the ProjectAlly registration form. You will need to be logged in with your ACE credentials to submit your request. To complete the ProjectAlly form, please click on “Request Service.”

We provide these templates as a starting point for accessible syllabi:

  • Template A: This template contains a basic no-table layout. Accessible headings/header styles are applied for typical sections, the grading scale list is formatted for accessibility, and additional second-level heading starters are listed at the bottom of the document.
  • Template B: This template includes all starter content from template A. Additions include the UNLV Policies start section and a course agenda/schedule heading with an accessible table supported by a secondary heading plus narrative.
  • Template C: This template includes all starter content from template B, preceded by an accessible table for course information (class times, locations, etc.).

Visit our Accessible Syllabus page for more information about creating accessible syllabi.

Custom Templates

We can work with departments to create custom syllabus templates in Microsoft Word and/or Google Docs that can in turn be presented in other formats, such as WebCampus “Syllabus” entries or as standalone Adobe PDFs. Please email accessibilityresourceteam-request@unlv.edu to get in contact with our team.

Web & Digital Strategy provides a starter Degree Worksheet to transfer content from Excel or Google Sheet files before creating accessible public-facing PDFs. These documents are a crucial part of the UNLV Degrees Directory, so they must already be verified to be in accessible form prior to submission for inclusion. Please contact Accessibility Resources Team Support for more information or to be routed to the next point-of-contact.

Handbook templates for programs other than the Graduate College can be made available upon request. Please contact Accessibility Resources Team Support to schedule a consultation.

Your college, department, or unit content creators (including faculty) should be creating new content with accessibility in mind, as this is the long-term goal of the University’s accessibility efforts.

If, for the short term, you wish to outsource the remediation (fixing for accessibility) of older PDF documents to ensure accessibility conformance, we have two approved vendors from whom you may request quotes. Please contact Accessibility Resources Team Support for more information.