Welcome to our new Digital Accessibility resource to support an inclusive teaching and learning environment at Ulster University. This work comes from collaboration between the Office for Digital Learning (ODL), the Centre for Higher Education, Research and Practice (CHERP), Student Wellbeing and the Students’ Union. The work has also been supported by funding from a SLaTE project.

On 23 September 2018 new regulations on the accessibility of websites and mobile applications of public sector bodies came into force in the UK. These require all public sector websites to comply with accessibility standards. Since then we have made significant moves to improve the accessibility of teaching and learning materials. Currently, all new Panopto videos are automatically machine captioned and accuracy rates have steadily improved over the last few years. In addition, Microsoft Teams has live captioning during synchronous sessions.

With regards to text based resources housed within Blackboard Learn students have had access to a free link to Blackboard Ally to allow them to download alternative formats throughout the pandemic. However, as part of the SLaTE funding received for the project we are implementing a pilot to enable the feature fully in Blackboard Learn to ensure maximum visibility for students. If you do not wish to participate in this pilot please ‘opt out’ via this form.

This new site therefore brings together information about Ally, introduces the inclusive concept of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), support resources and guidance for creating more accessible learning materials and relevant news and events.