Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires state and local government entities, including Georgia Tech, to ensure that all digital content, tools, and services are accessible to people with disabilities.

As a public institution, Georgia Tech must provide equal access to its digital programs, services, and activities. Accessibility supports our commitment to providing an accessible environment where all community members can learn, participate, and thrive. 

Georgia Tech aligns with WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines, the recognized technical benchmark for digital accessibility as prescribed by the Title II of the ADA regulations and adopted by the University System of Georgia.  

This is a shared responsibility. Every department that creates, maintains, or publishes any form of digital content on a website or social media site shares in this responsibility. This includes documents, media, and applications.

Persistent non-compliance could create institutional risk under the ADA. Individual departments will be required to manage and remediate their respective issues throughout this process. However, we do recognize that this is a phased approach that will take time, which is why we encourage every department to begin reviewing what is currently listed on their sites and work to identify what should be deleted or archived and what should be remediated.

All public-facing websites, internal employee resources (including annual and ongoing trainings), course sites and instructional materials, PDFs, videos, forms, word processing files, spreadsheets, presentations, social media posts, and applications, whether hosted on Tech servers or third-party platforms. 

All actively used instructional materials including: PDFs, word processing files, spreadsheets, presentations, videos, websites, LMS pages, discussion posts, and external tools used for teaching. 

Many instructors have old exams or practice questions available for their students. If you do not actively use these resources as part of your instructional materials and only make them available for independent student practice, they can be kept in a folder in your Canvas course marked “Archived Course Material”. These materials must meet the four exceptions listed under Archived Web Content on the Title II Exceptions page.

Yes. All external tools, whether used inside or outside the classroom, should be verified by the faculty member or administrative unit to meet accessibility standards before requiring their use.  

Persistent non-compliance could create institutional risk under the ADA. Individual departments will be required to manage and remediate their respective issues throughout this process. However, we do recognize that this is a phased approach that will take time, which is why we encourage every department to begin reviewing what is currently listed on their sites and work to identify what should be deleted or archived and what should be remediated.  

Missing alt text on images, poor color contrast, unlabeled form fields, inaccessible PDFs, and videos without captions.

Use built-in accessibility checkers in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat, and Canvas. Add alt text to images, provide captions/transcripts for videos, and ensure readable text contrast. Check color contrast, use headings for structure, avoid “click here” links, and upload accessible PDFs.

Learn more about digital accessibility training.

The Office of Equal Opportunity, Compliance and Conflict Management (EOCCM) in collaboration with the Office of Information Technology (OIT) is working to roll out new self-service tools to assist you with determining the level of accessibility of your sites. Join us for our virtual training and Q&A sessions, or feel free to review them on your own as they are recorded. 

Reach out to EOCCM’s ADA Compliance Team. 

If you have questions or concerns about remediating your digital content, please contact gtaccessiblity@gatech.edu. 

• Helpful resources designed to aid in creating accessible course material at the Center for Teaching and Learning’s (CTL) CTL Course Accessibility Hub and Office of Information Technology’s (OIT)’s Resources to Support Accessibility in Canvas.
• Canvas Accessibility Checklist: a practical resource developed in CTL to help you quickly assess and improve accessibility across text, hyperlinks, images and alt-text, documents, tables, multimedia, and course structure.
• Canvas Commons Accessible Course Template: developed collaboratively by CTL and DLT, available on Canvas Commons. To find the template, log into Canvas and then search in Canvas Commons.

In addition, you can contact the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) at ctlhelp@gatech.eduor request a consultation with the Center for Inclusive Design and Innovation (CIDI). 

Yes. There are virtual training workshops available to help you understand and meet the new web accessibility requirements. Visit the Workshops page to learn more and register for a workshop. In addition, there are online resources that you can review at your own pace. Visit the Online Learning Resources page.