Accessibility

Brock University is committed to creating and promoting inclusivity across campus by creating content and communicating in a way that is accessible to anyone using assistive devices and users of all cognitive capabilities.

What is digital accessibility?

Over 1.3 billion people live with some form of disability, representing 17% of the global population.

World Economic Forum, 2022

22% of Canadians reported having at least one disability. That’s 6.2 million people, or 1 in every 5.

Statistics Canada, Canadian Survey on Disability 2017

Digital accessibility…

  • eliminates obstacles that prevent people from accessing information, products or services online.
  • is a way to format digital content and documents that helps ensure the same user experience online for everyone.
  • creates a standard for readable documents that work with assistive devices.
  • provides access and independence to disabled users. 

AODA

The Accessible Canada Act was passed in 2019 with the goal of making Canada barrier-free by January 1, 2040. The province is working towards the goal of making Ontario an accessible province by 2025. The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) creates and monitors accessibility standards.

WCAG

If we focus on accessible digital communications (web, social media or mobile applications), you will hear or see the word WCAG (pronounced wick-ag). The AODA tells us that the internet must be accessible, and WCAG provides the instructions for how to achieve it.

WCAG, short for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, are a set of guidelines necessary to make digital communications accessible to people with disabilities. The guidelines are updated regularly to keep pace with evolving digital technology, assistive technology, and the growth of mobile web applications. Our current target version of the guidelines is WCAG 2.1.

AODA compliance

Brock University is required by law to ensure that all new websites and web content conforms to accessibility standards under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). Brock’s websites, material and content must follow established web accessibility content guidelines.

How to make digital content accessible

faculty and staff at Brock University are each responsible for ensuring that their use of the Brock website is compliant with accessibility standards under the AODA and WCAG.

We have created several guides to help you address the most important aspects of the WCAG guidelines, by providing simple steps that can have a big impact on the accessibility of your website, with no coding required. Use these guides and other resources in this toolkit to help ensure that your content is as accessible as possible.

Guides

SiteImprove

Siteimprove, our website monitoring tool, can be very helpful in identifying and correcting common issues across your website, and we strongly recommend that you use it. It is available to all staff and faculty who maintain a brock.ca website.

Resources

Accessible teaching resources

The Centre for Pedagogical Innovation (CPI) provides individual consultations on accessible pedagogy and accessible teaching resources. Educational developers are available to consult with instructors on accessible assignment and activity design and accessible resources for Brightspace in the context of courses. Please reach out by emailing cpi@brocku.ca.

Please note

Some website accessibility issues require developer access and are monitored and addressed as needed by Marketing and Communications. At this time you should focus on the main content area of your site and ensure that there are no broken links, missing alt tags, or improperly structured content.