This professional certificate program focuses on foundational information and specific skills for educators, instructional designers, and other staff who develop digital resources for courses.

The courses provide skills that satisfy the current WCAG standards upon which U.S., Canadian, and European Union accessibility guidelines, policies, and laws are based.

Upon completing this certificate program, you will:

  • Understand the legal and historical background of accessibility, universal design for learning, and applying these to course design.
  • Develop accessible Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and PDF files
  • Create accessible videos

The courses were developed with educators in mind. The courses explain why and how to make common course materials accessible with free or inexpensive software that is commonly available at many institutions. Technical IT jargon is not used.

Required Courses

4-Week Courses

8-Week Course

Enroll in the DAE Certificate Program

For U.S. Institutions

An important question to ask is why do our digital materials need to be accessible? The answer is two-fold.

First, federal laws require digital resources to be accessible to the public. Some states, including Illinois, also have laws mandating the accessibility of digital resources for institutions of higher education.

Second, courses that are made accessible to students with disabilities also prove useful students without any documented disabilities. For instance, video captioning helps students who are English language learners or consume content in noisy (or quiet) locations. Making courses accessible means you are providing a better learning experience for everyone.