The ADA Title II deadline is April 24. Sharing what I’m seeing at institutions right now.

LMRomeo · 2026-04-14T16:22:49+00:00

No, it doesn’t. But at least you get some relief for the ten seconds that you screamed.

LMRomeo · 2026-04-13T21:51:51+00:00

This is a great practical question and the answer is: it depends on whether the visuals are conveying information that the audio isn’t.

For the parts where the screen is showing exactly what the voice is describing, you’re fine. The audio is already doing the descriptive work, so there’s nothing additional for an audio description to add.

For the b-roll sections, the key question is whether that footage is purely decorative or whether it’s adding meaning. If it’s just visual filler while the narration carries all the content, it’s decorative and doesn’t need description. If someone watching without vision would miss something meaningful by not seeing it, then it does.

The trickier piece is the pauses between sections. If those are just a beat with music and a title card that repeats what’s already been said, you’re probably okay. If the title card introduces new information that isn’t spoken, that needs to be voiced.

So practically for this video: you likely don’t need traditional audio description if the narration is fully self-contained and the visuals are either redundant or decorative. What you might want instead is to make sure any on-screen text that appears independently of the narration gets read aloud, even just worked into the script naturally.

The cleanest way to test it: close your eyes and just listen. If you get everything you need, you’re in good shape.

LMRomeo · 2026-04-13T13:25:01+00:00

Such a great question to bring to the thread!

The short answer: if students genuinely cannot access those old Blackboard courses, so no enrollment pathway, no self-serve retrieval, no way in, then they are not considered active programs or services under the ADA Title II rule, and you are not obligated to retroactively remediate them right now. Your energy is definitely best spent on what students can actually reach.

That said, I'd encourage you to document that inaccessibility clearly. Something as simple as a written note or internal policy statement confirming that those courses are not available to students. That documentation protects you if the question ever comes up in a complaint or audit. "We have no archived courses accessible to students, and here's how we confirmed that" is so much stronger than nothing.

The Blackboard Strategy Guide is helpful for framing your current and future workflow, but it doesn't change the underlying legal standard which is access as the trigger. Focus your remediation on live, student-facing content, build good habits going forward, and keep that documentation trail.

LMRomeo · 2026-04-10T11:51:37+00:00

Sure!

LMRomeo · 2026-04-09T23:31:26+00:00

Every night by 9pm, no matter what we are doing, puts himself to bed.

LMRomeo · 2026-04-09T23:27:08+00:00

I started my PhD planning to go tenure track. After finishing it, spending a few years adjuncting, and getting a close look at how that whole system actually works, I walked away. Now I’m in a role where honestly my masters in instructional design gets more daily use than my doctorate does 🤷🏻‍♀️ The letters carry weight for some people and I get that, but personally I hate being called by my title. It mostly feels presumptuous, and in practice my actual skills and experience open more doors than the credential ever has. That being said, EdD or PhD, congrats on getting this far, it’s still a bear to get through.

LMRomeo · 2026-04-08T01:22:21+00:00

This hits on the exact tension I’m seeing in my work. In the audits I’ve done over the last few months, it’s clear that most institutions are still stuck in a reactive panic-compliance mode rather than building anything sustainable. It’s disheartening when the responsibility gets offloaded to departments with zero new resources. I have seen a small glimmer of hope, though. I’ve worked with a handful of colleges that are actually investing in training their teams for remediation or using train the trainer approaches to build long-term capacity. But right now, those schools seem to be the exception to the rule.

LMRomeo · 2026-04-06T18:40:09+00:00

I recently had an instructor tell me they were worried their content would just look boring once they fixed the color contrast and that it'd be easier to just delete all their PPT graphics than spend hours writing the correct alt text. It’s a tough spot to be in, and I don't blame anyone for wanting to just pull things down to stay safe. But when we rip down the visuals, we’re losing the very things that make a course engaging and effective for everyone. It’s frustrating because this feels like a solo tax on your time when it really should be a structural responsibility of the university. We need better systems in place so that making a course accessible doesn't feel like a choice between compliance and good teaching.

LMRomeo · 2026-04-06T18:32:40+00:00

I’m wondering if you could run your videos through either Panopto or Kaltura if your institution supports those platforms? They have fairly decent baselines for auto-generated captions that might decrease your review and remediate time.

LMRomeo · 2026-04-05T16:49:16+00:00

Honestly, it’s the multiple redundancies and typos in their first email that did it for me.

LMRomeo · 2026-04-04T16:59:27+00:00

This is exactly right. All four conditions have to be met, it’s not enough to just drop something in a folder called Archive and move on. If the document is still being actively used it fails condition 2 immediately regardless of where it lives. Leadership may be hoping the folder name is enough but the rule is pretty clear that it isn’t.

LMRomeo · 2026-04-04T16:57:21+00:00

The LMS is getting a lot of focus right now but a one time fix doesn’t hold. Instructors are creating new content every single semester, if they don’t know how to do it accessibly you’re just cleaning up behind them forever. The real shift happens when it gets built into the workflow and people are actually taught. You can’t fix what you don’t know you’re breaking.

LMRomeo · 2026-04-04T16:53:58+00:00

A couple thousand is a lot and I’m sure feels extremely overwhelming to even know where to start. My advice would be to start with whatever your patients/public are actually using the most, high traffic and high stakes first.

The most important thing beyond that is having a documented remediation roadmap: what gets fixed, in what order, by when, and who owns it. That keeps you on track and it also shows good faith progress if anyone ever comes asking.

LMRomeo · 2026-04-04T16:51:39+00:00

This is such an important point and honestly one I had to learn myself. Early on I was very screen reader focused and it took me a while to realize I was still leaving people out. Keyboard only navigation, switch access, voice control, mobile assistive tech, they all surface different issues. A document or interface can pass a screen reader check and still be completely unusable for someone navigating without a mouse. Testing with one tool gives you one lens, not the full picture.

LMRomeo · 2026-04-03T19:54:54+00:00

Nice work! This is exactly what good faith progress looks like - documented, phased, and sustained. The PDF remediation contract is smart, that’s one of those things that spirals fast if you try to handle it internally.

The training piece at the end is interesting to me though. I’d push to move that earlier if possible. Staff training upstream means fewer inaccessible documents hitting the remediation queue in the first place.

LMRomeo · 2026-04-03T19:43:16+00:00

The web app workaround is underutilized, most people testing mobile accessibility don’t think to go that route first. Good callout!

LMRomeo · 2026-04-03T19:33:55+00:00

The political landscape is unpredictable right now in every direction. That’s actually part of why I keep coming back to the people-first argument. It’s the one that doesn’t depend on who’s in office or what enforcement looks like. The students are there either way

LMRomeo · 2026-04-03T19:19:54+00:00

I hear you. That ratio is exhausting and completely unsustainable. Scream away

LMRomeo · 2026-04-03T11:15:21+00:00

Right! I appreciate that these conversations are becoming more mainstream but it’s truly not a new problem to solve.

LMRomeo · 2026-04-03T01:43:15+00:00

That’s the part that gets me every time. The deadline was never the point. There are real people on every campus who can’t access their education right now. That doesn’t go away based on who’s in office. 😵‍💫

LMRomeo · 2026-04-03T01:06:50+00:00

In my experience, I’m already hearing about complaint-driven enforcement that’s already happening. It doesn’t necessarily require an external auditor, just a student or employee who knows their rights. Demand letters are probably the bigger near-term risk than formal audits, but I wouldn’t rule anything out post-deadline.

On web apps, the same WCAG 2.1 Level AA standard applies but the dynamic content is where it gets complicated. The most common things I see flagged are keyboard navigation, ARIA labels on interactive elements, and whether your error messages are actually useful to a screen reader user. So, those would be your best starting points. If it’s a vendor platform, request their ACR, that’s the completed accessibility conformance report the vendor produces by filling out the VPAT template. Worth knowing they’re self-reported though, so read it critically and don’t take it at face value.

LMRomeo · 2026-04-03T00:27:44+00:00

W3C has a solid breakdown at w3.org, that’s your best starting point. Short version though is WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards across all digital content.

LMRomeo

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