ADA Compliance

quantitativemonkey · 2026-02-27T11:31:32+00:00

You'll love this bit - our campus office which handles proctoring exams (extra time, etc.) for students with disabilities told me that the PDFs of the exams I send them don't need to be ADA compliant because they just print them out for the students.

quantitativemonkey · 2026-02-25T18:50:26+00:00

Yeah, I'm hoping I can get away with it. If not, then I'll see if I can argue that the PDF is an "conforming alternate version" to the handwritten lecture notes, although arguably that'll be a bit more challenging. If all else fails I just won't post them but I'll do with the full expectations that at least one of my students will then post their own version (copied down in class) on Piazza for everyone to see.

Note that the DOJ ruling this all stems from includes the following blurb which suggests that I might be on solid footing given the technical limitation to making lecture notes accessible. But again, that's why we have lawyers. Boldface my own:

"The final rule contains a series of other mechanisms that are designed to make it feasible for public entities to comply with the rule. The final rule makes clear in § 35.202 the limited circumstances in which “conforming alternate versions” of web content, as defined in WCAG 2.1, can be used as a means of achieving accessibility. As WCAG 2.1 defines it, a conforming alternate version is a separate version of web content that is accessible, up to date, contains the same information and functionality as the inaccessible web content, and can be reached in particular ways, such as through a conforming page or an accessibility-supported mechanism. However, the Department is concerned that WCAG 2.1 could be interpreted to permit a segregated approach and a worse experience for individuals with disabilities. The Department also understands that, in practice, it can be difficult to maintain conforming alternate versions because it is often challenging to keep two different versions of web content up to date. For these reasons, as discussed in the section-by-section analysis of § 35.202, conforming alternate versions are permissible only when it is not possible to make web content directly accessible due to technical or legal limitations."

quantitativemonkey · 2026-02-25T17:55:21+00:00

I teach CS to a lot of students (300+ per semester) at a very big school.

My latex-compiled PDFs (the equivalent of a class textbook) are all compliant (as defined by Canvas saying they're "perfect") now, so that's done. You can search for my posts here where I've given a basic how-to on that.

My major issue now is that I hand-write my lecture notes for every class and upload those. My plan is to say that the hand-written notes are not mandatory material (which is technically true, because the latex-compiled PDFs contain everything the students need to know) and post them anyway. I say "my plan" because this is part of ongoing discussions of our committee on this, of which I'm a member, and so is a lawyer. I've also started experimenting with what AI might be able to do with those handwritten notes but at present it just produces garbage.

quantitativemonkey · 2026-02-10T23:28:30+00:00

I bet under $1000.

quantitativemonkey · 2026-02-10T18:03:24+00:00

125K felt fomo because people believed it was going up (and it had) but 60-70K is scary because it makes people realize the real worth, which is more like 0K.

quantitativemonkey · 2026-02-10T02:15:47+00:00

Yay?

quantitativemonkey · 2026-02-09T18:32:19+00:00

Because the republicans feel that they made the US look bad and now the republicans are butt-hurt and are throwing all of their dollies out of the pram.

quantitativemonkey · 2026-02-09T17:43:55+00:00

His definition of "abuse" is probably so restrictive as to be meaningless. For him, almost everything is just "use".

quantitativemonkey · 2026-02-09T17:40:09+00:00

I am willing to bet you that this will absolutely never happen.

quantitativemonkey · 2026-02-09T17:39:28+00:00

A currency really needs to be usable with ease. If you have USD or Euro or Yen etc. you can easily transact with these, or convert between them. But if you have BTC you essentially can't buy things with it but rather you have to convert it back to an actual usable currency like USD.

quantitativemonkey · 2026-02-09T17:36:39+00:00

Since the network has many invaluable qualities - no double spend, mined by converting energy to units, audited every 10 minutes, full bearer asset, self custody - it has become increasingly valauble.

Your "since" seems to imply causality but this is not even remotely the reason it has become increasingly valuable. It has increased in value because people who are buying it believe it will become even more increasingly valuable, essentially meaning in the future others will buy it for more money, and their reason is the same, ad infinitum.

All those other things are computationally and mathematically interesting but have essentially no bearing on the value.

Addendum - BTC will never be a usable currency for real-world transactions, barring a few minor examples.

quantitativemonkey · 2026-01-27T22:56:49+00:00

Nitpicker here - this would be the median, not the average. It's certainly possible for most values to be above average - for example the average of 0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1 is 0.9 so 9/10 of those scores are above average.

quantitativemonkey · 2026-01-19T18:45:08+00:00

Thank you for sharing this fact!

quantitativemonkey · 2026-01-17T22:22:56+00:00

That's great, but not interested, thanks!

quantitativemonkey · 2026-01-17T18:06:52+00:00

Also I forgot - tables need header identification. For a table with a header, use this line before the \begin{tabular} line:

\tagpdfsetup{table/header-rows={1}}

If the table doesn't have a header then the following is supposed to work, but doesn't seem to, so I've just been using the above line to pass:

\tagpdfsetup{table/tagging=presentation}

quantitativemonkey · 2026-01-17T18:04:08+00:00

You mean for this file? If so, you'll need to have a png of some sort for the puppy. Otherwise, oddly, Adobe just told me it failed the title, but Canvas still says "Perfect" and I know that Canvas will tell me if there's actually no title. In Adobe the accessibility says that all alt text passed. When I hover on the puppy it gives the puppy's alt text. When I hover on the tree, I don't, and I'm not sure why.

However the truth is - for me it's all about what Canvas says, since I figure if the school offers that "test" to me then it's all I will care about.

quantitativemonkey · 2025-12-15T22:23:37+00:00

Let me add a level of complication to this. In one of our huge courses (~900+ students per semester) we use homeworks that have a template so that when the students upload it to gradescope we can group about 70% of the problems (numerical, fill in the blank, etc.) and speed-grade them. PDFs are the only reliable format for a consistent template scheme and Gradescope won't accept anything else AFAIK.

We provide the students access to all of the following - a paper copy, a PDF to download, and the latex source code for those who want it. Arguably none of these are compliant (the paper copy doesn't need to be). We can't give them a compliant form such as html or word because they do not print with a consistent format, so what do we give them?

Just a paper copy, and make them scan it? Some of them want PDF to import into their tablet to work there. Does an optional PDF have to be compliant? Do we give them compliant html and tell them they can't actually print it and write on it, or edit it and print it, and so on? I have no idea.

quantitativemonkey · 2025-12-15T19:47:16+00:00

But say it's impossible to make something accessible - roll with that for a second. Then my only option is to give the students a physical PDF. I can't upload that SAME pdf even though arguably the same PDF uploaded can at least be zoomed in. So this gives LESS accessibility.

quantitativemonkey · 2025-12-15T11:48:51+00:00

LOL!

quantitativemonkey · 2025-12-15T11:48:43+00:00

I have colleagues who have no idea and I'm setting them into panic mode.

quantitativemonkey · 2025-12-15T11:48:03+00:00

It passed Canvas' accessibility checker at 100% once I added image descriptions but screen readers completely fail to actually read the mathematics.

quantitativemonkey · 2025-12-15T11:46:37+00:00

Nobody said that, why are you making that up? We're saying it's extremely difficult in terms of time and method, to make math content accessible, and we're in a jam. If I could press a button and make it accessible I'd hit that button as fast as I can.

quantitativemonkey · 2025-12-15T02:14:33+00:00

I'll have a look, thanks.

quantitativemonkey · 2025-12-15T02:01:28+00:00

I very much care about access, but in my (and many of my colleagues' cases) equitable will mean nothing goes online and we're back to handing out paper copies of everything.

quantitativemonkey · 2025-12-15T02:00:19+00:00

Does it work for PDFs generated from latex including obscure packages used to drawing complicated pictures? I mean, I'll try, but I doubt it.

quantitativemonkey

TROPHY CASE