About the Microcredential

  • Fee: Free for UNT faculty, staff, and students
  • Modality: Online, asynchronous, self-paced
  • Intended Audience: UNT faculty and staff (primary); UNT students (secondary)
  • Approximate Time for Completion: 12-20 hours (2-5 hours per week; four weeks)
  • Author: Dr. Tania Heap

Digital Accessibility Foundations equips learners with the knowledge and hands-on skills to develop digital content that is accessible to all users. Designed for a diverse professional audience, including marketing specialists, UX designers, and educators, the course helps build more collaborative teams and enhances customer engagement by promoting inclusive digital environments.

What You Will Learn

  • Legal and International Standards: Understand the legal frameworks and standards governing digital accessibility.
  • Disability Etiquette: Learn to engage respectfully and effectively with people of diverse abilities.
  • Inclusive Design: Adopt inclusive design principles to ensure digital content is accessible and welcoming to all users.
  • Hands-on Applications: Practice creating and assessing content, including documents, websites and multimedia, to be accessible to people with disabilities.

Course Features

  • Flexible Learning Format: This microcredential is delivered in an online asynchronous format, allowing learners to engage with the content at their own pace. 
  • Global Focus: Goes beyond the US landscape for laws and policies and gives an overview of global laws and policies, including in developing countries.
  • Comprehensive Content: Covers both theoretical content (models of disability, accessibility standards) and practical applications (hands-on exercises in testing, evaluation, and remediation).
  • Expert Contributions: Includes content from experts in their fields for whom digital accessibility is impactful.
  • Global Copyright Considerations: Brief overview of how copyright intersects with accessibility.

Course Format

  • Readings and Videos: Readings and video content to be completed prior to discussions and assignments.
  • Knowledge Checks: Ungraded assignments to help assess comprehension.
  • Discussion Board Posts: Interactions with fellow learners.
  • Hands-on Assignments: Assignments tailored to real-life situations and job duties, such as assessing technologies for accessibility and developing accessible documents.

About the Author

Dr. Tania Heap is Sr. Director of Learning Research and Accessibility in the Division of Digital Strategy and Innovation (DSI) and Adjunct Faculty at the University of North Texas (UNT). She has been involved in digital learning initiatives for nearly 20 years. Tania’s background is in practice-based research in educational technology, digital accessibility, universal design for learning, user centered design, and the scholarship of teaching and learning.