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 with disabilities.
  • 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