Office of Information Technology
Community agreements have many names: participation guidelines, community expectations, group contract, code of conduct, etc. Regardless of the title, these documents aim to set the tone, address inter-relational dynamics, and establish shared understandings between members of a workgroup. In a learning community, like ours, these points of agreement provide the support needed to deepen our collective engagement and do the hard work.
Learn about online and face-to-face classroom barriers rather than focusing on types of disabilities.
Incorporate accessibility considerations and testing into all standard operating processes so you—and the University—can sustain progress and ensure our digital content is accessible to all.
The University and faculty senates passed a resolution in 2019 recommending that faculty and instructors systemwide complete accessibility professional development activities. The Digital Accessibility Pedagogy Workgroup compiled the resources below in 2023 to support the resolution.
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As a system-wide office, Academic Technology Support Services supports the UMN teaching mission in three areas:
Contact Academic Technology Support Services to:
Academic Technology Support Services publishes the Teaching with Technology monthly newsletter and the Extra Points blog.
The Bakken Center enriches health and wellbeing by providing interprofessional education, delivering innovative engagement programs, and advancing innovative models of care.
Offerings include:
Learn about good practices for creating course sites that are both usable and accessible to the widest range of students, including organizing content with:
CEI offers a variety of opportunities to deepen your learning and expand your practices on this topic and others. They include:
The Digital Accessibility Badging Program teaches you how to create emails, slide decks, documents, and more in an accessible way, without using code.
In each self-paced online workshop delivered via Training Nub and Canvas, you will learn skills and apply them to your everyday work.
Participants can elect to have course completion through their Training Hub learner record or complete an optional project to earn a digital badge. Completion of all 6 courses is not required: participants can elect to complete individual courses that pertain to their teaching/learning context.
The DRCs work with students, faculty/instructors, staff, and guests with disabilities to facilitate access and arrange reasonable accommodations.
The centers also support University faculty, instructors and administrators to create more accessible and inclusive systems, processes, and learning environments.
ECHO is a program of 10 workshops.
Participation in each workshop entails engagement in three learning activities:
These activities represent and reflect three ways to learn and grow in equity and diversity work:
Certificate is conferred upon completion of all 10 workshops.
The following professional development modules are required of faculty and instructors system-wide. Each module takes 20-25 minutes to complete via the Training Hub.
Comprising eight, 20-minute learning modules that are available to all UMN employees, the Mental Health Training provides essential skills for supporting the needs of today’s students. The series includes the following modules, which can be completed individually or in sequence. Module 1 is a prerequisite for the others. Visit the Training Hub to register for each module.
At the University of Minnesota, equity and diversity are advanced as “everyone’s everyday work” through both system-wide and campus-specific opportunities.
Sign up for system-wide mailing lists to be notified of upcoming opportunities, and explore parallel resources and opportunities on your home campus:
OTDP is a program of nine asynchronous online modules delivered via Training Hub and Canvas. Each module enables learners to develop appropriate online strategies and technology tools and apply them to their own courses.
The modules are most fruitful when they relate to an online or blended course the learner can develop or revise using skills learned.
Participants can elect to have course completion recorded through their Training Hub learner record or complete an optional project to earn a digital badge. Completion of all modules is not required: participants can elect to complete individual modules that pertain to their teaching/learning context.
Learn about effective practices that can reduce stress, improve mental health, and reduce the need for accommodations in this online document, the result of a collaboration between the Center for Educational Innovation and the President’s Initiative for Student Mental Health.
It is organized into relevant policies, quick wins, and longer-term holistic approaches and includes recommendations for department/unit heads.
Find lists resources, programs, and webinars, including resources that introduce skills to:
The programs and webinars provide research-based and practical instructional support for developing accessible and inclusive courses and class sessions in face-to-face, online, and blended modalities.
Teaching Support resources and offerings are coordinated by four teaching and learning partners:
Through the Teaching Support website, faculty can request assistance through college and system campus support and find a monthly events calendar offering webinars, workshops, and self-paced courses.
Many of the Teaching Support resources and offerings address current University priorities, including creating accessible and inclusive materials and learning environments.
The WEL Model identifies key goals toward enhancing student wellbeing across six dimensions and supplies a descriptive list of practices that contribute to each goal:
Each practice is accompanied by three suggested strategies and examples that can be adapted to a particular course. The WEL Model toolkit is a guide to implementing the model.
Digital Accessibility is achieved when all people can equitably access content on the web or in applications.
Many of the applications we use to communicate, collaborate, and share enable accessibility, but access for all doesn't happen by default. Everyone who shares content in a digital format must take action to create an equitable experience for all.
When we practice digital accessibility, we encourage our community to go beyond accommodating individual people with disabilities. Rather, our goal is to make content accessible to all at the point of creation, and in doing so, demonstrate one of our core values: that all people share equal rights to learn, work, and connect.
The University of Minnesota, founded in the belief that all people are enriched by understanding, is dedicated to the advancement of learning and the search for truth; to the sharing of this knowledge through education for a diverse community; and to the application of this knowledge to benefit the people of the state, the nation, and the world.
Thank you for attending Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2023 with the University of Minnesota. We are proud to offer you access to our amazing virtual swag bag.
Sources: Code4Lib 2021 accessibility webpage, Composing Access from the Ohio State University
During the Global Accessibility Awareness Day conference, sessions will have live captioning. In order to improve the quality of this service, we ask everyone to speak slowly and clearly so the captioning service is able to accurately capture what you say.
Community agreements have many names: participation guidelines, community expectations, group contract, code of conduct, etc. Regardless of the title, these documents aim to set the tone, address inter-relational dynamics, and establish shared understandings between members of a workgroup. In a learning community, like ours, these points of agreement provide the support needed to deepen our collective engagement and do the hard work.