Resource Library

Getting started at Waterloo

• Postsecondary Course Accessibility Guide - A starting point for reviewing course accessibility (Disability Inclusion Office, University of Waterloo)
• Outline Repository - A home-grown outline authoring tool with features that support accessibility and more (University of Waterloo)

Course design

• Universal Design: Course Design - Focuses on changes that can impact multiple students, with a focus on flexibility, accessibility, variability, and minimization of unnecessary effort. (Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo)

• Accessibility Guides and Resources - (Toronto Metropolitan University)

• Accessibility Resources - (Council of Ontario Universities)

• Educator's Accessibility Toolkit [PDF] - (Council of Ontario Universities)

Course delivery

• Supporting Students' Mental Well-being: Instructional Strategies - Outlines pedagogical practices that enhance the learning environment for all students. (Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo)
• Practical Tools to Empathize with your Learners - Practical suggestions for actively practising empathy in the classroom. (Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo)
• Removing Barriers: Accessibility and Accommodation - Strategies for ensuring that everyone feels welcome, included, and respected. Addresses physical spaces, interaction, offering assistance, translation, protocols, accessible teaching materials, presentations and lectures, and crisis intervention. (Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo)
• Universal Design: Instructional Strategies - Ideas for incorporating Universal Design into course delivery. (Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo)
• Accessibility Checklist for Face-to-Face Presentations - Considers visual, auditory, and comprehension. (Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo)

Creating Accessible Teaching Materials

Presentations

• Accessibility Checklist for PowerPoint Presentations - Considers text, images, and other visual elements. (Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo)

Captions and transcripts

• Creating Accessible Transcripts or Captions for Video-Based Learning Resources - Steps for providing text alternatives to multi-media materials (Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo)
• Captioning Your Own Videos for Free - Guidance for creating video captions. (University of Washington)

Documents

• Accessibility Checklist for MS Word - considers text, images, and other visual elements. (Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo)
• Creating Accessible Materials for PC - provides step-by-step instructions for PC users in the Microsoft Office suite, including Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. (Microsoft)
• Creating Accessible Materials for Mac and PC - Guidance for creating accessible materials for Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat, on PC or Mac. (Accessible Digital Office Document Project)
• How to create accessible documents - Toronto Metropolitan University