{"id":8723,"date":"2021-05-17T13:59:23","date_gmt":"2021-05-17T12:59:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/?p=8723"},"modified":"2021-05-25T14:18:11","modified_gmt":"2021-05-25T13:18:11","slug":"global-accessibility-awareness-day-gaad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/2021\/05\/17\/global-accessibility-awareness-day-gaad\/","title":{"rendered":"Global Accessibility Awareness Day #GAAD"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized is-style-default\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/files\/2021\/05\/pasted-image-0.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/files\/2021\/05\/pasted-image-0.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8724\" width=\"724\" height=\"362\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/files\/2021\/05\/pasted-image-0.png 800w, https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/files\/2021\/05\/pasted-image-0-300x150.png 300w, https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/files\/2021\/05\/pasted-image-0-768x384.png 768w, https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/files\/2021\/05\/pasted-image-0-100x50.png 100w, https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/files\/2021\/05\/pasted-image-0-150x75.png 150w, https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/files\/2021\/05\/pasted-image-0-200x100.png 200w, https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/files\/2021\/05\/pasted-image-0-450x225.png 450w, https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/files\/2021\/05\/pasted-image-0-600x300.png 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 724px) 100vw, 724px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Thursday 20th May 2021 sees the 10th Annual Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). GAAD is an international event aimed at focusing attention on digital accessibility and inclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Digital accessibility presents a huge challenge for students with disabilities. A recent <a href=\"https:\/\/webaim.org\/projects\/million\/\">report from WebAIM<\/a> showed that 97% of the top one million homepages on the web do not meet the recommended industry standard for accessibility, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/WCAG21\/\">WCAG 2.1 AA<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since September 2018 it has been a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jisc.ac.uk\/accessibility\">legal requirement<\/a> that public sector bodies including Universities meet the WCAG standard for web content. In June this year that requirement is extended to cover mobile applications as well.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here at University of Sussex around <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sussex.ac.uk\/ssro\/data\/digest\/2020-2021\">20% of our student body<\/a> have registered disabilities, from physical disabilities to specific learning differences such as dyslexia, and mental health conditions. Addressing this need is core to providing an excellent student experience for all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over recent years Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) and many other areas of the University of Sussex have been working hard to support staff in making their content accessible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>TEL produced the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/accessibility\">Digital Accessibility Toolkit<\/a> to support staff to create and update accessible teaching resources.<\/li><li>The Web Team have produced extensive <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sussex.ac.uk\/brand\/staff\/web\/accessibility\">guidance for those editing the website<\/a>.<\/li><li>The Library introduced <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sussex.ac.uk\/library\/using-the-library\/reformat\">SensusAccess<\/a> allowing students and staff to easily convert their documents into more accessible formats. Further information can be found on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sussex.ac.uk\/library\/using-the-library\/support\">Library Support Services page<\/a>.<\/li><li>The Sussex Regional Access Centre, based at University of Sussex have provided <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sussex.ac.uk\/srac\/assistive-technology\">a listing of assistive technologies<\/a> available for students to support them in their studies.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>This reflects only a small part of the work going on to ensure we provide an inclusive digital space for students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many organisations are putting on open events in support of GAAD and you can find a list of many of these on the <a href=\"https:\/\/globalaccessibilityawarenessday.org\/\">GAAD website<\/a>. Sussex TEL are getting involved and we have teamed-up with <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.brighton.ac.uk\/elearningteam\/the-team\/\">our counterparts at Brighton University<\/a> to offer our own event. On GAAD itself (20th May) we are excited to present a keynote talk from Dr Kevin Merry of De Montfort University (DMU). Dr Merry is an expert in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cast.org\/impact\/universal-design-for-learning-udl\">Universal Design for Learning<\/a>, an approach that he helped to introduce at DMU five years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image is-style-default\"><figure class=\"aligncenter is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/KnS7uhOjFzLDIQwQBJGmrrrZjSm-sZN1kdFR5T3QTD9Pt5rnkhQU1IAH80X9PryHX8EToLnXocmbxv7hLLIiaUL-eccXniSmFD2L99rDQaxrxgeklat4CTNaULzkpQLkWGGFcAeu\" alt=\"\" width=\"315\" height=\"375\" \/><figcaption>Dr Kevin Merry of De Montfort University (DMU).<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr Merry will be presenting his online keynote, \u2018Institution-wide approaches to embedding accessibility\u2019, on Thursday at 3pm. The event is open to all staff and students at University of Sussex and the University of Brighton.&nbsp; Please <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eventbrite.co.uk\/e\/institution-wide-approaches-to-embedding-accessibility-dr-kevin-merry-tickets-152639630243\">sign-up via eventbrite<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We encourage you to follow and to tweet about GAAD with the #GAAD.<br>If you have questions about how to make your modules accessible, please do get in touch via <a href=\"mailto:tel@sussex.ac.uk\">tel@sussex.ac.uk<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thursday 20th May 2021 sees the 10th Annual Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). GAAD is an international event aimed at focusing attention on digital accessibility and inclusion. Digital accessibility presents a huge challenge for students with disabilities. A recent report<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/2021\/05\/17\/global-accessibility-awareness-day-gaad\/\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":293,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36],"tags":[36,179333],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8723"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/293"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8723"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8736,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8723\/revisions\/8736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}