Instructor Training
Instructors have access to a wide range of courses and training opportunities to support their efforts to make instructional content compliant with ADA Title II digital accessibility requirements. These offerings are designed to meet varying levels of experience and provide practical guidance, hands‑on support, and best practices for creating accessible courses and materials that ensure equal access for all learners.
Digital Accessibility Office Hours
Texas A&M University hosts drop-in office hours for faculty or staff who have questions about accessibility. The office hours include representatives from the Center for Teaching Excellence, Digital and Distance Learning, the Math Learning Center, and the Technology Services IT Accessibility team.
When and Where
- Schedule: Second and fourth Mondays of each month.
- Time: 4:00–5:00 p.m. (Central Time).
- Format: Virtual drop-in (join anytime during the hour) via Zoom.
Get the Accessibility Drop-in Office Hours Zoom Link. - Registration: No appointment or registration required.
Computer Lab for Texas A&M Faculty
Open computer labs offer hands‑on, individualized support to help instructors create accessible digital content that meets ADA Title II requirements. Instructors can get assistance with making documents and presentations accessible, captioning multimedia, checking accessibility issues, and using built‑in tools to improve digital course materials in real time.
Open Computer Lab Hours
Spring 2026; no appointment is needed.
|
Weekday |
Hours |
Location |
|
Mondays |
8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. |
Blocker 129 |
|
Tuesdays |
8:00 a.m. - 12:45 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. |
HFSB 119X |
|
Wednesdays |
8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. |
Blocker 129 |
|
Thursdays |
8:00 a.m. - 9:15 a.m. & 11:10 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. |
SCC 4.114 |
|
Thursdays |
9:15 a.m. - 11:10 a.m. |
SCC 4.102B |
|
Fridays |
8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. |
Blocker 129 |
Not in College Station?
You can schedule time with student workers via Zoom. For more information, contact digitalaccessibility@tamu.edu.
Center for Teaching Excellence Accessibility Training
The Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) supports faculty, instructional staff, and graduate educators by offering training and guidance to help create accessible and inclusive digital learning environments.
CTE’s digital accessibility training focuses on helping instructors design and deliver course materials that are usable by all learners, including students with disabilities. Offerings typically include workshops, consultations, and practical resources.
Upcoming Sessions
Summer session information coming soon.
TAMUS Council for Academic Technology and Innovative Education (CATIE) Training
To support accessibility initiatives across The Texas A&M University System, the CATIE Work Group on Accessibility and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) offers regular training sessions focused on accessibility tools. These free sessions are open to all Members and are led by System experts who specialize in digital accessibility of instructional materials. .
When and Where
- Schedule: The third Friday of each month
- Time: 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. (Central Time)
- Format: Sessions are held via Zoom
- Registration: No appointment or registration required.
Upcoming Session: Ally and Panorama, Friday, 4/17/26
Dr. Justin Carrell, Tarleton State University and Dr. Kelley Shaffer, Texas A&M University
Digital Accessibility Awareness Course
The Digital Accessibility Awareness course (TrainTraq Course 2114218) provides an introduction to digital accessibility. Participants who successfully complete this course should be able to define digital information resources, apply Universal Design principles, and understand the benefits of digital accessibility. The intended audience for this course is all persons within the Texas A&M University System who provide, acquire and consume digital information resources.
LinkedIn Learning Accessibility Courses
The following on-demand courses are available through your Texas A&M login credentials.
Foundations of Accessible eLearning
This 51 minute course explores accessibility and fairness in eLearning, giving you strategies based on best practices to create accessible digital content for all.
Start the Foundations of Accessible eLearning course
Creating Accessible PDFs
This 5.5 hour course teaches how to create accessible PDFs using tools like Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Adobe InDesign. It covers the importance of accessibility, key features of accessible PDFs, and how to remediate existing files using Adobe Acrobat. Also, this course explains how to test PDFs with screen readers, use third-party tools for faster remediation, and references relevant Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) success criteria.
Did you know?
- In the United States, about 55 million people have a disability (src: 2010 U.S. Census).
- About 1 in 5 Americans have some kind of disability (src: 2010 U.S. Census).
- The percentage of people affected by disabilities is growing as our population ages.
- Two popular, free screen readers are VoiceOver (Mac OS and iOS) and NVDA (Win).
- Good accessibility practices can improve the search ranking of your website.
- Form fields without labels can cause problems for some assistive technology users.
- Low color contrast makes content difficult to see, especially for users with low vision.
- Documents linked on a website need to be accessible too (e.g., PDF and Word files).
- Audio content, like podcasts, need transcripts for deaf or hard of hearing users.
- Online videos should be captioned for deaf or hard of hearing users.
- Using HTML tags correctly is very important for accessibility.
- Descriptive link text helps make a website more accessible. Avoid using "Click here" or "Read more."
- A "screen reader" is an application that reads content aloud to a user.
- There is no "alt tag" in HTML. "Alt" is an attribute used with the img tag.
- HTML uses the alt attribute to provide a text description of an image.
- Alt text should describe an image, if the purpose of the image is to convey information.
- If an image is a link, the alt text for the image should explain where the link goes.
- If an image is only being used for decoration, the alt text should be null (i.e., alt="").
- If a table has headers, using header tags (<th>) will make the table more accessible.
- An accessible website is one that can be navigated and understood by everyone.