Map of the accessibility and Universal Design for Learning knowledge resources

Designing Out the Disclosure Requirement

Disclosure burden as a design variable

Accommodation in practiceAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Access that is gated behind disclosure asks a person to name a private matter to someone holding authority over them, and the documented costs of that request are real: anticipated stigma, delay, and for some, a decision not to ask at all. This resource treats disclosure burden as something design can measure and reduce — why a flexible deadline requiring an email is a disclosure event and a built-in buffer is not — while leaving the accommodation record itself where it belongs, with the office that holds it.

Grounded in Stigma and concealment (Goffman); academic ableism; BC information-governance requirements

Practised in Flexible timing and asynchronous options at a national technology education provider; built-in accommodations at a national research laboratory

Themes Disability studies, Access, Equity

Draws on Why Universal Design Never Eliminates Individual Accommodation, Disability Studies for Learning Designers, Designing for Episodic and Fluctuating Conditions

Sources 41, 6, 42

Designing for Episodic and Fluctuating Conditions

Program architecture for conditions that vary

Accommodation in practiceAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Attendance policy, deadline architecture, cohort progression, and leave-and-return pathways — the structural layer of a problem that individual accommodation handles with difficulty because most systems assume that access requirements are stable. It is program and policy design, offered in the knowledge that disabled people and experienced advisors hold far more understanding of these conditions than the design literature yet reflects.

Grounded in Episodic disability framework (O’Brien et al.); disability studies

Practised in Flexible assessment timing at a national technology education provider; flexible pacing at a national research laboratory

Themes Accommodation, Wellbeing, Access

Draws on Designing Out the Disclosure Requirement, Essential Requirements and the Limits of Flexibility

Sources 43, 8

Working with Accommodation Offices and Access Advisors

Who decides, and what a referral has to carry

Accommodation in practiceAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

What an accommodation office decides, what it requires from an instructor or a designer, and what a referral has to contain to be usable. It covers the implementation gap in which an approved accommodation is recorded and then not delivered, and the boundary between designing conditions and adjudicating an individual case. The second belongs to the advisors and accommodation professionals who hold that work.

Grounded in AHEAD program standards; Canadian human rights jurisprudence; disability in higher education

Themes Accommodation, Policy, Access

Draws on Why Universal Design Never Eliminates Individual Accommodation, The Duty to Accommodate in Learning Design, The Interactive Process in Learning Settings

Sources 57, 36, 48, 6

The Interactive Process in Learning Settings

A shared duty, not a request and a ruling

Accommodation in practiceAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Canadian human rights law treats accommodation as a process with obligations on every party to it, including the person seeking accommodation, and it sets limits on what may be asked of them. This resource covers who initiates, what good faith requires on each side, what documentation of the process is distinct from documentation of the person, and the points at which the process stalls: no response, an unworkable offer, or a request handled as a complaint.

Grounded in Renaud (SCC, 1992); Meiorin (SCC, 1999); BC Human Rights Code

Themes Accommodation, Policy, Access

Draws on The Duty to Accommodate in Learning Design, Working with Accommodation Offices and Access Advisors, Documentation Requirements and Medical Gatekeeping

Sources 56, 36, 38

Documentation Requirements and Medical Gatekeeping

What is asked of a person before they are believed

Accommodation in practiceAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentEmerging

What documentation is actually required, set against what institutions routinely request. Cost, waiting time and access to diagnosis are barriers in their own right, and requirements written for stable, diagnosed conditions operate differently for undiagnosed, episodic and fluctuating ones. It covers privacy and custody of records, and the conditions under which self-report is sufficient.

Grounded in Disability studies; stigma and disclosure (Goffman); BC information governance

Themes Accommodation, Disability studies, Equity

Draws on Designing Out the Disclosure Requirement, Designing for Episodic and Fluctuating Conditions, The Interactive Process in Learning Settings

Sources 41, 42, 6, 43

Peer Mentorship as Access Infrastructure

Trained peers between the student and the office

Accommodation in practiceAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentEmerging

Most accommodation systems have two parties, the student and the office; the daily work of access happens between them, often with no one assigned to it. This resource designs the middle: peer mentors trained in integrated learning and technical support, matched to incoming students with accommodations, with clear limits on what a peer decides and a route back to the advisor for what a peer cannot. It is peer-based support, written as program architecture.

Grounded in Peer-assisted learning (Topping); accommodation practice standards (AHEAD); communities of practice

Practised in An art and design university: a peer mentorship program pairing new students with accommodations with mentors trained in integrated learning and technical support

Themes Accommodation, Community, Capacity

Draws on Working with Accommodation Offices and Access Advisors, The Interactive Process in Learning Settings, Access in Studio, Shop and Lab-Based Learning

Sources 68, 57, 53

Reading Disability Documentation

What a report can establish, and what it cannot

Accommodation in practiceAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

A psychoeducational or medical report records a person’s performance on particular instruments at one point in time. An accommodation decision concerns the barriers that person meets in a particular course. The challenge is to read the first without asking it to answer the second by itself. This resource covers what standard scores, percentiles and confidence intervals do and do not establish; the distinction between a diagnosis, a functional limitation and a barrier; the weight professional guidance gives to a student’s own account; and the limits of a clinician’s recommendation as evidence. The reading of an individual file, and the decision that follows from it, rest with the accommodation office.

Grounded in Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (AERA, APA & NCME); validity theory (Messick); AHEAD documentation guidance; ICF (WHO, 2001)

Themes Accommodation, Assessment, Disability studies

Draws on Documentation Requirements and Medical Gatekeeping, The Interactive Process in Learning Settings, Functional Impact in Academic Tasks

Sources 73, 37, 74, 12

The Advising Conversation

Trauma-informed, developmental and student-centred

Accommodation in practiceAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

A conversation about access asks a student to describe a disability to someone who holds authority over the outcome. The challenge is to conduct that conversation so that it is safe, clear and useful to the student. This resource sets it out as a designed encounter: how the principles of a trauma-informed approach, among them safety, transparency and choice, are built into its structure; how barriers are asked about without requiring a person to prove themselves again; how the conversation builds the student’s capacity to describe their own access requirements; and where advising ends and counselling begins. It draws on needs-assessment interviewing in learning design and on student development theory.

Grounded in Trauma-informed approach (SAMHSA); student development theory (Patton et al.); self-advocacy framework (Test et al.); self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci)

Themes Accommodation, Wellbeing, Equity

Draws on The Interactive Process in Learning Settings, Designing Out the Disclosure Requirement, Responding to Distress and Making a Referral

Sources 75, 76, 77, 3

Responding to Distress and Making a Referral

What the person in the room does first

Accommodation in practiceAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

A student may be in acute distress during a conversation about access, and the person present may not be a clinician. The challenge is to respond well within the limits of a non-clinical role. This resource treats the response as a pathway designed in advance: recognising signs of distress, responding calmly, knowing the limits of the role, referring to counselling, health or emergency services, and recording what was done. It also covers what a teaching team needs to know beforehand, and the support needed afterwards by the person who responded.

Grounded in National Standard of Canada for post-secondary student mental health (CSA Z2003:20); trauma-informed approach (SAMHSA)

Themes Wellbeing, Accommodation, Capacity

Draws on The Advising Conversation, Designing for Episodic and Fluctuating Conditions, Disability Etiquette and Communication in Learning Environments

Sources 78, 75

Reasoning Through an Accommodation Request

Illustrative cases, and the record a decision leaves

Accommodation in practiceAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Accommodation records are confidential, which limits how the reasoning behind a decision can be taught. This resource uses invented cases, each worked from first contact to a recorded decision: what the barrier is, what the documentation and the person’s own account establish, what the course or program requires, which options were considered, and why one was offered. Each case shows the record the reasoning leaves, including what is written down, what is kept out and who may see it. No case is drawn from a real person. These are teaching cases; decisions in real cases rest with accessibility advisors, accommodation offices and legal counsel.

Grounded in The unified test (Meiorin); shared responsibility (Renaud); validity theory (Messick); AHEAD program standards; BC information governance

Themes Accommodation, Policy, Assessment

Draws on The Interactive Process in Learning Settings, Essential Requirements and the Limits of Flexibility, Reading Disability Documentation

Sources 36, 56, 37, 57, 42

Accommodated Exams and Assessment Logistics

Time, setting, format and integrity

Accommodation in practiceAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

An exam accommodation changes the conditions of an assessment. The challenge is to change the conditions without changing what is measured. This resource covers extended time, separate settings, readers and scribes, assistive technology, alternate formats and deferred sittings; when a condition is part of the construct being measured and when it is not; what the research on extended time does and does not show; how an accommodation carries into group, laboratory and applied exams; and how integrity rules are applied without treating accommodation as grounds for suspicion. It then sets out the logistics on which delivery depends: booking, invigilator training, communication with students and instructors, and the decisions required when timing, technology or a person’s health fails during an exam.

Grounded in Construct validity (Messick); research on extended time (Lovett; Sokal & Wilson); Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing; UDL action and expression

Practised in Flexible assessment timing at a national technology education provider

Themes Accommodation, Assessment, Access

Draws on Eliminating Construct-Irrelevant Barriers in Assessment, Time, Pacing and Deadlines as Design Variables, Working with Accommodation Offices and Access Advisors, Delivering Accommodated Exams in a Learning Platform

Sources 37, 79, 80, 73, 2

Funding Routes for Disability-Related Supports and Equipment

Cost as an access barrier

Accommodation in practiceAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

An approved accommodation can depend on something the student has to pay for: an assessment, equipment, software or a service. The challenge is that cost then decides access. This resource maps the funding routes open to post-secondary students in British Columbia, including federal and provincial grants for services and equipment, equipment loan programs and institutional funds: what each covers, who is eligible, and what documentation and disclosure each requires. It also treats the application as a design problem: where a form acts as a barrier, and what a program can do so that a student is not waiting on funding in order to begin.

Grounded in StudentAid BC and Canada Student Grant programs for students with disabilities; AHEAD program standards; stigma and disclosure (Goffman)

Themes Accommodation, Policy, Equity

Draws on Documentation Requirements and Medical Gatekeeping, Assistive Technology and Adaptive Strategies, Working with Accommodation Offices and Access Advisors

Sources 82, 57, 41

Designing for Learner Variability at Scale

The thesis the other UDL work inherits

Designing for variabilityUniversal Design for LearningPublished resourceWell established

Designing from the outset for the full, predictable range of human variability, so the environment fits diverse learners rather than a mythical average one. It is the worldview that grounds every other contribution on this branch.

Grounded in Universal Design for Learning (CAST; Rose & Meyer)

Practised in A research university's student employment program (3,000 students); a national technology education provider (1,700 learners)

Themes Variability, Scale

Draws on From Accommodation to Proactive Inclusive Design

Sources 1, 2

Engaging Voluntary & Cautious Adult Learners

The engagement principle in practice

Designing for variabilityUniversal Design for LearningPractised · resource in developmentEmerging

Designing multiple pathways into motivation for learners who arrive with very different reasons for being there, including those who would rather not be. Where engagement is not solved, little downstream can land.

Grounded in UDL engagement principle; adult learning

Themes Motivation, Variability

Draws on Designing for Learner Variability at Scale

Sources 2, 3

Onboarding Across Wide Experience Ranges

Multiple entry points and pathways

Designing for variabilityUniversal Design for LearningPractised · resource in developmentEmerging

Designing entry so newcomers and experienced practitioners can each begin where they are, without boring the one or losing the other. It is a representation-principle problem common to every sector.

Grounded in UDL representation principle

Practised in Onboarding toolkits in a research university's student employment program

Themes Variability, Access

Draws on Designing for Learner Variability at Scale

Sources 2

Scaling Personalization Without Scaling Cost

The production economics of flexibility

Designing for variabilityUniversal Design for LearningPractised · resource in developmentEmerging

Making multiple means of engagement, representation, and expression economically feasible at scale, increasingly with AI-assisted production. It is the meta-capability that makes the rest affordable to deliver.

Grounded in Learning technology; AI-assisted design

Themes Scale, Iteration

Draws on Designing for Learner Variability at Scale

Sources 2, 4

Time, Pacing and Deadlines as Design Variables

Where a time limit is measured, and where it is inherited

Designing for variabilityUniversal Design for LearningPractised · resource in developmentEmerging

Time limits, deadline policy, pacing and cumulative workload across a program, treated as design decisions. A time limit is either part of what an assessment measures or an inherited convention, and the two call for different responses. Generous time as a design choice does not reach every case, so extended time as an individual accommodation remains necessary alongside it.

Grounded in UDL Guidelines (CAST); validity theory (Messick); episodic disability framework

Practised in A national technology education provider; flexible pacing at a national research laboratory

Themes Variability, Assessment, Accommodation

Draws on Designing for Learner Variability at Scale, Eliminating Construct-Irrelevant Barriers in Assessment, Designing for Episodic and Fluctuating Conditions

Sources 2, 37, 43

Access in Intensive, Time-Compressed Programs

When the schedule is the barrier

Designing for variabilityUniversal Design for LearningPractised · resource in developmentEmerging

Bootcamps, residencies, and accelerated credentials compress learning into weeks and assume a body and a mind that can hold that pace without interruption. This resource designs for the learners the format excludes first — asynchronous alternatives, executive-functioning scaffolds, flexible assessment timing, and explicit rules for what happens when someone cannot keep the pace — without pretending the intensity is not the point.

Grounded in Time and pacing as design variables; episodic disability framework; executive function in education (Meltzer)

Practised in A national technology education provider (1,700 learners; 600-hour programs): asynchronous options, executive-functioning scaffolds, flexible assessment timing; peer learning with asynchronous supports

Themes Variability, Access, Wellbeing

Draws on Time, Pacing and Deadlines as Design Variables, Designing for Episodic and Fluctuating Conditions, Scaling Personalization Without Scaling Cost

Sources 43, 2, 70

Inclusive Course & Curriculum Design

Access built into the structure of a programme

Designing for variabilityAccessibilityPublished resourceWell established

How access is built into a course or curriculum from the start: outcomes, assessment, materials and platform, designed with Universal Design for Learning and backward design, and with the systems knowledge that lets a change outlast the people who made it. Written for faculty, designers and curriculum committees.

Grounded in UDL; backward design; assessment equity; systems knowledge

Themes Access, Alignment

Draws on Accessibility Review, Making Accessibility More Than Compliance, Essential Requirements and the Limits of Flexibility

Sources 2, 40

Disability Studies for Learning Designers

The grounding that changes what a designer sees

GroundingAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Social, medical, and interactional models of disability; ableism as institutional structure rather than individual attitude; disability as identity, culture, and political community. It is the grounding that allows a barrier to be named as a design failure rather than a learner’s deficit, and it is what distinguishes accessibility practice from compliance administration.

Grounded in Social model (Oliver); academic ableism (Dolmage); Titchkosky; Kafer

Themes Disability studies, Equity, Access

Draws on Why Universal Design Never Eliminates Individual Accommodation, Partnering with Disabled People in Learning Design, Equity-Centered Learning Design

Sources 5, 6, 7, 8

Partnering with Disabled People in Learning Design

Co-design without extraction

GroundingAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Structuring lived-experience partnership so that it is compensated, early enough to shape decisions rather than ratify them, and accessible in its own conduct. It attends to the pattern in which technical expertise quietly eclipses lived experience, and favours partnership with disability-led organizations already doing this work over convening participants anew.

Grounded in Disability justice (Sins Invalid; Berne); nothing about us without us (Charlton); inclusive design; TCPS 2 research ethics

Practised in User testing and co-design with disabled learners at a national technology education provider; co-design with children, teachers and artists for an arts education non-profit; accessible exhibit pilots at a science centre

Themes Disability studies, Community, Equity

Draws on Disability Studies for Learning Designers, Accessible Research Participation and Knowledge Products

Sources 9, 10, 11

Models of Disability as Design Decisions

The frame chosen before any design decision is made

GroundingAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Medical, social, biopsychosocial, economic, functional solutions, social identity or cultural affiliation, and charity — seven models in active circulation, each of which settles in advance what counts as the problem and who is obliged to act on it. This resource sets them beside one another with their strengths and their costs, and treats the choice of model as a design decision rather than a philosophical preference, because the model implicit in a project brief is usually the model that shapes what gets built.

Grounded in ICF (WHO, 2001); social model (Oliver); Retief & Letšosa; Shakespeare

Themes Disability studies, Access, Equity

Draws on Disability Studies for Learning Designers, Why Universal Design Never Eliminates Individual Accommodation, From Accommodation to Proactive Inclusive Design

Sources 12, 5, 13, 14

Disability Categories and the Barriers People Meet

The reference layer, written barrier-first

GroundingAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Visual, auditory, deafblind, speech, mobility and body structure, cognitive and learning, seizure, and psychological disabilities, each set against the barriers people actually encounter in digital and physical environments. It is written barrier-first rather than diagnosis-first, so that a designer reaches for the environmental change rather than the label — and it is the reference layer that the more argumentative resources on this branch quietly assume a reader already holds.

Grounded in ICF (WHO, 2001); WCAG 2.2; disability studies

Themes Disability studies, Access, Variability

Draws on Designing for the Assistive Technology People Actually Use, Models of Disability as Design Decisions, Designing for Episodic and Fluctuating Conditions

Sources 12, 15, 5

Assistive Technology and Adaptive Strategies

What exists, and what it does for a person

GroundingAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Screen readers, magnification, speech input, alternative pointing, augmentative and alternative communication, hearing technologies, and the low-technology and adaptive strategies used at least as often — described by what they accomplish for a person rather than by product name, and paired with the frameworks that structure a selection decision. It is the survey that has to precede the harder question of why conformant content still fails against the technology people actually use.

Grounded in HAAT model (Cook & Polgar); SETT framework (Zabala); WHO assistive technology guidance

Practised in Adaptive technology stations at an art and design university; screen-reader and alt-text practice in a provincial public-sector organisation; AAC support for a client's thesis writing in private home care

Themes Disability studies, Access, Standards

Draws on Designing for the Assistive Technology People Actually Use, Disability Categories and the Barriers People Meet, Accessible Procurement and Vendor Accountability

Sources 16, 17, 18

Disability Data and the Limits of Prevalence Figures

Why the numbers disagree, and how to use one honestly

GroundingAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Measurement by diagnosis, by function, or by self-identification produces materially different populations, which is why global and national prevalence figures diverge so widely and why the choice of instrument is never neutral. This resource covers the major global and Canadian sources and their known undercounts, and how to carry a number into a business case or a funding application without asking it to bear more weight than it can.

Grounded in WHO World Report on Disability; WHO Global Report on Health Equity for Persons with Disabilities; Canadian Survey on Disability; ICF

Themes Research, Disability studies, Equity

Draws on Accessible Health and Patient Education, Institutional Accessibility Planning as a Change Program

Sources 19, 20, 21, 12

Disability Etiquette and Communication in Learning Environments

Professional practice, not a list of prohibitions

GroundingAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Person-first and identity-first language and why the choice belongs to the person rather than the institution; addressing someone directly rather than their interpreter or support worker; offering assistance without presuming it is wanted or acting before it is accepted. It is written for facilitators and instructors as professional communication practice, on the understanding that the failures that matter in a learning room are rarely failures of intention and almost always failures of default behaviour under time pressure.

Grounded in Disability etiquette guidance (United Spinal Association); CRPD; disability studies

Practised in Private home care; end-of-life care; family caregiver facilitation

Themes Community, Disability studies, Capacity

Draws on Inclusive Facilitation & Capacity Building, Partnering with Disabled People in Learning Design, Disability Studies for Learning Designers

Sources 22, 23, 9

Disability Justice and Where It Came From

A framework with named authors, and where to read them

GroundingAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Disability justice was created in 2005 and 2006 by the Disability Justice Collective, a group of disabled activists, primarily queer and trans disabled people of colour, working in the San Francisco Bay Area. Patty Berne, Stacey Park Milbern, Mia Mingus, Leroy F. Moore Jr., Eli Clare and Sebastian Margaret are among its architects, and the ten principles were set out by Berne and Sins Invalid. It is a distinct framework rather than a further stage of disability rights: it holds that single-issue organising leaves the most marginalised behind, and it originates in performance, mutual aid and community organising rather than in the academy. This resource states that history and sends the reader to the primary texts. The framework is not summarised here in place of its authors, and the sources below are theirs.

Grounded in Sins Invalid; the ten principles of disability justice (Berne); Black disability studies

Themes Disability studies, Community, Equity

Draws on Disability Studies for Learning Designers, Partnering with Disabled People in Learning Design, Models of Disability as Design Decisions

Sources 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67

Equity-Centered Learning Design

The social and cultural layer over everything

GroundingUniversal Design for LearningPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Attending to power, culture, and whose knowledge is treated as legitimate across the whole design, rather than as a separate module. It connects directly to equity evaluation and to equity-centred knowledge mobilization.

Grounded in Equity-centred and culturally responsive design

Practised in Indigenous Learning Circles and cultural safety in a provincial public-sector organisation; decolonisation strategies at a national research laboratory; hiring and culture transformation at an art and design university

Themes Equity

Draws on Designing for Learner Variability at Scale

Sources 24

Practising from Inside the Population

Standpoint as method, not disclosure

GroundingAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

The Leeds tradition of emancipatory disability research holds that research and practice on disability should be set and governed by disabled people, and be accountable to them. The accommodation resources on this map are written by someone who has been on both sides of the desk. This resource states what that standpoint requires of the practice: accountability to disabled learners, co-design that is not extraction, and a refusal to write disabled people as a population to be served rather than the people who set the questions.

Grounded in Emancipatory disability research (Oliver; Barnes & Mercer); nothing about us without us (Charlton); disability justice

Themes Disability studies, Community, Research

Draws on Disability Studies for Learning Designers, Partnering with Disabled People in Learning Design, Disability Justice and Where It Came From

Sources 5, 9, 72

Functional Impact in Academic Tasks

From a diagnosis to what a course actually asks

GroundingAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

A diagnosis names a condition. It does not describe what a student will meet in a lecture, a laboratory or a timed exam. The challenge is to move from the label to the task. This resource starts from the tasks a program sets, such as sustained reading, note-taking at speed, timed recall, group work and placement shifts, and relates them to functional impact, in the terms of the International Classification of Functioning, for ADHD, learning disabilities, autism, acquired brain injury, mental health and chronic health conditions, low vision and blindness, and d/Deaf and hard of hearing students. It is task analysis, not a catalogue of conditions: functional impact differs between people with the same diagnosis, and for episodic conditions it changes over time.

Grounded in ICF (WHO, 2001); episodic disability framework (O’Brien et al.); executive function in education (Meltzer); AHEAD documentation guidance

Themes Disability studies, Access, Variability

Draws on Disability Categories and the Barriers People Meet, Designing for Episodic and Fluctuating Conditions, Reading Disability Documentation

Sources 12, 43, 70, 74

Intersectionality in Accommodation: Who Reaches the Office

The students an accommodation system does not reach

GroundingAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentEmerging

An accommodation system serves the students who register with it. The challenge is to understand who does not register, and why. This resource applies intersectionality and Disability Critical Race Studies to accommodation: how race, Indigeneity, gender, class, migration and language interact with disability in who is identified, who discloses and who is believed. It sets out what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action ask of post-secondary education, and what an office and a course can examine in their own design, including the cost of documentation and the conditions under which disclosure is safe.

Grounded in Intersectionality (Crenshaw); DisCrit (Annamma, Connor & Ferri); Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action; disability justice (Sins Invalid)

Themes Equity, Disability studies, Access

Draws on Disability Justice and Where It Came From, Equity-Centered Learning Design, Documentation Requirements and Medical Gatekeeping

Sources 92, 93, 94, 62

Accessible Procurement and Vendor Accountability

The decisions made before anything is built

Institutions, governance and changeAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

An inaccessible platform, once purchased, sets the ceiling on everything designed inside it. This resource covers reading an accessibility conformance report critically rather than accepting it at face value, using recognised standards as procurement criteria, writing remediation commitments into agreements, and piloting with disabled users before signature.

Grounded in EN 301 549; WCAG 2.2; VPAT and accessibility conformance reports

Themes Standards, Policy, Access

Draws on Accessibility Triage for Existing Course Inventories, Designing for the Assistive Technology People Actually Use, Institutional Accessibility Planning as a Change Program

Sources 25, 26, 15

Faculty Development That Changes Accessible Practice

From awareness to what instructors actually do

Institutions, governance and changeAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Institutions have offered accessibility and inclusive design workshops for years, often with limited change in daily teaching practice. This resource diagnoses whether the gap is capability, opportunity, or motivation, then designs accordingly — point-of-need supports, discipline-specific exemplars, and department-embedded work — with any content on legal obligation delivered alongside the accommodation office rather than independently of it. It also covers the orientation sessions, instructor and teaching-assistant guidance, and online tools through which an access service explains itself each term.

Grounded in COM-B and the Behaviour Change Wheel (Michie et al.); adult learning; UDL

Practised in An intranet accessibility hub with accommodation strategies for instructors at a national research laboratory; teacher workshops on visual, motor and cognitive accessibility for an arts education non-profit

Themes Capacity, Change, Access

Draws on Closing the Knowing–Doing Gap, Inclusive Facilitation & Capacity Building, Institutional Accessibility Planning as a Change Program

Sources 27, 28, 2

Institutional Accessibility Planning as a Change Program

From a published plan to demonstrable change

Institutions, governance and changeAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Statutory obligation produces an accessibility plan, a committee, and a feedback mechanism; it does not by itself produce sequencing, ownership, or capability. This resource brings systems design and change management to accessibility governance, and is written for a contributing role on an institutional plan rather than for authorship of an institution’s accessibility position.

Grounded in Accessible Canada Act; Accessible British Columbia Act; change management; systems thinking

Practised in EDI Committee and Action Plan at a national research laboratory; HR-to-organisational-learning transformation in a provincial public-sector organisation

Themes Policy, Systems, Change

Draws on The Duty to Accommodate in Learning Design, Evaluating Whether Design Reduced Barriers

Sources 29, 30, 31, 32

Making the Case for Resourcing Accessibility Work

The argument after the numbers, and its limits

Institutions, governance and changeAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentEmerging

The arguments available for resourcing this work, and the evidentiary weight each carries: legal obligation, enrolment and retention, institutional reputation, and mission. It covers the cost of retrofit set against the cost of designing for access at the outset, who signs and what they need to see, and the point at which an instrumental case begins to displace the obligation it was assembled to support.

Grounded in Accessible Canada Act; WHO and World Bank disability data; change management scholarship

Practised in Grant development at a science centre; accessibility KPIs in a provincial public-sector organisation

Themes Policy, Change, Systems

Draws on Disability Data and the Limits of Prevalence Figures, Institutional Accessibility Planning as a Change Program, Closing the Knowing–Doing Gap

Sources 29, 19, 31

Closing the Knowing–Doing Gap

From understanding to changed practice

Institutions, governance and changeUniversal Design for LearningPublished resourceWell established

Designing for the distance between what learners understand and what they actually do — the transfer problem seen through an inclusive lens. It shares its machinery with reflection at the experience level and with change at the systems level.

Grounded in Transfer research; Universal Design for Learning

Themes Transfer

Draws on Designing for Learner Variability at Scale

Sources 33, 34

Equity Evaluation of Experiential Learning Programs

Were disabled students included, and did they stay?

Institutions, governance and changeUniversal Design for LearningPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Placement programs report participation; they rarely report who was excluded at the gate or who left in the first month. This resource builds evaluation that asks the equity question directly — inclusion and retention of disabled students and students from historically, persistently, or systemically marginalised groups, by employer and by program — and uses funding conditions as the lever that makes employers answer it. It closes the UDL cycle at the scale of a whole institution's placements rather than a single course.

Grounded in Transformative evaluation (Mertens); UDL evaluation; grant governance

Practised in A research university's student employment program: grant-funded equity evaluation of whether disabled students and students from HPSM groups were meaningfully included and retained in placements

Themes Evaluation, Equity, Scale

Draws on Evaluating Whether Design Reduced Barriers, Institutional Accessibility Planning as a Change Program, Accessible Job Design for Student and Early-Career Employment

Sources 69, 2, 55

Funding Design for Accessible Learning Programs

Writing the grant so access is the deliverable

Institutions, governance and changeAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentEmerging

Accessibility is often funded as an add-on to a program that was designed without it. This resource covers designing funding applications and grant programs in which access to learning by disabled people and people from historically, persistently, or systemically marginalised groups is the funded outcome — the framing, the evidence, the partnerships, and the conditions that carry through to delivery — and administering funds so that the condition is enforced.

Grounded in Transformative evaluation (Mertens); nothing about us without us (Charlton); funding conditions as governance

Practised in A science centre: grant and research development for accessible STEAM outreach to HPSM groups and disabled children; an arts education non-profit: fundraising and program development; a research university's student employment program: administering $6M+ in grants with equity conditions

Themes Policy, Equity, Systems

Draws on Making the Case for Resourcing Accessibility Work, Institutional Accessibility Planning as a Change Program, Equity Evaluation of Experiential Learning Programs

Sources 69, 9

Inclusive Facilitation & Capacity Building

Facilitation as a professional stance

Institutions, governance and changeAccessibilityPublished resourceWell established

Facilitation understood as a professional stance shaped by how power, identity and legitimate knowledge are held, and how to build others' capacity to facilitate inclusively, so the practice continues inside an organisation after an outside facilitator has gone.

Grounded in Power-aware facilitation; adult learning; equity

Practised in Province-wide e-facilitation rollout in a provincial public-sector organisation; inclusive facilitation workshops at a national research laboratory; teacher development for an arts education non-profit; inclusion and human-rights workshops for student leaders at a research university

Themes Community, Capacity, Access

Draws on Accessibility Review, Faculty Development That Changes Accessible Practice

Sources 28, 53

Professional Standards for Disability Services

CAS and AHEAD as criteria for a service

Institutions, governance and changeAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

A disability service is asked to show that it is effective, and needs agreed criteria to do so. Two sets of professional standards supply them: the CAS standards for Disability Resources and Services, and the AHEAD program standards and performance indicators. This resource reads both as evaluation criteria and shows how a self-study against them is designed: who takes part, including disabled students, what evidence is gathered, and how findings become a plan.

Grounded in CAS Professional Standards for Higher Education; AHEAD program standards; transformative evaluation (Mertens)

Themes Evaluation, Policy, Standards

Draws on Institutional Accessibility Planning as a Change Program, Evaluating Whether Design Reduced Barriers, Working with Accommodation Offices and Access Advisors

Sources 95, 57, 69

Training and Supervising Student Access Staff

Invigilators, aides and assistants as a designed program

Institutions, governance and changeAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Where students and casual staff deliver part of an access service, as exam invigilators, note-takers, laboratory and studio aides or peer mentors, the quality of access depends on how they are prepared. This resource designs recruitment, onboarding and training as a program: what a new staff member must be able to do on a first shift, how confidentiality and conduct with a student in distress are taught and practised, how a shift is supervised, how gaps in training are identified, and which decisions belong to the staff member and which to a supervisor.

Grounded in Adult learning (Knowles); communities of practice (Wenger); peer-assisted learning (Topping); AHEAD program standards

Practised in An art and design university: training peer mentors in integrated learning and technical support

Themes Capacity, Community, Accommodation

Draws on Peer Mentorship as Access Infrastructure, Accommodated Exams and Assessment Logistics, Inclusive Facilitation & Capacity Building

Sources 28, 53, 68, 57

Why Universal Design Never Eliminates Individual Accommodation

The anchor · why both are permanent, and both are skilled

Rights and obligationAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentLong-settled practice

Individual accommodation is not a residue left behind by imperfect design. Human variability has no outer edge, some barriers are the very thing an assessment is meant to measure, and the duty is owed to a person rather than discharged by a process — which is why proactive design and individual accommodation remain complementary, and why the accommodation encounter is skilled professional practice rather than an administrative step.

Grounded in Inclusive design and one-size-fits-one; the duty to accommodate; construct validity

Themes Accommodation, Access, Variability

Draws on From Accommodation to Proactive Inclusive Design, Making Accessibility More Than Compliance, The Duty to Accommodate in Learning Design, Essential Requirements and the Limits of Flexibility, Designing Out the Disclosure Requirement

Sources 10, 35, 36, 37, 2

The Duty to Accommodate in Learning Design

The legal frame, written for those who build and teach

Rights and obligationAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

The architecture within which access decisions are made and defended: the procedural and substantive duty, the unified bona fide requirement test, and accommodation to the point of undue hardship, set in the Canadian frame with the cross-border standards that vendor and partnership work require. It is offered as synthesis for designers, faculty, and institutions; determinations in individual cases rest with accessibility advisors and accommodation offices, and with legal counsel where a matter becomes contested.

Grounded in Meiorin and the BFOR test; Accessible Canada Act; BC Human Rights Code; Accessible British Columbia Act; ADA and Sections 504/508

Practised in Accommodation checklists in a research university's student employment program; human-rights content in inclusion workshops for student leaders

Themes Accommodation, Policy, Access

Draws on Why Universal Design Never Eliminates Individual Accommodation, Essential Requirements and the Limits of Flexibility, Institutional Accessibility Planning as a Change Program

Sources 36, 29, 38, 30, 39

Essential Requirements and the Limits of Flexibility

What a standard genuinely requires, articulated in advance

Rights and obligationAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

The most demanding judgment in the field: when flexibility preserves what is being measured, and when it alters it. This resource supports programs in articulating their essential requirements before any dispute arises — separating what a standard genuinely requires from what it has inherited by convention — so that the reasoning is available to everyone who later needs it.

Grounded in Construct validity; constructive alignment; bona fide academic and technical standards

Practised in Job-posting revision in a research university's student employment program; a 2026 documentary study of essential requirements in post-secondary job postings

Themes Accommodation, Assessment, Alignment

Draws on Why Universal Design Never Eliminates Individual Accommodation, Eliminating Construct-Irrelevant Barriers in Assessment, Access in Clinical and Placement Education

Sources 37, 40, 36

International and Regional Disability Rights Instruments

The layer above domestic duty

Rights and obligationAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its General Comments, and the Marrakesh Treaty, together with the regional instruments — the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the Inter-American Convention. It explains why accessibility obligations converge across jurisdictions rather than arising independently in each, and supplies the vocabulary required to work with partners outside Canada.

Grounded in UDHR (1948); CRPD (2006); Marrakesh Treaty (2013); regional human rights instruments

Themes Policy, Standards, Access

Draws on The Duty to Accommodate in Learning Design, Institutional Accessibility Planning as a Change Program, Partnering with Disabled People in Learning Design

Sources 44, 23, 45, 46

Canadian Accessibility and Accommodation Law for Learning Designers

Two separate instruments, in plain language

Rights and obligationAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

The Accessible Canada Act, the Accessible British Columbia Act and the BC Human Rights Code duty to accommodate, written for learning designers and faculty. Human rights law and accessibility legislation are separate instruments with different mechanisms, different scope and different remedies, and the distinction determines what an institution owes and to whom. It sets out what binds a public post-secondary institution in British Columbia, where obligations differ for private training providers, and includes the Ontario legislation for comparison.

Grounded in Accessible Canada Act; Accessible British Columbia Act; BC Human Rights Code; CRPD

Themes Policy, Access, Accommodation

Draws on The Duty to Accommodate in Learning Design, International and Regional Disability Rights Instruments, Institutional Accessibility Planning as a Change Program

Sources 29, 30, 38, 36, 60, 61

From Accommodation to Proactive Inclusive Design

The field's defining reframe

Rights and obligationUniversal Design for LearningPublished resourceWell established

Shifting from retrofitting access for individuals after the fact to designing inclusively from the start, so fewer barriers are ever built in. It states the paradigm shift the field rests on, plainly.

Grounded in Universal Design for Learning; inclusive design principles

Themes Access, Variability

Draws on Designing for Learner Variability at Scale, Accessibility Review, Why Universal Design Never Eliminates Individual Accommodation

Sources 47, 2

Eliminating Construct-Irrelevant Barriers in Assessment

Measuring capability, not obstacles

Rights and obligationUniversal Design for LearningPublished resourceWell established

Removing features of an assessment that get in the way of demonstrating mastery without being part of what is measured, so results reflect capability rather than incidental barriers. It works alongside assessment designed as experience.

Grounded in Construct validity; UDL action & expression

Themes Assessment, Access

Draws on Designing for Learner Variability at Scale, Accessibility Review, Essential Requirements and the Limits of Flexibility

Sources 37, 2

Accessible Job Design for Student and Early-Career Employment

Essential requirements, applied to postings

Rights and obligationAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

A job posting is an essential-requirements document for employment, and it excludes in the same ways admissions documents do: bodily methods written where capabilities were meant, availability clauses nobody has justified, credentials standing in for skills. This resource works with the people who write postings — supervisors, hiring managers, program staff — to revise expectations toward what the role genuinely requires, and pairs the revision with the onboarding and supervision supports that make the revised role real.

Grounded in Construct validity (Messick); the bona fide requirement test (Meiorin); disclosure burden

Practised in A research university's student employment program ($6M+, 900 campus employers, 3,000 student employees): supporting supervisors in revising job postings and expectations for accessibility, with accommodation checklists in onboarding toolkits; a 2026 documentary study of essential requirements in post-secondary job postings

Themes Access, Equity, Assessment

Draws on Essential Requirements and the Limits of Flexibility, The Duty to Accommodate in Learning Design, Designing for Episodic and Fluctuating Conditions

Sources 37, 36, 41

How a University Accommodation Policy Works

Three British Columbia policies read side by side

Rights and obligationAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Human rights law states the duty to accommodate; a university’s policy determines how that duty is carried out. The challenge for instructors and designers is to locate their own obligations in it. This resource reads the accommodation policies of three British Columbia universities side by side: the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University and the University of Victoria. It compares them on five questions: who is eligible, what documentation is requested, who decides, what an instructor is responsible for, and how a disagreement is resolved. It is written so that a policy can be treated as the brief a course design has to satisfy.

Grounded in UBC Policy LR7; SFU Policy GP 26; UVic Policy AC1205; BC Human Rights Code; Meiorin (SCC, 1999)

Themes Policy, Accommodation, Access

Draws on The Duty to Accommodate in Learning Design, Canadian Accessibility and Accommodation Law for Learning Designers, Working with Accommodation Offices and Access Advisors

Sources 83, 84, 85, 38, 36

The Case Law Behind Accommodation in Education

Six decisions, and what each one settled

Rights and obligationAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

The duty to accommodate in education rests on a small number of Supreme Court of Canada decisions. The challenge for people who are not lawyers is to know what each one settled. Meiorin (1999) set the test for whether a standard is justified. Grismer (1999) applied that test to services and required individual assessment. Eldridge (1997) held that equal access to a public service can require positive measures. Renaud (1992) made the search for accommodation a shared responsibility. Hydro-Québec (2008) clarified the standard of undue hardship. Moore (2012) defined the service owed as meaningful access to general education. This resource states each holding in plain language, with the practical question it answers and what it means for the design of a course or an assessment. It is synthesis for people who teach and design, and it is not legal advice.

Grounded in Meiorin (1999); Grismer (1999); Eldridge (1997); Renaud (1992); Hydro-Québec (2008); Moore (2012)

Themes Policy, Accommodation, Access

Draws on The Duty to Accommodate in Learning Design, Canadian Accessibility and Accommodation Law for Learning Designers, The Interactive Process in Learning Settings

Sources 36, 87, 89, 56, 88, 86

Accommodation When the Learner Is Also an Employee

Two duties, two processes, one person

Rights and obligationAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentEmerging

Student employees, teaching assistants, co-op and practicum students, and medical residents are learners and workers at once. The challenge is that the duty to accommodate applies to both relationships, and the education and employment processes may be administered by different offices. This resource sets out which process applies to which part of a person’s work, what an academic accommodation does and does not carry into a workplace, how supervisors and placement hosts are involved, and how repeated disclosure can be avoided. For the designer, it covers the onboarding and placement materials that carry an accommodation across. It pairs with accessible job design, which removes barriers before any individual request is made.

Grounded in The unified test (Meiorin); shared responsibility, including unions (Renaud); undue hardship (Hydro-Québec); BC Human Rights Code

Practised in Accommodation checklists in onboarding toolkits in a research university’s student employment program (900 campus employers, 3,000 student employees)

Themes Accommodation, Policy, Equity

Draws on Accessible Job Design for Student and Early-Career Employment, The Duty to Accommodate in Learning Design, Access in Clinical and Placement Education

Sources 36, 56, 88, 38

Access in Clinical and Placement Education

Holding patient safety and access seriously at once

Sectors and participationAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Placement, simulation, precepting, and competency assessment are where essential requirements are most contested and where safety arguments can close conversations that deserve to stay open. This resource works through the design and assessment architecture that allows a program to protect genuine safety requirements while examining the ones it has never had reason to question.

Grounded in Technical standards in health professions education (Meeks & Jain); construct validity; duty to accommodate

Themes Accommodation, Assessment, Access

Draws on Essential Requirements and the Limits of Flexibility, Accessible Health and Patient Education

Sources 48, 37, 36

Accessible Health and Patient Education

Access beyond the learner, to the person receiving care

Sectors and participationAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Health literacy, plain language, communication access, and accessible patient education and informed consent, set against the documented health disparities disabled people experience. It is the point at which accessible learning design reaches materials intended for patients and the public rather than for students and staff.

Grounded in Health literacy (Nutbeam); disability health disparities (Krahn et al.); social determinants of health

Themes Access, Wellbeing, Equity

Draws on Access in Clinical and Placement Education, Designing for Learner Variability at Scale

Sources 49, 50, 51, 1

Accessible Research Participation and Knowledge Products

Who can take part, and who can read the findings

Sectors and participationAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Consent materials, participant-facing instruments, plain-language summaries, and accessible dissemination — increasingly expected by research ethics boards and funders, and rarely designed for. It sits at the junction of knowledge mobilization and accessibility, where a study’s reach is set as much by its materials as by its recruitment.

Grounded in TCPS 2 (2022); knowledge mobilization; WCAG 2.2

Themes Research, Access, Equity

Draws on Partnering with Disabled People in Learning Design

Sources 11, 52, 15

Access in Studio, Shop and Lab-Based Learning

Safety-sensitive learning that is not clinical

Sectors and participationAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Shops, studios, and laboratories are where hands-on learning meets real hazard, and where access decisions get made at the bench rather than in an office: which tool, at what pace, with what supervision, in which layout. This resource treats equipment-based learning the way the clinical-placement resource treats wards — protecting genuine safety requirements while examining the ones that are only habit — and covers adaptive tooling, paced instruction, workstation design, and the peer and technician roles that make access daily rather than exceptional.

Grounded in Essential requirements in safety-sensitive environments; universal design of physical space; technical standards in professional education (Meeks & Jain, by analogy)

Practised in An art and design university's shop and studio program (seven years): studio accessibility overhaul, adaptive technology stations, layouts for wheelchair use, personalised support to disabled students on complex tools; hands-on STEM kits at a national research laboratory

Themes Access, Disability studies, Standards

Draws on Access in Clinical and Placement Education, Accessible Physical and Hybrid Learning Environments, Assistive Technology and Adaptive Strategies

Sources 48, 35, 36

Access in Graduate Education

Supervision, comprehensive exams, thesis and defence

Sectors and participationAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentEmerging

Graduate education is organised around supervision and milestones more than around courses. The challenge is that accommodation processes designed for coursework do not map directly onto a supervisory relationship, a comprehensive exam or a thesis. This resource covers access in supervision, comprehensive and candidacy exams, research and fieldwork, thesis writing and the defence, and in funding and time-to-completion rules. It separates the essential requirements of a degree from the conventions that have gathered around them.

Grounded in NEADS National Graduate Experience Taskforce; academic ableism (Dolmage); construct validity (Messick)

Practised in Augmentative and alternative communication support for a client’s thesis writing in private home care

Themes Accommodation, Access, Assessment

Draws on Essential Requirements and the Limits of Flexibility, Designing for Episodic and Fluctuating Conditions, Accessible Research Participation and Knowledge Products

Sources 90, 6, 37

Access at Admission and Transition

The first term, before the system knows a student

Sectors and participationAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

On entering post-secondary education, responsibility for arranging access moves to the student. The challenge is the interval between admission and the first accommodation being in place. This resource covers admission requirements read as essential-requirements documents, what a student needs to know and do before the first week, orientation and housing, and the peer and staff roles that support the transition, with attention to the self-advocacy and self-determination skills that the transition research identifies.

Grounded in Meaningful access (Moore, SCC 2012); self-determination in transition (Getzel & Thoma); self-advocacy framework (Test et al.); AHEAD program standards

Practised in An art and design university: a peer mentorship program pairing new students with accommodations with trained mentors

Themes Access, Accommodation, Community

Draws on Peer Mentorship as Access Infrastructure, Essential Requirements and the Limits of Flexibility, The Advising Conversation

Sources 86, 91, 77, 57

Accessibility Triage for Existing Course Inventories

A defensible order of work when everything cannot be fixed at once

Standards and technical practiceAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Most institutions hold thousands of documents, modules, videos, and pages built before anyone was checking, with no realistic path to full conformance. This resource offers a tiered protocol — what is remediated now, what is rebuilt at next revision, what is retired, and which standard applies to each tier — using high-volume required and compliance training as the worked example.

Grounded in WCAG 2.2; EN 301 549; remediation prioritisation

Practised in Mandatory-training audits and redesign in a provincial public-sector organisation

Themes Standards, Access, Scale

Draws on Accessible Procurement and Vendor Accountability, Designing for the Assistive Technology People Actually Use, Accessibility Review

Sources 15, 25

Designing for the Assistive Technology People Actually Use

Why conformant content can still fail in practice

Standards and technical practiceAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Conformance and assistive-technology fluency are not the same thing, and the difference shows quickly in real use. This resource covers testing with actual assistive technology rather than automated checking alone, and the reasons technically conformant material can still obstruct — while leaving assessment, tool matching, and training to the assistive technology specialists and advisors whose professional work that is.

Grounded in SETT framework (Zabala); HAAT model (Cook & Polgar); WCAG 2.2

Practised in Screen-reader and keyboard testing in a provincial public-sector organisation; adaptive technology stations at an art and design university; AAC support in private home care

Themes Standards, Access, Disability studies

Draws on Accessibility Triage for Existing Course Inventories, Accessible Procurement and Vendor Accountability, Accessibility Review

Sources 17, 16, 15

Accessible Physical and Hybrid Learning Environments

The part of universal design most often handed to facilities

Standards and technical practiceAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

The seven principles of universal design as they were originally written — for buildings, spaces, and products — and what they require of a classroom, a laboratory, a placement site, and the hybrid arrangements that now carry a large share of teaching. It is the part of universal design that learning designers most often hand to facilities management, and the part that determines whether a person can be present in the room at all.

Grounded in Principles of Universal Design (Connell et al., 1997); CSA B651; Accessible Canada Act

Practised in Studio layouts and wayfinding at an art and design university; classroom residencies for an arts education non-profit

Themes Access, Variability, Standards

Draws on Why Universal Design Never Eliminates Individual Accommodation, Access in Clinical and Placement Education, Making Accessibility More Than Compliance

Sources 35, 54, 29

Accessible Documents as Everyday Practice

Structure at the point of authoring, not repair

Standards and technical practiceAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Headings, reading order, tables, alternative text and contrast across word processing files, presentations, spreadsheets and PDF, treated as authoring practice. Remediation costs more than creation, which places institutional templates among the highest-leverage points of intervention. It also covers what an automated checker establishes and what it leaves untested.

Grounded in PDF/UA (ISO 14289-1); WCAG 2.2; CAN/ASC-EN 301 549:2024

Practised in Accessible templates (PDFs, forms) in a provincial public-sector organisation; alt text and simplified layouts at a national research laboratory

Themes Standards, Access, Evaluation

Draws on Accessibility Triage for Existing Course Inventories, Making Accessibility More Than Compliance, Designing for the Assistive Technology People Actually Use

Sources 58, 15, 61

Captions, Transcripts and Audio Description

Three artefacts, three sets of users

Standards and technical practiceAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Captions, transcripts and audio description serve different users and do not substitute for one another. This resource covers caption accuracy and the degradation of automatic captioning on the specialist vocabulary that carries the most meaning, the transcript as an independently useful artefact, standard and extended audio description, and where each belongs in a production workflow and a budget.

Grounded in W3C Media Accessibility User Requirements; WCAG 2.2; multimedia learning research

Practised in Captioning and multimodal STEM modules with transcripts at a national research laboratory

Themes Standards, Access

Draws on Accessible Documents as Everyday Practice, Designing for the Assistive Technology People Actually Use, Making Accessibility More Than Compliance

Sources 59, 15, 4

Selecting Materials, Textbooks and Platforms

Reading a conformance claim against what a person meets

Standards and technical practiceAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentEmerging

Publisher platforms, courseware, library resources and open educational resources, and the accessibility settled at the point of selection. It covers reading an Accessibility Conformance Report against what a person using the product encounters, what to ask a vendor, what to ask a colleague already using the tool, and the options remaining when an inaccessible product is already in service.

Grounded in VPAT and Accessibility Conformance Reports; EN 301 549; CAN/ASC-EN 301 549:2024

Themes Standards, Policy, Access

Draws on Accessible Procurement and Vendor Accountability, Accessibility Triage for Existing Course Inventories, Accessible Documents as Everyday Practice

Sources 26, 61, 25

Making Accessibility More Than Compliance

Access as design quality, not a checklist

Standards and technical practiceUniversal Design for LearningPractised · resource in developmentEmerging

Treating accessibility as a dimension of good design rather than a minimum legal standard met at the end. It is the conceptual bridge from inclusive learning design to the accessibility, disability and accommodation branch, and to the engagements offered alongside it.

Grounded in WCAG; UDL; inclusive design

Themes Access

Draws on Designing for Learner Variability at Scale, Accessibility Review, Inclusive Course & Curriculum Design, Why Universal Design Never Eliminates Individual Accommodation

Sources 15, 2

Evaluating Whether Design Reduced Barriers

Closing the UDL cycle with evidence

Standards and technical practiceUniversal Design for LearningPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Measuring whether an inclusive design actually lowered barriers, rather than assuming that it did — ending on rigor rather than aspiration. It belongs to the shared evaluation family that runs across the practice.

Grounded in Evaluation design; Universal Design for Learning

Practised in Accessibility KPIs in a provincial public-sector organisation; accessibility-first evaluation at a national technology education provider; iterative program evaluation at a national research laboratory; equity evaluation of placements at a research university

Themes Evaluation, Access

Draws on Designing for Learner Variability at Scale, Institutional Accessibility Planning as a Change Program

Sources 55, 2

Accessibility Remediation of Mandatory Training at Organisational Scale

The compliance training everyone must take, made usable by everyone

Standards and technical practiceAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Required training is the one learning experience every employee meets, and it is usually the least accessible thing the organisation owns. This resource covers auditing high-volume mandatory modules against screen-reader and keyboard use, redesigning them, building the templates that keep the next version accessible, and advising the departments that own the content on what conformance actually requires of them. It is the worked example behind the triage protocol.

Grounded in WCAG 2.1/2.2; EN 301 549 and CAN/ASC-EN 301 549; remediation prioritisation

Practised in A provincial public-sector organisation during a province-wide service transition: audits and redesign of mandatory safety and privacy training for screen-reader and keyboard compatibility; accessible templates and facilitation toolkits; cross-departmental WCAG 2.1 compliance advising

Themes Standards, Access, Scale

Draws on Accessibility Triage for Existing Course Inventories, Designing for the Assistive Technology People Actually Use, Accessible Documents as Everyday Practice

Sources 15, 25, 61

Accessible Live and Virtual Facilitation

Access in the room, and in the room that is a screen

Standards and technical practiceAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Facilitation is where accessibility standards meet a person in real time: captions that lag, a chat that a screen reader cannot follow, a breakout that leaves someone behind, a slide that only works in colour. This resource covers accessible design of live and virtual sessions — platform settings, materials, pacing, participation modes, and in-session audits — so that facilitation is accessible by default rather than repaired on request.

Grounded in WCAG for live content; Media Accessibility User Requirements; adult learning practice

Practised in A provincial public-sector organisation: province-wide e-facilitation rollout supporting remote learners through accessible technology; a national research laboratory: inclusive facilitation workshops with accessibility audits during live sessions

Themes Access, Standards, Capacity

Draws on Inclusive Facilitation & Capacity Building, Captions, Transcripts and Audio Description, Disability Etiquette and Communication in Learning Environments

Sources 15, 59, 28

Sensory Access in Learning Environments

Noise, light, crowding, and the right to leave

Standards and technical practiceAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentEmerging

Physical accessibility standards address doors, ramps, and reach ranges; they say little about sound, light, density, and the availability of a place to withdraw. This resource covers sensory-informed design of learning spaces and events — quiet hours, noise indicators, lighting options, rest areas, tactile and non-speaking modes — and the piloting that shows which measures the people concerned actually use.

Grounded in Relational approaches to access and autism (Davidson); universal design of space; co-design

Practised in A science centre: sensory-friendly exhibit prototypes and quiet-hours programming; an arts education non-profit working in schools: sensory-informed classroom planning (noise-level indicators, soft lighting, rest areas), tactile art kits, sensory avatars and non-speaking arts co-designed with children and teachers

Themes Access, Standards, Disability studies

Draws on Accessible Physical and Hybrid Learning Environments, Disability Categories and the Barriers People Meet, Access in Studio, Shop and Lab-Based Learning

Sources 54, 35, 71

Accessibility Review

Four bodies of knowledge held in view at once

Standards and technical practiceAccessibilityPublished resourceWell established

How to review a learning environment while holding four bodies of knowledge in view at once: conformance standards, Universal Design for Learning, disability studies, and the systems that decide what gets built. It sets out the stages of a review, the decisions it turns on, and why its findings reach further than a surface-level compliance check.

Grounded in WCAG; UDL; disability studies; systems knowledge

Practised in Mandatory-training audits in a provincial public-sector organisation; live-session audits at a national research laboratory; an accessibility-first evaluation framework at a national technology education provider

Themes Access, Evaluation

Draws on Making Accessibility More Than Compliance, Inclusive Course & Curriculum Design, Accessibility Triage for Existing Course Inventories

Sources 15, 2

Interpreting, Live Captioning, Note-Taking and Alternate Formats

Access services as service design

Standards and technical practiceAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

Sign language interpreting, real-time captioning, note-taking and alternate-format production each depend on providers, lead times and preparation. The challenge is that a service arranged late, or without the course materials, may not provide the access it was approved to provide. This resource sets out what each service does and for whom, what has to be requested and how far ahead, the legal basis for producing alternate formats in Canada, and what an instructor contributes to making each service effective.

Grounded in W3C Media Accessibility User Requirements; Marrakesh Treaty; Copyright Act (Canada), s. 32; Eldridge (SCC, 1997); PDF/UA

Themes Standards, Access, Accommodation

Draws on Captions, Transcripts and Audio Description, Accessible Documents as Everyday Practice, Working with Accommodation Offices and Access Advisors

Sources 59, 45, 81, 89, 58

Delivering Accommodated Exams in a Learning Platform

Timing, attempts and assistive technology

Standards and technical practiceAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

When an exam is delivered in a learning platform, the accommodation has to be configured there as well. The challenge is that platform settings, lockdown browsers and remote proctoring can conflict with the assistive technology a student uses. This resource covers individual time and attempt adjustments, question formats and their compatibility with screen readers, magnification and dictation, and what to verify before an exam opens. It includes a test routine that an instructor or exam team can run in advance with the student’s own set-up.

Grounded in WCAG 2.2; CAN/ASC-EN 301 549:2024; construct validity (Messick); research on extended time (Lovett)

Themes Standards, Assessment, Access

Draws on Accommodated Exams and Assessment Logistics, Designing for the Assistive Technology People Actually Use, Selecting Materials, Textbooks and Platforms

Sources 15, 61, 37, 79

Adapting Test Papers to Alternate Formats

A secure, time-critical document in an accessible format

Standards and technical practiceAccessibilityPractised · resource in developmentWell established

A test paper has to be converted to an accessible format quickly and without being disclosed. The challenge is to do that while keeping it the same assessment. This resource covers preparing a paper for a screen reader such as JAWS, for text-to-speech such as Kurzweil, for dictation such as Dragon, and for large print and braille; describing a figure without supplying the answer; keeping the paper secure during conversion; and checking that the converted paper measures what the original measures.

Grounded in PDF/UA (ISO 14289-1); WCAG 2.2; Copyright Act (Canada), s. 32; HAAT model (Cook & Polgar); construct validity (Messick)

Themes Standards, Access, Accommodation

Draws on Accessible Documents as Everyday Practice, Interpreting, Live Captioning, Note-Taking and Alternate Formats, Accommodated Exams and Assessment Logistics

Sources 58, 15, 81, 16, 37

Essential Requirements Review

Engagement · Accessible Learning Labs

EngagementsOffered as an engagementWell established

For health, clinical and professional programmes and the professions they lead into, and for learning programmes of every kind. A requirement-by-requirement review, from admission to completion, that separates what a profession or programme genuinely requires from what has been inherited by convention, and tests each against the justification Canadian human rights law requires. The legal test sets the floor; disabled students and practitioners sit on the review, so their knowledge shapes what counts as essential; and the defensibility file the programme keeps is built to be revised as evidence arrives. Offered in support of accommodation offices and legal counsel, never in place of them.

Grounded in Human rights and accommodation law; essential requirements; assessment validity; disability studies

Themes Accommodation, Assessment, Policy

Draws on Essential Requirements and the Limits of Flexibility, Access in Clinical and Placement Education, The Duty to Accommodate in Learning Design

Sources 36, 37, 48, 38

Assessment Access and Validity Review

Engagement · Accessible Learning Labs

EngagementsOffered as an engagementWell established

For programmes, testing centres and credentialing bodies. Assessments are examined for construct-irrelevant variance: the time limits, formats and conditions that measure something other than the outcome. Conformance and the duty to accommodate set the floor; the people who take the assessment take part in judging what it measures; and evaluation is built into the redesign so the assessment keeps improving. The result reduces how often individual accommodation is needed, without treating accommodation as lesser, and leaves the assessment more valid for everyone who takes it.

Grounded in Educational measurement; validity theory; Universal Design for Learning; accommodation law

Themes Assessment, Access, Accommodation

Draws on Eliminating Construct-Irrelevant Barriers in Assessment, Essential Requirements and the Limits of Flexibility, Why Universal Design Never Eliminates Individual Accommodation

Sources 37, 2, 36

Learning and Training Commitments Review

Engagement · Accessible Learning Labs

EngagementsOffered as an engagementWell established

For organisations required to publish an accessibility plan under the Accessible British Columbia Act or the Accessible Canada Act. Every plan commits to learning: staff training, faculty development, accessible onboarding, mandatory courses. Those commitments are where a plan changes practice or does not. Evidence, gathered with the people the training is meant to reach, of where the commitment and what people actually receive have drifted apart, and what to redesign before the next three-year update. The plan and the Act set the floor; the people the training serves judge whether it reached them; and evaluation is built into the training itself, so the next cycle can learn from this one.

Grounded in Accessibility legislation; adult learning and faculty development; programme evaluation; organisational change; Fieldwork

Themes Policy, Capacity, Change

Draws on Institutional Accessibility Planning as a Change Program, Faculty Development That Changes Accessible Practice, Accessibility Remediation of Mandatory Training at Organisational Scale, Closing the Knowing–Doing Gap

Sources 30, 29, 28, 31, 55