Accessibility Resources

Campus Resources

DRES

Disability Resources and Educational Services (DRES), a unit of the College of Applied Health Sciences, serves as the designated office of the university that coordinates campus-wide services for students with disabilities.

Campus ADA Division

The ADA coordinator is responsible for coordinating and monitoring the university’s efforts to comply with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (codified in 29 U.S.C. 701), the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and other federal and state laws and regulations pertaining to the rights of persons with disabilities.

Accessible IT Group

The mission of the Accessible IT Group (AITG) is to promote a campus environment that integrates the universal design of information technology resources through outreach, evaluation, collaboration, education, research, and adaptive technologies to ensure the inclusion of students with disabilities in the Illinois Experience.

General Information

Accessibility 101

The Accessibility 101 course is intended to increase understanding and awareness of accessibility, as well as in the context of information technology (IT). The course is free but does require the creation of an account.

“Disability Awareness and Etiquette”

The presentation “Disability Awareness and Etiquette” was made by Lindsay Haitz and Mark McCarthy to the IT Accessibility Liaison program. You can view the video of the presentation for general information, terminology, and suggestions on creating a welcoming environment.

Events

Location

When planning events such as lectures, conferences, and/or symposia, it is important to be mindful of the physical space and access to the meeting spaces as well as to the building and parking/public transportation. Floor plans of campus buildings featuring accessible entries and exits, interior access routes, and more details are available on the Facility Access Maps website.

Statement for Flyers & Advertisements

It is important to include a method for participants to contact the event planner on your event flyers, advertisements, and emails. Include a statement such as, “If you are a person with a disability that requires accommodation(s), please contact X by X date. Accommodation requests received after X date will be given due diligence to be filled, but may not be guaranteed.” or ” If you require an accessibility accommodation(s) to participate in this event, please contact X.”

Materials & Delivery

Plan to provide your materials at your live event or electronically in advance. If you are using a presentation, make printed copies available at the event. It is important to be aware of your presentation design; presentations with backgrounds or colors may not translate well when printed and cause readability issues. If you are including a video or movie in your presentation, these should be shown with closed captioning enabled.

For information about creating accessible documents, please see Word Documents and Pdfs.

For information about captioning and interpreting, please see the sections “Captioning” and “Interpreting.”

Zoom

For your Zoom meetings and events, you should utilize live captioning or an interpreter. When your Zoom meeting is created, make sure that you have enabled closed captioning under the Settings tab.

Zoom does have automatic live captions available, but they are not ADA compliant. They are about 94 percent accurate, but the captions appear only in the main Zoom room and are not available/don’t work in the breakout rooms. It is an option to always plan on using Zoom automatic live captioning until you get a request from a Deaf/Hard of Hearing person for ADA-approved live captioning.

Captioning & Interpreting