Much of the Rice experience now happens in digital spaces. Faculty teach through them. Staff collaborate through them. Students rely on them every day to learn, connect, and succeed.
We work hard to ensure our physical campus is accessible and welcoming. We must bring that same commitment to our digital campus—the websites, tools, documents, and platforms that power daily life at the university.
Recent federal regulations establish a digital accessibility standard that institutions must meet by May 11, 2026. While that milestone is important, our goal at Rice goes beyond compliance. We want accessibility to become a natural part of how we create and share digital content across the university.
What is Digital Accessibility?
Digital accessibility ensures that people with disabilities can fully participate in our digital environment.
This includes the ability to:
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Read content using screen readers
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Access course materials in different formats
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Navigate websites and applications using assistive technology
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View captions and alternative text in multimedia
Accessible content also improves everyday communication. Clear formatting and well-structured documents make information easier for everyone to find and use.
Accessibility benefits our entire community.
Content That Is “Born Accessible”
The May 2026 compliance milestone is an important checkpoint, but accessibility cannot be a one-time project.
Our digital environment constantly evolves. New webpages, documents, and technologies are created every day. If accessibility is added only at the end, we will always be catching up.
Instead, we are working to make accessibility part of everyday practice so digital content is “born accessible.”
Key Areas of Focus
Technology Solutions & Services (formerly the Office of Information Technology) has partnered across campus since last fall to focus on high-impact areas:
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Learning and Course Content: Prioritizing accessible course materials, especially for Summer and Fall 2026. Faculty are using Ally in Canvas to identify accessibility issues and improve course files.
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Technology Purchasing: Requiring Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates (VPATs) for new software purchases and renewals, focusing first on the university’s most critical systems.
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Rice’s Website: Public Affairs is redesigning and replatforming Rice.edu, allowing accessibility to be built into the foundation of the site rather than retrofitted later.
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Digital Communication: Applying accessibility standards to digital signage, kiosks, apps, and university social media so Rice communications reach the widest possible audience.
What’s Next
As we continue building a digitally accessible campus, anyone who creates digital materials will play a role in ensuring PDFs, Word documents, spreadsheets, and other content meet accessibility standards.
Technology Solutions & Services is hosting office hours to provide training, tools, and support for content remediation. Together, we can ensure Rice’s digital spaces remain open and usable for everyone in our community.