All conference sessions will be hosted virtually via Zoom Events conference platform. Zoom Events Platform Access instructions have been emailed to all registrants.
Session recordings for the two-day conference will be available to all registrants for 30 days post conference. Workshops and pre-conference sessions will not be recorded.
Detailed session information is outlined below.
Accessibility, Inclusion, Anti-Ableism and Human-Technology Interaction
Dr. Mahadeo A. Sukhai | Vice-President Research & International Affairs and Chief Accessibility Officer, CNIB
Assistive technology has undergone a substantial evolution over the past four decades. Specialized technologies intended for use by persons with disabilities now utilize artificial intelligence. Disruptive mainstream technologies now contain built-in accessibility features, or facilitate the creation of apps beneficial to persons with disabilities. This sea change in the type and quality of assistive technologies is counterbalanced by ableism in policies and practices about the use of assistive technologies in the workplace and classroom; by ableism in attitudes toward assistive technologies in the population at large; and, by the disability community’s own perceptions of, and attitudes toward, assistive technology. This presentation will weave these threads together to provide a new perspective on the future of human-technology interaction for persons with disabilities.
Dr. Mahadeo Sukhai (he/him) is the world’s first congenitally blind geneticist. Mahadeo is a scientist and accessibility advocate, higher education and STEM, and has previously served as a researcher at the University Health Network in Toronto.
Dr. Sukhai also holds adjunct faculty appointments at Queens University (Kingston, ON), OCAD University (Toronto) and Ontario Tech University (Oshawa, ON). Dr. Sukhai is the chair of the Employment Technical Committee for Accessibility Standards Canada, as well as the external co-chair of the CIHR Expert Advisory Committee on Accessibility and Systemic Ableism.
Day One Concurrent Sessions | Wednesday, May 29 | 10–10:45 am
Day One Concurrent Sessions | Wednesday, May 29 | 11–11:45 am
Retire the PDF |
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In this presentation you will learn how to use MS Word to create accessible EPUB's that have major advantages over similar PDF files. Stream: Document and Media Accessibility (DMA)
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Access to Experiential Learning: Anticipating Difference and Troubling Disclosure and Accommodation |
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You are invited to reimagine experiential learning as holding transformational possibilities for students, instructors, placement supervisors, and community organizations when accessibility and the anticipation of differences are at the core of course design, learning outcomes, recruitment, placement development, and assessment. Centering accessibility-led processes and outcomes within an intersectional disability justice framework, we will explore possibilities in creating, nurturing, and sustaining deeper inclusion and belonging for students in experiential learning. Stream: Accessible Teaching and Learning (ATL)
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Making Accessibility Mainstream: Developing and Piloting an Accessible Lens Toolkit |
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The proposed Postsecondary Education Standard emphasizes using an accessible lens in everything we do. But what would this look like, and how can we do it? At Wilfrid Laurier University Library we have started thinking about what an accessible lens might be, and how we can begin using one. This session discusses a pilot project to develop an Accessible Lens Toolkit intended to help people consider and build in accessibility at the beginning stages of tasks and projects. The toolkit was piloted and used by participants in a variety of job areas. It will discuss how the toolkit was developed, what it looks like, experiences by pilot project participants, and next steps for encouraging wider use of the final toolkit. Stream: Accessibility Policy and Legislation (APL)
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Day One Concurrent Sessions | Wednesday, May 29 | 1–1:45 pm
Getting it Off the Ground – My Experience in Helping to Start an Accessibility Champions Team |
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This session will discuss the experiences of one Accessibility Champions team in establishing accessibility awareness and standards in their HR Learning Centre of Excellence in a large corporation. We will look at the three phases that my team experienced:
Stream: Accessible Teaching and Learning (ATL)
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Universal Course Design: Access for All |
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No learner should be left behind. In this presentation, you will learn about the challenges and successes of applying universal assessments for resumes, cover letters and interviews in our mandatory co-op education courses for over 2,000 degree and diploma students per year. We will also discuss the importance of inclusive language in course content and the offering of experiential learning opportunities in an entirely virtual environment. Stream: Inclusive Design (ID)
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The $10 Audit, or Why is Digital Accessibility So Expensive and How Do We Fix It? |
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Fundamentally, the biggest barrier to digital accessibility is the cost of compliance (auditing and testing) because these activities involve manual inspection and testing, and people are expensive. We consider what can be done in terms of development and testing by developers themselves before auditing and large-scale user testing begin, and what good audits and testing may look like if they are cost-effective. Finally, we offer some free open-source test tools, launched at the presentation, that work site-wide designed to help developers and encourage more such tools. Stream: Web Accessibility (WA)
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Day One Concurrent Sessions | Wednesday, May 29 | 2–2:45 pm
Accessibility Services at Ontario Colleges and Universities: Trends, Challenges and Recommendations |
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Despite the range of accessibility supports institutions provide, many students with disabilities still lag their peers in accessing and graduating from Ontario post-secondary programs. We present novel data that reveal the challenges in the PSE accessibility landscape and how institutions are actively working to address these hurdles. We conclude with recommendations for how the Ontario government can update and improve its funding strategy to support students with disabilities more effectively. Stream: Accessible Teaching and Learning (ATL)
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Getting Ready for AODA Postsecondary Education Standards: Ingredients for a Proactive Institutional Response |
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Discover our university's proactive approach to the AODA Postsecondary Education Standards through a successful Accessibility in Teaching and Learning Roadmap. Sponsored by senior leadership and aligned with strategic plans, our project involves significant internal investment, expert personnel recruitment, AI and data visualization technologies, and collaboration with a provincial community of practice. The 6-part approach includes journey mapping, infrastructure scans, fellowship programs, disabled student councils, student-staff partnerships, and an open-access online journal. Gain practical strategies and tools to navigate AODA PSE recommendations and engage meaningfully with students with disabilities. Stream: Accessible Teaching and Learning (ATL); Accessibility Policy and Legislation (APL); Inclusive Design (ID)
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Building Accessibility and Inclusion Competencies as a Culture Building Tool for Inclusive Workplaces |
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This session explores the establishment of a competency framework for accessibility and inclusion in the workplace. The objective is to foster a culture change towards fully accessible and inclusive workplaces for individuals with disabilities. During the session, the preliminary results of an international scan and literature review will be presented, highlighting practices, policies, and approaches that define accessibility and inclusion competencies. By collaboratively identifying key barriers and best practices, you will work towards understanding effective strategies for preventing and removing these barriers. The session provides an opportunity to develop tools and strategies that promote the development of accessibility and inclusion competencies as a catalyst for culture change in the workplace. Your insights and contributions are crucial in shaping the future of accessibility and inclusion competencies. The expected outcomes of the session include sharing and discussing the preliminary results, identifying key barriers and best practices, and engaging in iterative sessions to prototype potential solutions. Stream: Inclusive Design (ID); Accessibility Policy and Legislation (APL); Accessible Teaching and Learning (ATL)
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Day One Concurrent Sessions | Wednesday, May 29 | 3–3:45 pm
Using the PDF Techniques for WCAG 2.x with Accessible PDFs |
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There is a shift to using WCAG 2.x standards for accessible PDFs. This is clear in the European standard (EN 301 549), which is being considered as a Canadian standard. This session provides an overview of the PDF Techniques for WCAG and how they can be applied to PDFs. Stream: Accessible Policy and Legislation (APL); Document and Media Accessibility (DMA); Inclusive Design (ID)
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Crafting Accessible Digital Content for Neurodivergent Audiences |
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The choices we make when creating digital content impact the inclusion of neurodivergent people. Sensory, cognitive, and communication differences are important considerations content creators must consider. In this neurodiversity-affirming talk, we’ll explore access barriers experienced by neurodivergent people and the advantages of adopting neuroinclusive design principles. Content creators, educators, and anyone involved in digital content development would benefit from this session. Stream: Document and Media Accessibility (DMA); Inclusive Design (ID)
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Courageous Conversations: The Intersections of Race and Disability |
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The intersections of race and disability can be a difficult topic to address. It is often unclear what colonization, enslavement and racialization mean and how they relate to disability. This session will equip you with a foundational understanding of key concepts and will showcase the research and capacity building initiatives undertaken under Race and Disability Canada’s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility (IDEA) Project. Stream: Accessibility Policy and Legislation (APL)
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Day Two Concurrent Sessions | Thursday, May 30 | 9–9:45 am
Understanding the Needs of Visually Impaired and Neurodivergent Students in STEM Education |
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Students who are blind or visually impaired and students who are neurodivergent face unique barriers to learning STEM concepts in post-secondary studies. Textbooks with visual graphics pose difficulties, and screen-readers struggle with the accurate pronunciation of anatomical and mathematical terms. Neurodivergent students encounter similar obstacles while navigating courses designed for typical neurotypes. Our session aims to share strategies for accommodating diverse learning styles through a discussion of lived experiences, fostering conversations about accessibility in STEM education. Stream: Accessible Teaching and Learning (ATL)
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Strategies on How to Embed Inclusive Innovation and Design |
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TD's Digital Accessibility and Enterprise Innovation team will share tactics to ensure that inclusive innovation and digital accessibility are centered throughout the ideation, design, development, and deployment process, not just as checklist items. Stream: Inclusive Design (ID)
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Accessible Wayfinding Systems will Start a New Era of Accessibility |
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Accessible wayfinding systems will become ubiquitous in public spaces by 2030. This session walks through the opportunities, challenges, and other aspects of the new future of accessibility for people with orientation challenges, including the blind and visually impaired. Responsibilities, costs, and operational efforts required towards this future will also be discussed and case-studies from around the world will be shared. Stream: Assistive Technology (AT)
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Day Two Concurrent Sessions | Thursday, May 30 | 10–10:45 am
Policy Perspectives: Applying a Critical Lens from Post-Secondary Accessibility Guidelines in Ontario to Develop Institutional Action Plans |
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This session will engage with the final recommendations in the AODA Postsecondary Education Guidelines, using them as a springboard for conversations about best inclusion practices in universities. Stream: Accessibility Policy and Legislation (APL)
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Shared Intentionality in Hy-flex Education for Instructors and Students with Disabilites |
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This session focuses on accessible and inclusive hyflex education from the perspective of instructors and students with disabilities, demonstrating the importance of shared intentionality on engagement, interaction and inclusion. Stream: Accessible Teaching and Learning (ATL)
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6 Things Screen Readers Catch that Your Document Accessibility Checker Can’t |
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This session focuses on the importance of testing your documents with assistive technology such as NVDA or JAWS to ensure a good user experience. Several commonly overlooked document flaws resulting from exclusive reliance of an accessibility checker will be revealed and discussed. Stream: Assistive Technology (AT); Document and Media Accessibility (DMA)
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Day Two Concurrent Sessions | Thursday, May 30 | 11–11:45 am
Accessible Content: A Case Study of Impacts and Costs |
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The impact and instructional resource requirements for accessibility improvements are not well documented in the literature. A four-year study from an engineering math course is in progress to assess, quantitatively and qualitatively, the impact and instructional cost of pursuing various accessible practices. This presentation highlights high impact changes to lectures and course materials which required relatively few resources, as well as impactful practices which may require additional supports. Stream: Accessible Teaching and Learning (ATL);
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Intro to Audio Description |
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This session covers the basics of how to add audio description to online video, legal requirements for audio description, video player compatibility, examples and demos, how to create audio description, and the many benefits of audio description. Stream: Document and Media Accessibility (DMA)
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Design Systems: The Key to Sustained Web Accessibility? |
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In the WebAIM Million report for 2023, 96.3% of tested home pages had detected WCAG 2 failures; that's only a 1.5% improvement from 2019. At the current rate, it would take 257 years for the top million websites to be made even mildly accessible. This session investigates a potential tool to boost web accessibility efforts: design systems. Let’s explore my findings on the connections between:
Stream: Web Accessibility (WA)
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Day Two Concurrent Sessions | Thursday, May 30 | 1–1:45 pm
Exploring the Impact of Neurodivergence on Participation in Canadian Post-Secondary Education |
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The Conference Board of Canada is conducting a large-scale mixed methods study on the experiences of neurodivergent students and post-secondary institutions in the provision of inclusive education. This session explores data from the first large-scale national quantitative survey on neurodivergent post-secondary student experiences in Canada. The session elucidates barriers and enablers to participating in post-secondary education and the provision of accommodations for learning and inclusion. Stream: Accessible Teaching and Learning (ATL)
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Crafting Inclusive E-Learning: Practical Tips for Accessible Design in Rise & Storyline |
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Discover practical insights for integrating accessibility into Rise and Storyline e-learning courses. This session, tailored for beginning instructional designers, covers fundamental accessible learning concepts, explores specific features enhancing accessibility, and discusses potential challenges that arise in Articulate software. Come away with actionable tips to create inclusive educational content and contribute to a more accessible digital learning landscape. Stream: Document and Media Accessibility (DMA)
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Achieving Accessibility from the Bottom Up |
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Your digital product has to be accessible, but you still can’t get buy-in from the top. Don’t give up! You still have ways to include accessibility, working from the bottom up. This session presents ways to introduce and incorporate web accessibility into workflows and products. It will empower you to consider ways to collaborate and demonstrate that accessibility can be effective, efficient, and marketable. Stream: Web Accessibility (WA)
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Day Two Concurrent Sessions | Thursday, May 30 | 2–2:45 pm
Demystifying Accessible & Equitable AI Through an Inclusive Design Lens |
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This session is not about ChatGPT for interactive content generation but goes further to include AI-based automated decision-making systems. AI systems, in general, are not accessible. People with disabilities cannot fully participate in their design, development, implementation and use. Further, they are not equitable. People with disabilities are impacted by statistical discrimination and several other factors. This session explores the reasons and mitigations for lack of accessibility and equity in AI systems. Stream: Inclusive Design (ID)
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Making Conversations Count with Accessible Social Media |
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This session is for anyone who is responsible for writing or creating social media content. We’ll explore ways to build and grow online communities through inclusive, accessible content designed to capture attention and inspire action. You don’t need a big team or a big budget to make a big impact. Get ready to dig in, engage, and start thinking differently in this highly interactive and fun session. Stream: Web Accessibility (WA); Document and Media Accessibility (DMA)
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Embedding Digital Accessibility and Inclusive Design Competencies into Curricula |
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Presenters, Karen Caldwell and Laura Perry will share proof of concept of curricula that integrate digital accessibility skills and inclusive design with discipline-specific knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSA). As part of a Teach Access-funded research study, their project spans two semesters (AY2023-2024) of revisions to existing online graduate and faculty training courses through backward design—the ADDIE instructional design process—and design thinking. In alignment with the Teach Access mission to enable learners as builders of an inclusive world, Karen and Laura’s session shares both processes and products of their project, along with research-based frameworks, and outcomes related to learners’ KSA of accessibility and inclusive principles and connections to their discipline-specific careers. Stream: Inclusive Design (ID); Accessible Teaching and Learning (ATL)
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Disability Needs to be Decolonized: Indigenous Knowledge for Anti-Ableist Discourse
Although underrepresented in scholarship, Indigenous perspectives regarding disability hold significant value and are important to share.
In this talk, Dr. Rheanna Robinson draws on her personal experience and research as an Indigenous scholar living with a progressive form of multiple sclerosis to explore tensions between Indigenous and non-Indigenous views of disability. Given that Indigenous laws and cultural protocols inherently enact principles of equity and inclusion, it is important to understand how disability is a colonial and socially constructed identity. Through storytelling, and a representation of language and kinship systems, ableist systems can be disrupted and disability will be decolonized. Dr. Robinson looks forward to sharing how Indigenous knowledges have the potential to transform understandings of disability in Canada and around the world.
Dr. Rheanna Robinson would like to begin by acknowledging the territory of the Lheidli T’enneh Nation where the Prince George campus of UNBC is located and where she’s had the privilege to live, work, and learn for more than two decades. Dr. Robinson is a Métis and a member of the Manitoba Métis Federation. Raised in Smithers, BC, she has a long history in Northern British Columbia and has been involved with UNBC as a student, staff, faculty member, and volunteer since 1995. Dr. Robinson earned a bachelor of arts degree in History and First Nations Studies at UNBC in 2001, a master of arts degree in First Nations Studies at UNBC in 2007, and completed a PhD in Educational Studies at UBC in 2016.
Dr. Robinson is an Indigenous scholar who is deeply committed to the discipline of First Nations Studies. She values the role of Indigenous Knowledge within institutions of higher learning and what this knowledge offers the world. Dr. Robinson’s research interests include: Indigenous Disability Studies, Indigenous Education; Indigenous Theory, Methods, and Indigenous-led Community-based Research.
SESSION THEMES
Accessibility Policy and Legislation (APL) – Examples of how to foster a culture of accessibility in the workplace, school, or community, innovative AODA compliance strategies, and discussing provincial, national and international developments with respect to accessibility standards.
Accessible Teaching and Learning (ATL) – Topics related to accessibility in education from a personal to global perspective, including accessibility barriers faced by post-secondary students, explorations of academic accommodation issues for students with disabilities, and strategies for supporting diverse learners.
Assistive Technology (AT) – Demonstration of assistive technologies and how they enable people with disabilities to succeed in the worlds of education and work, discussion of emerging AT trends, best practices for access technology support, etc.
Inclusive Design (ID) – Creating products and services that can be used by as wide a cross section of people as possible.
Document and Media Accessibility (DMA) – Introductory to advanced sessions and workshops on Microsoft Word and PDF document remediation techniques, creating accessible infographics, video captioning and description, etc.
Web Accessibility (WA) – Introductory to advanced web accessibility sessions and workshops, inclusive design techniques for web content creators, web accessibility compliance processes for large organizations, etc.
