Document accessibility for colleges and universities

Accessibility offices and instructional designers are trying to help hundreds of faculty fix thousands of course files, usually with a small team. Your learning management system can flag problems, but someone still has to fix them. Includoc checks and fixes PDFs, Word documents and slides in minutes, flags the decisions that need a person, and gives your campus evidence of WCAG 2.1 AA conformance checks for every file.

What the rules mean for your campus

Public colleges and universities are covered by the ADA Title II rule as part of the state or local government they belong to, so that government's population sets the date. Most state universities fall under their state's population, which means April 26, 2027. Community colleges vary with the government they belong to. The deadline finder will confirm your date.

Two points matter for teaching materials:

• Course content is covered. The final rule has no general exception for course materials behind a login. The Department of Justice proposed one in 2023 and left it out. A syllabus or reading posted in Canvas counts just like a PDF on your public website.
• Old files still in use probably aren't excepted. The exception for documents posted before your compliance date doesn't apply to documents people currently use to take part in a program, and students use course readings to take part in a course.

Private colleges aren't covered by the Title II rule, but Section 504 applies to colleges that receive federal funding, including student aid, and ADA Title III applies too. There's no single technical deadline, and WCAG 2.1 AA is the usual benchmark in complaints and lawsuits.

For the full rule, read our ADA Title II guide.

Where Includoc helps

Scanned readings

Scanned book chapters and articles are often just pictures of text. Includoc adds a text layer with OCR, tags the document so it reads in the right order, and flags any text the OCR wasn't sure about. See scanned PDFs and OCR.

Syllabi, handouts and slides

Most course files start in Word or PowerPoint. We fix alt text, headings, table header rows and slide titles in the source file, set the title and language, and give you a tagged PDF as well. Faculty keep a fixed source file, so next term's version starts accessible.

Charts, diagrams and STEM content

We're honest about the limits here. Charts get a short summary and, when the values are legible, a data table. Complex diagrams and figures go to the review list, because someone who knows the subject should confirm what matters. Equations get alt text, but we don't produce MathML or handle complex scientific notation beyond that. Our alt text guide has examples.

Website documents

Catalogs, policies, forms, board of trustees documents and reports live on your public website. With an Organization plan, IncludocBot finds every one of them, and you can track, fix and report on them in one place.

Alongside Canvas, Ally and UDOIT

Keep them. The Canvas accessibility checker, Anthology Ally and UDOIT are good at finding issues inside your learning management system. Includoc fixes the documents and gives you a report to keep.

A typical workflow: Ally flags a PDF in a course, a faculty member or designer runs it through Includoc, reviews the flagged items and uploads the fixed file back to Canvas. Our Canvas accessibility checker guide explains what Canvas checks and what it doesn't. A direct Canvas integration is on our roadmap. Until then, it's download, fix and re-upload.

Faculty self-service

• No barrier to start. Faculty can check a file free, without an account.
• Campus seats. With an Organization plan, faculty and staff join your campus account and use its monthly AI page allowance.
• Guided decisions. The review screen walks people through the choices only a person can make, such as whether alt text is right or which heading level a title should be.
• Central oversight. Your accessibility office sees progress across the campus and keeps every report.

Campus pricing

Our Organization plans are our campus pricing:

• Organization Standard, $3,600/yr: one website inventory with up to 5,000 documents, weekly monitoring, 1,000 AI pages a month, 10 seats, exemption tracking, reports, and invoice and purchase-order billing.
• Organization Plus, $7,200/yr: three websites with up to 25,000 documents, daily monitoring, 3,000 AI pages a month, unlimited seats for faculty and staff, single sign-on with your campus identity provider, priority support and a quarterly review call.
• Departments and centers: Pro at $99/mo, with 20% off for public education and nonprofits.
• Multi-year savings: prepay an Organization plan for more than one year and save 10%.

More than three websites, or a system with several campuses? Contact us for a quote. You can also estimate your backlog with the remediation cost calculator.

Procurement and security reviews

• Quotes and paperwork: written quotes, W-9, certificate of insurance and invoices with your purchase order number on net-30 terms.
• Security reviews: send us your HECVAT or other security questionnaire and we'll complete it. Our trust page covers storage, encryption, retention and AI processing, and our data processing addendum has the contract terms.
• Your data: documents are stored in the United States, deleted on a schedule you choose (7 to 365 days), and never used to train AI models.
• Student records: most course materials and public documents don't contain student education records. If your review requires terms for education records under FERPA, ask us during procurement.
• Our own accessibility: we build to WCAG 2.2 AA and test with NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver and TalkBack. Our Accessibility Conformance Report (VPAT 2.5 INT) is in preparation. See our accessibility statement.

Request documents or a quote.

Founding pilot

Public colleges facing a Title II date can join our founding pilot, open to the first 10 to 15 organizations. For $1,500 one-time, you get 60 days of Organization Standard, a full inventory of the documents on your website with a prioritized plan, and your top 20 forms human-verified. If you move to an annual plan within 60 days, the full $1,500 is credited toward it. In return, we ask for feedback and, with your approval, a short case study. Ask about the founding pilot.

Get started

• Check a document free. No account needed.
• Book a 20-minute walkthrough for your accessibility office.
• Read the ADA Title II guide.