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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 2d

University of York staff are very welcome to join the digital-accessibility channel in Slack! It's an open channel, so staff members can add themselves - join us!

Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 2d

If your organization has Slack, Teams, or any other messaging program, you should have a dedicated accessibility channel. This would be a great way for everyone on your team to learn together by sharing links, posing questions, and reviewing alt text, among other things.

Reposted by UoY Digital Accessibility Unit

Patrick Garvin @patrickmgarvin.bsky.social · 2d

Gearing up for @ire.org's #AccessFest25 this week. Here's a friendly reminder to include alt text on your images.

Bluesky has a setting that will remind you to add alt text before posting any images. Go to "Settings," then "Accessibility." Select the checkbox for "Require alt text before posting."

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Reposted by UoY Digital Accessibility Unit

RNIB @rnib.bsky.social · 5d

What day is it?

Images of a scene from the film Mean Girls. The top image text reads 'On October 3rd, he asked me what day it was', then on the picture below it says 'It's October 3rd, the day you start using alt text!'

Both images show the character Aaron Samuels who's white with brown hair, a brown open shirt and blue t-shirt and is sitting at a school desk. Behind him is Lindsey Lohan's character Cady who is also writing notes in her book, has long fierce red hair and a grey open zip hoodie on. She's giddy and smiling as she confirms what day it is today.

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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 5d

Boosting for University of York staff - this should be really good session, so do join us to learn more about tactile data representation and different kinds of tactile resources. We have some great examples to show you!

UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 9d

UoY teaching staff! Do join us in person at 12:30 on 24th October for a session exploring different types of tactile resources, as well as how to create and use tactile resources to support teaching of vision impaired students. Book your place via the form:
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Photo of a student at a previous accessibility event - she has long dyed red hair and is wearing a black top, she is explaining the labelled replica skull and pen friend technology on the table in front of her.

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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 9d

And whether you are University of York staff or not, we have more information on this topic available in our blog - check out the most recent post on the Preparing to Teach Vision Impaired Students event, as well as our previous posts on tactile resources: blogs.york.ac.uk/digital-acce...

Digital Accessibility

Supporting and developing your digital accessibility progress.

blogs.york.ac.uk

UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 9d

UoY teaching staff! Do join us in person at 12:30 on 24th October for a session exploring different types of tactile resources, as well as how to create and use tactile resources to support teaching of vision impaired students. Book your place via the form:
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 16d

A thrill on the Foss, as it were

UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 16d

Also if you're in any way tempted to go in any flood water (I have no idea why but some people do seem to want to) then DON'T! There can be hidden debris and it is not at all clean water.

University of York Library @uoylibrary.bsky.social · 16d

The river is up in #York! If you like slightly whimsical videos of flooded rivers with a mellow sound track, this video is for you.

Normal service will resume shortly.

Reposted by UoY Digital Accessibility Unit

University of York Library @uoylibrary.bsky.social · 19d

We know a lot of our followers use Academia Edu - definitely worth reading the new Ts and Cs before deciding whether to accept them...

bsky.app/profile/npos...

Dr. Nick Posegay @nposegay.bsky.social · 21d

I'm sorry, worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable permission to my voice and likeness? For what now? In any manner for any purpose???

This is in academia/.edu's new ToS, which you're prompted to agree to on login. Anyway I'll be jumping ship. You can find my stuff at hcommons.org.

By creating an Account with Academia.edu, you grant us a worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable license, permission, and consent for Academia.edu to use your Member Content and your personal information (including, but not limited to, your name, voice, signature, photograph, likeness, city, institutional affiliations, citations, mentions, publications, and areas of interest) in any manner, including for the purpose of advertising, selling, or soliciting the use or purchase of Academia.edu's Services.

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Reposted by UoY Digital Accessibility Unit

Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 21d

Offer users multiple ways of understanding your content. This includes graphics, charts, summaries of long documents, icons added to headings and links, and alternatives for numbers. These things can help everyone, especially people with cognitive disabilities.

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Reposted by UoY Digital Accessibility Unit

Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 22d

Don't forget transcripts for video and audio. These will help many people, including blind users and low-vision users, deaf and hard-of-hearing users, people with ADHD, and people with audio-processing disorders. Transcripts also benefit search engines, people in quiet spaces, and people in a hurry.

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Reposted by UoY Digital Accessibility Unit

Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 21d

When creating PDFs, avoid using "Print to PDF." A screen reader user may still be able to access the text of PDFs created this way, but heading structure, alternative text, and any other tag structure will be lost. Using "Save As" or "Export" can preserve these tags.

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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 22d

Great to see a move to more accessible templates

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Reposted by UoY Digital Accessibility Unit

Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 22d

"Introduction to Web Accessibility" is a free course designed for people of all roles and all experience levels, so regardless of your background, there's something you can learn here.

www.edx.org/course/web-a...

W3Cx: Introduction to Web Accessibility | edX

Get a strong foundation in digital accessibility to make your websites and apps work well for people with disabilities, meet international standards, and provide a better user experience for everyone.

www.edx.org

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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 22d

And that's how you do alt text for text as image posts!

University of York Library @uoylibrary.bsky.social · 22d

Our hyper-local, mega-specific, extremely niche personal welcome screen is what greets new students and staff as they enter our library...

Welcome to those stepping into an academic library for the first time: it is massive and it can be intimidating but this is YOUR space. Welcome returning students – we hope you’re feeling refreshed! Welcome people of Yorkshire. Welcome visitors to the Borthwick, ready to get hands-on with 1,000 years worth of history in our archives. Welcome 3rd years who haven’t really been to the library much before but need to turn your 2:2 into a 2:1 sharpish; no judgement here. Welcome taught postgrads whose dissertations will be NICHE; we’ll support you any way we can. Welcome children of students, here to use the Family Study Room. Welcome watcher of the Entourage Season 1 boxset we inexplicably have in our audiovisual collection. Welcome people who love the Burton because it is Silent. Welcome people who love the Fairhurst because it isn’t. Welcome new academic, having a little look to see if we already stock your books. Welcome to the explorers of augmented and virtual realities in our Creativity Lab. Welcome first member of your family to go to University, you’ll be brilliant. Welcome to York everyone, and welcome to the Library.

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Reposted by UoY Digital Accessibility Unit

Lilian Joy @xlearn.bsky.social · 23d

Some tips on preparing to teach our VI students at York. Our lecturers and students have provided insights that have helped us to develop our practice further!

Preparing to teach vision-impaired students

As we head towards the start of semester, it’s a good time to prepare for our students. There will be lecturers new to teaching students who are vision-impaired (VI). This blog post aims to r…

blogs.york.ac.uk

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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · 23d

Our latest blog post is up! In this post, Lilian @xlearn.bsky.social provides the key points for any university staff preparing to teach blind or partially blind students this academic year:
blogs.york.ac.uk/digital-acce...

Preparing to teach vision-impaired students

As we head towards the start of semester, it’s a good time to prepare for our students. There will be lecturers new to teaching students who are vision-impaired (VI). This blog post aims to r…

blogs.york.ac.uk

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Reposted by UoY Digital Accessibility Unit

Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 23d

If you have an election results chart, the alt text needs to communicate the results. "Election results" is not enough. The same rules apply for alt text for images of weather charts. "Weather chart" doesn't cut it and doesn't convey what the chart is actually saying to users.

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Reposted by UoY Digital Accessibility Unit

University of York Library @uoylibrary.bsky.social · 29d

York Departments, Schools, Groups, academics etc - if you have the chance, please point incoming students towards the Library's Quick Start Guide to help get them up to speed with all we can offer them:

www.york.ac.uk/library/visi... #UoYTips

Your library quickstart guide

Welcome to the library, new students!

www.york.ac.uk

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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · Sep 5

University of York people! Whether staff or student, the new academic year is rushing towards us! Our lovely colleagues in the Digital Education Team have once again created their start of semester guide, with all you need to know about the VLE and more elearningyork.wpcomstaging.com/2025/08/15/s...

GUIDES: Start of Semester Readiness – Semester 1, 2025/26

Below are some key links for both staff and students, to help with understanding and using our learning technology tools (such as the Learn VLE, and Panopto video/lecture capture) going into the ne…

elearningyork.wpcomstaging.com

UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · Sep 5

Important reminder about the emergency alert test this weekend! A useful thread to know what to expect and how to report any accessibility problems.

RNIB @rnib.bsky.social · Sep 5

🚨 Are you prepared for the upcoming Emergency Alert test?

Here’s some helpful information you need to know.

'Reminder. 3 days till the UK Emergency Alerts Test. Okay' An iPhone style reminder.

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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · Sep 5

Live captions help so many people! Let's make them the conference norm

Dr Beth @drbeth.bsky.social · Sep 5

Today I'm really struggling with auditory processesing, and while the bits I've caught of this keynote seem really interesting, I'm hopelessly lost.

Can we normalise automated subtitles at conferences? (Even if sometimes they're bad)

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Reposted by UoY Digital Accessibility Unit

Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · Sep 3

Looking for a digital accessibility job? Or looking to hire someone for an accessibility role? A11yjobs is a digital accessibility job board.

www.a11yjobs.com

Find Digital Accessibility Jobs on A11yjobs.com

Discover top jobs in digital accessibility, including web accessibility, ARIA, WCAG, Section 508, ADA compliance, and more. Join the A11y community with roles on a11yjobs.com.

www.a11yjobs.com

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UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · Sep 1

#UoY University of York teaching staff - check out our roundup of upcoming digital accessibility training:

UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · Sep 1

Uni of York teaching staff! As we approach the start of another academic year, we have a smorgasbord of of digital accessibility training available to you. Sessions are online - most will be recorded, so if you're interested but can't attend, do sign up to receive the recording and materials 1/

UoY Digital Accessibility Unit @uoydigacc.bsky.social · Sep 1

(And you may notice the repeated mentions through the thread of teaching staff at the University of York - we do get people outside the institution trying to sign up to our sessions, which is very flattering and we love the enthusiasm, but we can only cover our own digital systems and policies!) 8/8

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