Faculty expertise is one of an institution’s most valuable and least replaceable resources. Yet too much faculty time goes to rebuilding and maintaining digital course content: updating last fall’s modules for spring, applying one policy change across a dozen pages, repairing formatting, or rebuilding a course after a platform migration.

The work is necessary. The problem is how often it has to be repeated, and how much of that repetition sits outside the judgment and subject matter expertise only faculty can provide.

The hidden workload around teaching

Technology should reduce the friction around expertise

The most useful educational technology reduces the friction around the work only instructors can do.

CourseArc is an accessibility-first course authoring and management platform built to make digital learning content easier to create, update, and reuse. Magic Course Builder gives instructors an organized course structure to work from instead of a blank page. Reusable, centrally managed content can reduce the need to recreate the same material across courses, sections, and semesters.

Faculty still decide what students need to learn, how ideas should be explained, and what a useful assessment should ask. CourseArc helps turn those decisions into consistent digital course content more efficiently.

Build accessibility into the process

Accessibility becomes more difficult and time-consuming when it is treated as a final review step. By then, faculty and support teams may need to return to dozens of pages and fix issues that could have been addressed during development.

CourseArc incorporates accessible structures and guidance into the authoring process. This helps authors consider accessibility as they create content rather than treating remediation as a separate project after the course is built.

The important decisions remain with the author. Faculty write meaningful image descriptions, choose descriptive link text, and determine how content should work for their students. They do that work inside a system designed to support those practices from the beginning.

Put the time where it matters most

That time can support more thoughtful feedback, stronger course revisions, and the mentoring that drew many faculty members to the profession in the first place.

Courses benefit as well. When content is easier to manage and update, instructors are better positioned to keep materials accurate, current, and responsive to student needs.

A practical starting point for any institution is to ask faculty how many hours in a typical week go to managing course content rather than teaching. The answer can make the hidden workload visible and show where better tools and processes would have the greatest impact.

CourseArc gives faculty expertise a better system to work within.

If you ask your faculty that question and the answer surprises you, the next step is seeing what a different process looks like. We’ll show you the platform and answer whatever comes up.

Request a demo → coursearc.com/request-a-demo

About CourseArc

CourseArc is a content authoring and management platform that helps teams create, update, and scale accessible, engaging online learning without coding or specialized technical skills.

See what accessibility built in looks like across the course-authoring process.

First, a deadline update

On April 20, 2026, the Department of Justice extended the compliance dates for its Title II web and mobile accessibility rule.

Public entities with a total population of 50,000 or more now have until April 26, 2027. Public entities with fewer than 50,000 people, along with special district governments, have until April 26, 2028.

That extra year matters. But it should not be mistaken for a change in direction.

The extension moved the dates. It did not change the rule’s WCAG 2.1 Level AA technical standard or its general scope. Public institutions also remain responsible for their existing obligations under the ADA while preparing for the new technical compliance date.

Most public institutions know the deadline is approaching. Fewer have figured out who is supposed to act on it and what that work looks like once it reaches campus.

The hard part is not writing an accessibility policy. It is making sure the next PDF, video, quiz, discussion board, and course page meets the standard without turning every new piece of content into a separate remediation project.

And that work does not belong to just one department.

The rule applies to web content and mobile apps a public institution provides directly, as well as those made available through contractual, licensing, or other arrangements. In plain English, an institution cannot outsource its Title II responsibility to a vendor. If a vendor provides an inaccessible digital experience on the institution’s behalf, the institution still owns the outcome.

The answer looks different depending on your role.

For instructional design teams

How do we build accessible courses without adding another layer of work to every project?

For IT and procurement

Procurement teams face a different question:

How do we know whether a platform actually supports our accessibility obligations?

WCAG 2.1 Level AA is the technical standard required by the Title II rule. A vendor should be able to explain how its product performs against that standard and provide a current Accessibility Conformance Report.

But documentation is only the beginning.

Institutions also need to look at the workflows people will actually use. Can faculty create inaccessible content inside an otherwise accessible platform? Which features have known limitations? What happens when an issue is reported? How quickly does the vendor respond? What accessibility expectations are written into the contract?

Buying a platform with an accessibility statement is not the same as understanding how that platform will perform across a real course-development process.

For administration and legal teams

Where does our responsibility begin and end?

It follows the services, programs, and activities the institution provides. That can include public websites, enrollment systems, learning management systems, course-authoring tools, mobile apps, and the digital materials students use to complete their coursework.

The rule includes limited exceptions for certain content, including qualifying archived materials, some preexisting documents, certain individualized password-protected documents, preexisting social media posts, and content posted independently by third parties. Those exceptions are specific. They are not a blanket exemption for course content, vendor platforms, or material stored inside an LMS.

Institutional ownership does not mean administrators or legal teams must personally repair every document. It means the institution needs a clear system for deciding who is responsible, how platforms are evaluated, how content is reviewed, how barriers are reported, and how problems are corrected.

What the rule requires in practice

WCAG 2.1 Level AA is the required technical standard.

• Institutions can choose to follow a newer standard, such as WCAG 2.2, but the Title II rule specifically identifies WCAG 2.1 Level AA.
  

Most active digital course content will need to conform.

• Web pages, documents, images, videos, quizzes, and other digital experiences can all fall within the rule’s definition of web content. The fact that content is password-protected or located inside a course does not automatically place it outside the rule.

Accessibility has to continue after the deadline.

• An institution can remediate thousands of existing files and still fall behind when the next semester begins. New courses will be developed. New PDFs will be uploaded. Videos will be recorded. Platforms will change.
• The Department of Justice makes clear that, after the applicable compliance date, public entities must continue ensuring that their covered web content and mobile apps meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA.

Faculty-created content is part of the institutional picture.

• The rule does include exceptions: qualifying archived materials, certain preexisting documents, individualized password-protected documents, social media posts published before the compliance date, and content third parties post on their own
• Read together, they describe material an institution has largely stopped touching. Active course content, the platforms you license, and the files sitting in your LMS don’t fall under any of them.
• Faculty training matters. But training alone will not solve the problem if the tools they are expected to use make accessible course creation difficult.

April 26, 2027
That is the compliance deadline for public entities with a total population of 50,000 or more.

The question now is not whether an institution can audit enough content before that date. It is whether the institution can build a process that still works the day after the deadline, the following semester, and every time someone creates something new.

Why CourseArc started with accessibility

CourseArc came to market in 2015 after founders Katie Egan and Bethany Meyer struggled to find a course-authoring solution that was easy to use, collaborative, consistent, and capable of meeting the accessibility needs of the sector.

Accessibility was not added after the platform was built. It helped define what CourseArc needed to be from the beginning.

As accessibility standards have advanced, CourseArc has continued to evolve. Its current Accessibility Conformance Report documents the platform’s evaluation against WCAG 2.0, 2.1, and 2.2 at Levels A and AA.

That does not transfer an institution’s Title II responsibility to CourseArc. It gives faculty, instructional designers, and course-development teams an authoring environment designed to help them carry that responsibility more consistently.

About CourseArc

CourseArc is a content authoring and management platform that helps teams create, update, and scale accessible, engaging online learning without coding or specialized technical skills.

See what accessibility built in looks like across the course-authoring process.

This article provides general information about the ADA Title II web and mobile accessibility rule. It is not legal advice.

This month, NPR published a story about a ninth grader named Soraya. She has dyslexia. Text-to-speech, dictation tools, the ability to photograph a whiteboard before a teacher erases it—these are what made school work for her. Then a blanket screen ban arrived, and the tools disappeared with it.

Soraya’s story is being told as a policy story. But it is really a design story. The question it raises is not whether screens belong in classrooms. It is whether the learning we put on those screens was ever built for the students who depend on it most.

Just last month—four weeks before this national story ran—704 instructional designers, faculty developers, and learning experience leaders gathered for a webinar to work through the same problem from the inside. Not a screen ban. Not a policy brief. A room full of people asking: how do we actually build courses that reach every learner, without burning out the people responsible for creating them?

Paula McDougald runs design and development at Virtual Arkansas, an extension of the Arkansas Department of Education that serves students statewide through a catalog of over 180 courses. Every teacher on staff completes Quality Matters accessibility training in their first year. Accessibility is not aspirational at Virtual Arkansas. It is the job.

McDougald brought data to the May 7 session that reframed the burden argument entirely. Over the year, Virtual Arkansas processed 2,700+ images using CourseArc’s AI alt text tool, saving more than 102 hours of design time—with time reductions of up to 80% on complex instructional visuals like charts and infographics.

“Good alt text isn’t just describing what you see. It’s actually communicating meaning.”
-Paula McDougald • Virtual Arkansas

That line is the thread connecting Soraya’s story to what Virtual Arkansas built.

Alt text is not a checkbox. For a student with low vision, it is either a door or a wall. What McDougald proved, with a year of real numbers, is that building accessibility in from the beginning does not slow teams down. It frees them up. The burden disappears when the tools are designed correctly.

CourseArc Co-Founder Katie Egan opened the May 7 session by naming something the field had long understood but rarely said plainly.

“Faculty don’t resist change. What they really resist is burden.”

Katie Egan • Co-Founder, CourseArc

The same is true of the educators who did not fight for Soraya’s exemption. It was not indifference. It was a system that handed them a rule without handing them a resource. Accessible design does not fix broken policy. But it does mean that when policy fails, the content itself does not.

The same is true of the educators who did not fight for Soraya’s exemption. It was not indifference. It was a system that handed them a rule without handing them a resource. Accessible design does not fix broken policy. But it does mean that when policy fails, the content itself does not.

At CourseArc, accessibility is not a feature. It is not a final check or a compliance layer added at the end of a build. It is the architecture—built into every template, every default, every AI-generated output from the first click. Accessible, engaging learning as the standard, not the exception. Not because it is the right thing to say. Because it is the only way to build.

Katie closed the May 7 session with a line she did not plan to say. She had just heard Paula’s numbers. She paused, then said simply: “It’s working for everyone.”

For Soraya, that is not a small thing. It is the whole thing.

CourseArc is a browser-based course authoring platform built with accessibility as its foundation. See what it looks like when every learner is considered from the start.

This is what we build toward, every day. If you’re curious about how it works, the door is open.

Accessibility isn’t just a checklist or a legal requirement—it’s about creating content that works for everyone. According to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), providing accessible content ensures that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the digital world.

In digital learning, this means:

• Empowering Every Learner: Ensuring students who use screen readers or alternative navigation can achieve the same outcomes as their peers.
• Improving Outcomes for All: Many accessibility features, like text-to-speech browser tools or zooming in on text, follow Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles that benefit all students, including those with different learning styles or temporary disabilities.
• Future-Proofing Content: With the shifts to WCAG 2.2, staying ahead of standards ensures your institution stays compliant as regulations and technology evolve. This eliminates the need for retrofitting, which is expensive and time-consuming.

We know that for many instructional designers and faculty, the technical side of accessibility—like MathML for equations or complex alt text—can feel overwhelming. That’s why CourseArc is built to handle the heavy lifting for you.

Here is how we help you share the love through user-centered design:

• Accessibility Built-In, Not Bolted On: Every one of our 40+ content blocks is designed with WCAG 2.2 AA compliance in mind. Whether you are building an interactive matching activity or a complex data graph, the code is already optimized for screen readers and keyboard navigation.
• AI-Powered Efficiency: Our new AI tools, like the Alt Text AI Generator, help you create descriptive text for images in seconds, ensuring visual content is meaningful for every student.
• Simplified STEM: Making math and science accessible is notoriously difficult. CourseArc’s Equation Editor and Accessible Graphing Blocks ensure that complex notation and data visualizations translate cleanly for assistive technologies.

Consistency via Templates: Our boilerplate templates ensure that every course your team builds maintains a consistent, accessible structure from the start, saving you time and reducing errors.

Choosing accessibility is an act of advocacy for your learner. It says, “We value your presence in this digital classroom.”

At CourseArc, we are proud to partner with organizations who use our platform to expand access and drive measurable gains in student success.

Ready to see how easy inclusive design can be? Schedule a personalized demo.

Let’s build a more inclusive future, one module at a time.

The biggest hurdle is making sure students who can’t see the equation can hear it accurately. When you type an equation just using your keyboard, a screen reader often reads a confusing jumble of symbols and words.

• Actionable Step: Always use a professional equation editor (like the one built into CourseArc). These tools automatically create the necessary MathML structure behind the scenes, so the equation is read aloud clearly, like, “The Pythagorean theorem: a squared plus b squared equals c squared.” The tools also tag the content ‘Math Content’ so students know they can analyze the equations at a more granular level, going character by character if needed.
• See it in Action: Listen to a live example of how using an accessible equation editor changes how an equation is read with a screen reader versus just using plain text in the following video.
• Take it a Step Further: Consider adding a description for how the equation can be read aloud. Often the way an equation is read with symbols is different from the way a math instructor would read the equation aloud. This helps all students understand the language of STEM content. Check out an example on this Reading Equations page.

Graphs, charts, and diagrams are crucial to STEM content but they are often inaccessible.

• Actionable Step: Every time you include a graph, ask yourself: “What is the single most important message or trend this visual is showing?” Summarize these key trends and relationships rather than focusing on every little detail.
• Data Tables: For complex charts, add a properly tagged data table using header tags. This provides a navigable, text-based version of the data for screen readers.
• Beyond Color: Don’t rely on color alone to convey meaning (e.g., “the red line indicates growth”). Use different shapes (squares, circles) or patterns (dashes, dots) to differentiate lines so the data is clear for all students.

Accessibility shouldn’t be an afterthought, but a fundamental part of the design process. By starting your project with pre-configured templates, you can save time and provide consistency for students on each content page.

• Actionable Step: Use templates to save time and establish consistency with a clear hierarchy. Page templates with heading styles and shorter templates for repeated visual descriptions help you build accessible pages quickly. This allows students to navigate seamlessly between sections using their assistive technology tools.
  • Here’s an example of a template for describing a graph of a parabola that can be repeated all throughout the lesson. Only the highlighted and bracketed text needs to be revised for each image:
    “The graph is a parabola opening [upward/downward]. The [lowest/highest] point is at [(#,#)]. The graph crosses the x-axis at approximately [#] and [#] and the y-axis at [#].”
• Cognitive Load: Organizing your modules consistently through templates reduces the cognitive load on students, letting them focus on the complex subject matter rather than figuring out how to navigate the page. You can further reduce cognitive load by chunking complex content using tabs or accordions to make complex processes easier to digest.

While the first three steps provide the foundation, AI can be the “force multiplier” that helps with the time-consuming parts of accessibility. AI acts as a bridge, translating complex visual or technical data into inclusive formats in seconds.

• Actionable Step: Use AI as a “description assistant.” Upload a complex diagram to a tool like Gemini and ask something like: “Describe this for a screen reader user, focusing on the key trends and scientific relationships.” This gives you a high-quality image description draft to refine instantly. We created a CustomGPT to help with this process so you don’t need to be an AI prompt engineer to get reliable results. Try out Image Insights with a ChatGPT account or learn more about the tool here.
• Converting Handwriting to Math: AI can now convert images of handwritten equations into MathML. This allows you to write naturally on paper or tablets while ensuring the final digital version is fully readable by assistive technology.
• Take it a Step Further: Always perform a “Human-in-the-Loop” check. While AI is excellent at providing a solid first draft, a quick review ensures it hasn’t misinterpreted a subtle nuance in a graph or added extra details you don’t need to include.

By adopting these simple steps, you can ensure that the complexity of your subject matter is the only challenge your students face.

Learn how to apply these strategies efficiently and see how technology, including powerful AI features can work for you by viewing our most recent webinar.

Writing high-quality alternative text and long descriptions is a critical part of designing inclusive content, but it can also be one of the most time-consuming steps in the process. Our new AI Alt Text Generator tool, built directly into the Image block, is designed to help.

Whether you’re uploading a simple icon or a complex data visualization, CourseArc’s AI will suggest meaningful alt text and—when appropriate—a long description prompt that guides users to additional context. The result? Less time spent on repetitive tasks, and more consistency across your courses.

“The AI Alt Text Generator is a game changer for rapid, accessible design. Its accuracy is perfect on basic images, and I have challenged it with complex images, and it was crazy close to perfect on those as well. Only very minor tweaks needed from me. Also, for complex images, it generates alt text with basic information along with instructions for users to view the long description, so I don’t have to create anything extra. It would be difficult to overstate how much time this tool saves me!”
— Jill Souza, Founder and Principal Consultant, Not My Lemons Learning, Ltd.

This feature supports teams working toward WCAG and ADA compliance and makes it easier to meet internal accessibility guidelines, without slowing down production.

Getting started is often the hardest part. Whether you’re launching a new course or updating existing content, organizing ideas into a clear structure takes time. Magic Import is designed to accelerate that first step.

With Magic Import, you can paste in a storyboard, content outline, lesson plan, syllabus, or pre-existing content and CourseArc’s AI will convert it into CourseArc lessons and pages. For editors who are unsure about how to structure their course content, Magic Import can accommodate unstructured text and lesson plans and generate a suggested outline. . You’ll get a framework of modules and pages that reflect the topics and flow of your material, ready to build on and refine.

This feature is especially useful for teams working on tight timelines or managing large-scale development. It removes the “blank page” barrier, helping you move from idea to structure in just a few clicks, while still giving you full control over the final product.

Assessments are a vital part of any course, but writing effective questions that align with your content can be time-intensive. Magic Quiz Questions helps streamline that process by generating quiz questions based on your existing CourseArc content, pre-existing quiz questions from other platforms, or any text you paste into the tool. 

In seconds, you can produce multiple-choice, true/false, ordering, matching, and short-answer questions that reflect the key ideas in your content. Use the AI-generated quiz as a starting point, then customize as needed to fit your objectives and learner needs.

Whether you’re building formative checks or summative assessments, Magic Quiz helps ensure every learning experience is supported by meaningful evaluation—without the manual lift.

These features mark an important step in CourseArc’s approach to AI—one that prioritizes usability, accessibility, and instructional quality. By integrating AI tools directly into the platform, we’re making it easier for teams to stay focused on what they do best: designing meaningful learning experiences.

No plug-ins, no outside tools—just practical support right where you’re already working.

Join us for our upcoming New Feature Friday webinar where we will walk you through all of the new features and take your questions along the way, or contact our team to learn more.

Previously, we had both the ADA and Section 508, but there was no firm requirement for compliance with WCAG. Section 508 acknowledged the importance of WCAG but it only applied to federal agencies and did not mandate compliance. The new ADA Title II ruling changes that by clearly defining and enforcing accessibility standards for state, local, and public entities that receive public funding. Under this ruling, these entities are now required to comply with WCAG 2.1 Levels A and AA, eliminating any guesswork or subjectivity in ensuring digital accessibility.

It’s not the most recent version, which is WCAG 2.2, but when they were drafting this rule, 2.1 was the guideline at the time. It is a nice middle ground to make sure everyone can achieve it. 

One of the biggest barriers organizations face is the accessibility of older but still relevant content. If a document or webpage is outdated and no longer serves a purpose—like an old meeting notice—it doesn’t need to be remediated. However, if older content remains relevant, such as important PDF documents or reports, it must be made accessible. The sheer volume of legacy content can be overwhelming, making it crucial for organizations to prioritize remediation. On the other hand, updating website accessibility is generally more manageable since modern HTML, when properly done, is more straightforward to remediate.

The first step in addressing accessibility for legacy content is to assess what is still relevant and remove anything that is no longer needed. You can’t move forward until you understand the scope of the issue. Once you’ve identified what remains, the next step is to consult an accessibility specialist who can guide the remediation process.

Organizations may need to approach remediation in phases, prioritizing the most critical and frequently accessed content first. For public entities, this often means focusing on essential documents and resources that serve the widest audience. Since remediation requires specialized skills, hiring an expert and securing the necessary funding is key to ensuring compliance.

In summary, organizations should:

1. Assess content to determine what is still relevant.
2. Prioritize remediation, focusing on the most important and frequently accessed content first.
3. Hire an accessibility expert to ensure compliance and guide the process effectively.

Automated accessibility testing can serve as a useful starting point, identifying approximately 30–40% of potential issues. However, it does not replace manual testing. Many accessibility barriers—such as those related to usability, keyboard navigation, or screen reader compatibility—require human evaluation to detect and resolve effectively.

While automated tools can help organizations get started, manual testing remains essential for achieving full compliance and ensuring an inclusive user experience. Personally, I focus exclusively on manual testing, as it provides a more thorough and accurate assessment of accessibility challenges.

Accessibility isn’t just about meeting legal requirements—it enhances the overall user experience. Accessible design leads to cleaner code and a more intuitive, user-friendly interface. When digital content is designed with accessibility in mind, it naturally becomes more functional and efficient for everyone.

Accessibility also drives innovation. Many solutions originally developed for people with disabilities end up benefiting a wider audience. For example, curb cuts and ramps were designed for wheelchair users but also help parents with strollers, travelers with rolling suitcases, and even cyclists. The same principle applies to digital accessibility—features like captions, voice commands, and simplified navigation improve usability for all users, not just those with disabilities.

“Accessibility also drives innovation. Many solutions originally developed for people with disabilities end up benefiting a wider audience.”

One of the most common misconceptions about accessibility is that it only benefits a small percentage of the population. Many organizations question whether the effort is worth it, not realizing that accessibility improvements enhance the experience for all users. Features designed to assist people with disabilities—again, things like captions, keyboard navigation, and clear visual contrast—also improve usability for a much broader audience, including aging populations, people in temporary situations (like a noisy environment), and even general users who prefer more intuitive design.

Another major misconception is that accessibility is a one-time fix or something that stifles creativity. Some companies market quick-fix solutions—like snippets of code that claim to make content fully accessible—but these often fail to address deeper usability issues. True accessibility requires thoughtful, ongoing effort and should be integrated into design and development from the start.

The best way to move beyond a compliance-only mindset is to involve people with disabilities in the conversation. Their lived experiences provide invaluable insights into what truly makes content accessible and user-friendly. Even if there were no legal requirements, ensuring equal access should be a priority—because accessibility is not just about compliance, it’s about inclusion and equity.

1. The first step is to define a clear accessibility policy. Organizations should establish a commitment to accessibility moving forward. For example, a policy might state: “All new digital content and materials will be designed with accessibility in mind and will adhere to the latest WCAG guidelines.” Additionally, it’s important to outline a strategy for handling existing content—determining what needs to be remediated and how older assets will be addressed.
2. Next, organizations should assess and categorize their content. This involves identifying what content is still relevant and evaluating its current level of accessibility. Some materials may no longer be necessary and can be archived, while others require remediation. Understanding the scope of work is critical before moving forward.
3. Finally, organizations need to develop a concrete action plan. This includes determining whether in-house expertise is sufficient or if external specialists need to be hired. Prioritization is also key—focusing first on the most frequently accessed or legally required content. By aligning resources and setting a structured approach, organizations can ensure a sustainable, long-term commitment to accessibility.

While the specific approach may vary for each organization, these foundational steps provide a roadmap for building a more inclusive digital experience.

*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Image Insights is a customized version of ChatGPT designed to assist visually impaired users by providing detailed descriptions of images. This tool extracts text from images using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and generates comprehensive descriptions that capture not only the visual elements but also the nuances, such as emotions, settings, and implied messages. The aim is to ensure that users have an accurate understanding of what the image portrays, enhancing their ability to engage with visual content.

Image Insights is tailored to meet the specific needs of visually impaired users. It goes beyond basic image descriptions to offer in-depth explanations that help users grasp the full context and subtleties of visual content. This customization is vital for enabling visually impaired individuals to access information that is otherwise difficult to interpret without sight.