Progress update on UIC’s ADA Title II Digital Accessibility Initiative

Dear UIC community,

As Technology Solutions continues its commitment to supporting the UIC community as we create an inclusive digital environment and meeting the April 26, 2026, ADA Title II deadline, we write to share progress, information and calls to action for leadership, faculty and staff.

Achievements in digital accessibility

Services

• More than 1,300 participants have attended monthly training and office hours.
• More than 280 accessibility consultations have been provided to colleges and units.
• Performed scans covering more than 770 UIC websites and over 3,500 courses.
• Hosted the second UIC Accessibility Liaison Workshop with over 50 attendees from 33 units and departments.

Engineering and innovation

• Launched cost-effective UIC PDF and RED scanning tool; 4,895 PDFs and 165,037 webpages and Box documents were scanned for accessibility.
• Releasing the UIC Equalify Dashboard to centralize accessibility data and position UIC as a digital accessibility leader in higher education (expected Jan. 30, 2026).
• Building an AI-powered tool to convert inaccessible PDFs into accessible text.

Where we stand today

• UIC’s website and course accessibility scores are improving, but further progress is needed.
  • The average score for a Red site is 48% as of October 2025 (24% in October 2024), although the scores vary from 2% to 98% by site.
  • Fall 2025 overall course accessibility in Blackboard: 62.9% (up 4% from October 2024); file accessibility: 40.4% (up 8% from October 2024).
• The most common course content issues include color contrast errors, missing image descriptions, untagged documents and a lack of headings. Learn more at UIC Canvas Accessibility.

What we heard from you: ADA Title II survey results

A survey was sent to UIC accessibility liaisons and their colleagues on Sept. 16 to help measure college and unit readiness for the ADA Title II deadline. Key findings from the survey showed:

• Website readiness vs. documents: 67.4% of units and departments have knowledge of the number of UIC public-facing websites in their area, but only 10.9% are aware of the number of digital documents and course materials in their units.
• Training vs. practice: 67.4% of units participated in training, yet only 30.4% have shared accessibility best practices for course materials within their colleges and units.
• Planning vs. progress: Only 22% of units have an ADA Title II plan for their area, and just 17% feel on track for April 2026 compliance.

Calls to action

The ADA Title II deadline is April 26, 2026. Below we have shared suggested deadlines, which will assist in making progress to meet this compliance deadline.

Everyone:

• Complete General Accessibility Awareness Training by Nov. 26, 2025.
• Leverage resources from the Digital Accessibility Resource Hub.
• Participate in Accessibility Training Events and exchange best practices with colleagues.
• Engage the Digital Accessibility Services for training, consultation and evaluation.

Deans, directors, department heads and accessibility liaisons:

• Use the ADA Title II Roadmap Template to plan and utilize the Digital Accessibility Services to gather additional data as needed before the end of the calendar year 2025.

Faculty and instructors:

• Review course content to remove accessibility barriers before the start of spring 2026 instruction, Jan. 12, 2026.
• Apply guidance from the Resources for Instructors.
• Create accessible course materials proactively.

Website owners and content creators:

• Monitor accessibility scores, create accessible content and prioritize remediation of key materials. Review accessibility scores by Nov. 15.
• Complete unit work by Jan. 30, 2026, and reach out to the Digital Accessibility Evaluation Report Service for further assistance.

For more info, please refer to Red Accessibility.

Lastly, we’d like to acknowledge the work of the Digital Accessibility Steering Committee, which was formed in late 2024 and charged by the chancellor with guiding Title II implementation. While Technology Solutions has now taken on much of this responsibility directly, the guidance and support from the Digital Accessibility Steering Committee has been invaluable up to this point. We thank all the committee members for their service to the campus.

While we continue to build and provide resources to support this work and integrate it into our Learning Management System transition and UIC website redesigns, every individual on campus has a role to play in creating an accessible educational environment for all. Please review the resources above and don’t hesitate to reach out to the Digital Accessibility Team via accessibility@uic.edu if you have questions.

Thank you for your ongoing commitment and feedback.

Sincerely,

Jason Maslanka
Chief Technology Officer

JaEun Jemma Ku
Director of Digital Accessibility

For more information, please contact:
Jason Maslanka
ithelp@uic.edu