Accessibility Network

The Accessibility Network is a decentralized community of professionals across the University of Cincinnati who are cross‑trained in both their primary roles and digital accessibility. Instead of a single, standalone accessibility office, UC embeds accessibility experts directly into colleges, departments, and units.

This structure reflects how UC really works: content and tools are created everywhere, every day. To support that, accessibility expertise also needs to live everywhere, not in one central team that tries to “fix” things at the end.

The offices that make up the Accessibility Network directly create, manage, or influence UC’s electronic environment and support the creation of accessible content for persons with disabilities across the university. 

The Core Team brings together expertise from key units that shape UC’s digital and physical experience:

• DTS (Digital Technology Solutions): Builds, implements, and supports accessible, real‑world technical solutions and enterprise systems.
• Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning (CET&L): Integrates accessibility as an essential branch of inclusive pedagogy and supports faculty in designing accessible learning experiences.
• Office of Institutional Accessibility: Connects legal and compliance standards with best practices for inclusion of disabled community members and ensures UC’s policies reflect those standards.
• Accessibility Resources: Directly serves and advocates for disabled students, faculty, and staff; provides accommodations; and leads efforts in equity and access.
• Marketing and Communications: Ensures UC’s “front door” — websites, digital communications, and brand materials — is accessible and welcoming to all audiences.

Across these roles, the Accessibility Network shapes UC’s accessibility standards and guidance by combining technical, pedagogical, legal, and user‑experience perspectives; improves the systems and content people use every day, from learning tools and websites to communications and administrative processes; provides training, resources, and consultations so that individuals and units can build accessibility into their own work; and helps UC move toward compliance and equity by making accessibility a shared, embedded responsibility—not a last‑minute check handled by a single office.