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001
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Starting a digital accessibility role? Your first challenge may not be technical at all.

002
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Do not announce a program. Inventory first, and sort out who owns what.

003
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In week one, draw the RACI before you do anything else.

004
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A RACI names who owns web, course content, procurement, and complaints. Get it agreed and written down on one page.

005
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Publish or fix the accessibility statement. Confirm the complaint route reaches a monitored mailbox and test it yourself.

006
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Then open the intake log. Do not build anything on top of unclear ownership.

007
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In weeks two to four, find out what you actually own.

008
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The scope includes course materials, LMS content, library databases, research portals, and scanned readings. Higher education faces a volume no other sector approaches.

009
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Ask every department what else they use — and ask again. Departments run their own subscriptions more here than in almost any other sector.

010
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Also in weeks three to four, find out who signs contracts — all of them.

011
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The only thing that works is embedding the accessibility review in the purchasing system itself.

012
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A clause sitting in a policy PDF does nothing. Departments bypass it without even noticing.

013
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In month two, build two gates and one default for new content.

014
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A pre-publication check stops broken content before it goes live.

015
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A vendor review workflow means nothing new gets bought broken.

016
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Accessible-by-default LMS templates mean new course content starts accessible rather than needing remediation later. That is how you win the academic-freedom debate — make the accessible path the easy path.

017
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Also in month two, meet actual disabled students — not personas.

018
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One working relationship, paid for their time, will surface more real barriers than a semester of automated scanning.

019
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In month three, triage the document estate, score your program, and make the budget ask.

020
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Rank legacy scans by enrollment and reuse. A rarely used reading carries different stakes than a core text used every semester.

021
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Score your program's maturity honestly.

022
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Then take one page to whoever holds the budget: what exists, what it costs, and what happens at three funding levels.

023
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If you can only do four things, these are them.

024
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Publish the accessibility statement.

025
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Log every complaint.

026
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Embed the purchasing gate in the actual procurement system.

027
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And stop broken content at publication with accessible-by-default templates. Almost none of this costs money, and together it removes most avoidable exposure.

028
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Inventory before you announce anything. Embed the gate in the system. Make the accessible path the easy default.

029
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Read the full article for the law and detail behind each step.