For Faculty
UCF is committed to access for students with disabilities. Student Accessibility Services (SAS) is a resource to fulfill this commitment. By partnering with you, we ensure students experience access in their coursework through accommodations or other outcomes.
The Office of the Provost supports course accessibility and provides information on faculty resources for creating accessible course materials.
One way to show your commitment to access is to include a statement in your syllabus about course accessibility. The Faculty Center for Teaching and learning offers an example Course Accessibility Statement that you can use.
For additional information on how SAS and faculty can collaborate, please review the document below, other resources on this page, or review FCTL’s Faculty FAQ for SAS.
Faculty and SAS Guidance and Collaboration
Faculty Webcourse – New
Need a certificate for your portfolio? Interested in learning more about disability and accessibility? SAS designed a webcourse specifically for faculty called Accessibility by Design: From Social Justice to Classroom Access. This course will give an overview on the history of the Americans with Disability Act, disability civil rights and social justice, proactive course access and design, and ways to create an inclusive environment on-campus and in the classroom. A certificate is given upon successful completion of the course, which is estimated to take 2 – 4 hours and can be done at your leisure.
To enroll:
- Go to “Workday”
- In the search bar at the top of the screen, type “Browse Learning Content” and select “Browse Learning Content” from the search results
- Search for the course by entering SA1973 or “Accessibility by Design” in the catalog search bar
- The Accessibility by Design course should pop up, which you can select and then enroll
Frequently Asked Questions
Courses designed with access in mind from the outset require fewer accommodations and offer a more inclusive experience. The following documents offer various ideas for facilitating an accessible course experience.
Better course design can create better access and more inclusion for students with disabilities.
The Digital Accessibility Page has tips and resources on making videos, Word files, PowerPoint files and PDF files accessible
Your course information is important. To ensure everyone in your course can access it, follow the recommendations below:
- ALL VIDEOS should be properly captioned and turned on in class when played. Auto-captioned videos are not accessible.
- Only accessible PowerPoints should be used.
- Pictures and images with words embedded should have a descriptive caption below.
- Images, charts, and graphs should also have Alternative Text to make them accessible for screen readers.
- Check the color contrast of presentation fonts.
- Paper handouts should be available in a digitally accessible format (Word, PowerPoint), upon request.
- Use "Save to PDF" from an accessible source document such as Microsoft Word to create an accessible PDF. DO NOT use "Print to PDF."
- DO NOT use non-accessible presentation formats like Prezi.
Keep in mind, some software such as Microsoft Word and Powerpoint have an Accessibility Checker option. Please be sure to use this feature when creating course content, PDFs and presentations.
For additional assistance, contact AT Services (atservices@ucf.edu).
Knights Access Instructor is an online portal for UCF professors. If you have students in your class who are connected with Student Accessibility Services, you are welcome to use this portal to view and provide information regarding accommodations for students. This is an optional tool for faculty members to use.
Below are some tips to consider for effective classroom communication:
The Attendance, Exam and Assignment Adjustment (AEAA) is appropriate when a student has a chronic disabling physical or mental condition that is cyclic in nature. The student’s condition is stable; however, there are periodic flare ups that impact course attendance/assignments and are unpredictable. Please see the document below for additional information in regards to this accommodation. The AEAA accommodation should only be considered when initial options available to all students do not cover a specific, remaining concern for this student.
Example of a Reasonable AEAA Plan
Please note, AEAA is not a license to miss class whenever. Most every class has an absence limit that, once exceeded, makes it impossible to satisfy course objectives. Responsibility for completing class work is always in effect.
The link below is a guide for faculty regarding the notetaking accommodation. Contact us if this guide does not answer all of your questions.
UCF faculty teaching courses at the Downtown Campus will follow the same accommodation processes as main campus with one change to the Exam Request Process.
Downtown Testing and Accessibility Services will be using a NEW platform, RegisterBlast, to allow faculty to submit exams and quizzes. Please review the instructions below on how to navigate the RegisterBlast software.
UCF Faculty can log in to RegisterBlast using this link: UCF Faculty RB log in
Faculty Guides: