On the systemwide Academic Senate website, there are posted various policy documents under review, many of which have comment periods closing this week (tomorrow, Dec. 10). One in particular is titled "Systemwide Review of Proposed Presidential Policy IMT-1300 Information Technology Accessibility" and deals with accessibility standards for disabled people in regards to IT materials.* Such materials seem to be recordings and other instructional items. The new standards are to begin April 24, 2026, and appear to apply to anything in active use at that time, i.e., anything other than archived items.
Exactly what will be required on that date is unclear from the viewpoint of actual instructors who will be teaching after that date. Yours truly suspects there is little awareness of whatever changes may be required, other than among some Senate officials and others in the UC administration. The date, April 24th, falls within UCLA's spring quarter; it is not aligned with the start of that quarter and seems to be an arbitrary deadline. It is unclear why a change in instructional policy would not be linked to the various campus calendars. But there is a hint in the document that the date is linked to some federal requirement. In any case, it is also unclear exactly what changes instructors will be mandated to make by April 24th.
In fact, there is nothing at all clear about what will be required. For example, anyone who has used Zoom or similar programs that have a captioning option will know that the transcripts provided are often inaccurate. Are such imprecise transcripts considered good enough? There is a Q&A section in the document, but it doesn't answer such questions.
The Good News is that the proposed policy is listed on the Senate's website. The Bad News is that virtually no faculty read that website.
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