Accessibility Resources for Students
Georgetown provides the following resources, among others, to help make our classrooms, campus and the student experience more inclusive and accessible.
Requesting Accommodations
Students who need to make disability accommodation requests should contact the appropriate disability support office for their academic program. We encourage students to make requests with sufficient time for review and consultation before academic or campus residency deadlines.
Embracing Disability Culture
Disability Cultural Center
The Disability Cultural Center (DCC) supports, educates, and empowers disabled community members, celebrates disabled people’s achievements and advocates for a climate that promotes social justice.
Disability Studies Program
Bringing together cutting-edge research in the humanities, social sciences, and health sciences, Disability Studies is a robust field of inquiry which analyzes the cultural and political significance of disability.
Career Resources
The Cawley Career Center guides offers information for disabled students about how to get started in their job search, strategies to consider and what rights they have under local and federal laws.
Student Groups
Georgetown Disability Alliance, GU Signs, Active Minds, Best Buddies and Disability Law Student Association are among the student groups who support the disability community.
Reporting Bias/Discrimination
Georgetown University has a rich tradition of embracing people from a wide spectrum of faiths, ethnicities, cultures and backgrounds. The university considers acts of hate, bias and discrimination unacceptable and antithetical to its commitment to an inclusive and respectful community.
Talk to a Student Ombudsperson
A Student Ombudsperson or other designated individual for your campus can discuss concerns or problems in an informal and confidential way.
Make Your Course Materials Accessible
Georgetown’s learning management system, Canvas, already has built-in accessibility features but it’s important that web content created within Canvas through discussions, assignments, etc., and documents or videos uploaded in Canvas also be accessible.
Web Content
Like any other web content, content you create within Canvas needs to be accessible to people who may be accessing it in many different ways. There are easy things you can do to make your content accessible such as adding alt text to images or making sure link text is descriptive. See our 5 essential fixes for things you can easily do to produce accessible content.
Documents
You can also make your Microsoft office or Google documents accessible using built in tools. The following are accessibility resources for common software:
Creating an accessible PDF is more complicated and depends on how it is created. If you start with an accessible Microsoft or Google document, your PDF will likely be accessible. If you start with a scan, it will be more difficult and you will need Adobe Acrobat professional. Adobe documentation covers the different ways of creating PDFs. LinkedIn Learning is another good resource that is available to everyone with a Georgetown NetID. LinkedIn Learning includes courses on Creating Accessible PDFs and Advanced Accessible PDFs.
Video and audio recordings
If you are producing video or audio recordings you will need to make sure that they are captioned or include transcripts. YouTube has automatic captioning, though you will still need to edit your captions to make sure they are accurate.
Use Digital Texts and Library Resources
Lauinger Library has an assistive technology station where you can use technologies like Zoomtext Magnifier, JAWS, Dragon Naturally Speaking, and FSReader.
HathiTrust, the Accessible Text Request Service, requires coordinating with the Library for access. Students should contact accessservices@georgetown.edu.
A free trial from Kurzweil 3000 offers learners new multi-sensory software to read, comprehend, synthesize, apply, and demonstrate their knowledge.
- Learning Ally
- Bookshare
- National Library Service at the Library of Congress
- Emergency Electronic book database
- Publishers offering electronic textbooks
The following resources provide digital texts: