At City St George’s, University of London, we are proud that improving the accessibility and inclusivity of our teaching, and teaching materials, is understood not just as a legal requirement, or a “nice to have”, but a core responsibility of our Learning Enhancement and Development (LEaD) department and Associate Deans for Education across the university. This blog post describes a partnership between LEaD, the School of Science and Technology (SST)’s Associate Dean for Education, the heads of department across the school, and a significant number of module leaders across Maths, Engineering, and Computer Science in the 2024-2025 academic year to improve the accessibility of teaching materials.
Contents
Project Goals
The goal of the project was to look systematically at improving the accessibility of teaching materials in a way to make the most immediate impact to the largest number of students. The school therefore decided that the priority would be Year 1 modules (over 1,000 students), focusing our accessibility review and training efforts on one department at a time. This focus was to make sure that students coming into the programmes of Maths, Engineering, and Computer Science had immediate access to high-quality materials. On the school side, this was led by the Associate Dean for Education (ADE) Anton Cox, who is a long-time member of the university’s Digital Accessibility Committee (DAC) and has been a school champion for accessibility at least since 2020.
Review Process
As the school educational technologist primarily working with SST and thus the most familiar with the school’s particular teaching methods, resources, and needs, I worked with our digital accessibility team within LEaD to combine our efforts and provide this review.
In order to systematically analyse each Level 1 module, Victoria Brew-Riverson, Sylwia Frankowski-Takhari, Pui Kei Chan and Sandra Partington, our digital accessibility (DA) team, built a detailed spreadsheet review tool and process which combined automated checks like Ally with human checks of additional materials in each module, this was used with a severity and priority matrix, to create tailored module reports, via a template. What was going to be looked at in each module, and how, was confirmed with the ADE to make sure it met the school’s needs as well as LEaD’s recommendations. The heads of department were then invited to get involved, and Engineering decided to go first!
Each Year 1 Engineering module was then reviewed in detail by our DA team, highlighting accessibility requirements that were already present, and listing which improvements were needed for each module. These improvements were then ranked based on the level of impact for students and different kinds of student needs. Each module leader then was sent an individualised report about what changes were needed for each module; why the change was important and how it would improve the student experience; asynchronous step-by-step guidance to make those changes; and offers of specialised workshops for those who wanted to learn these skills in a synchronous environment.
Review Outcomes & Training
While some of the accessibility issues flagged were not subject specific, the disciplines of SST presented some particular challenges for accessibility. For instance, all images in PowerPoints and lectures need to have alternative text provided, but describing an image of a book’s author is quite a different task to making sense of a detailed construction diagram. Likewise, while PDFs can be effective in conveying information in small file format sizes, good accessibility practice requires alternative formats to be provided for the material so that it can be accessed via screenreaders if needed. It’s much easier to post a Word document along with a PDF on Moodle to achieve this, whereas Maths equations using LaTex have some extra steps needed to create accessible alternatives.
To meet these needs, the DA team substantially revised existing workshops and created entirely new ones, including a workshop specifically about how to write alt text for complex images. This has expanded and improved the DA’s team practice and capacity for offering training beyond SST!
Once the review of Engineering Year 1 modules was complete, the same process was carried out for Computer Science and Maths, with successive rounds of training offered as well. A number of module leaders across the three departments attended training, with some even engaging in 1:1 sessions for particular accessibility questions.
What impact did this have?
Following the initial module reports, tailored workshops, and then time over the summer to implement many of these changes, the DA team undertook a quick check exercise in October 2025 to see what changes had been made.
| Module | Original score | Score as of Oct 2025 | Difference in score | Notable areas of improvement |
| Module A | 61% | 93% | +32% | Significant reduction in untagged PDFs and scanned documents |
| Module B | 50% | 67% | +17% | Significant reduction in untagged PDFs and contrast issues |
| Module C | 73% | 83% | +10% | Significant reduction in contrast issues, untagged PDFs and images without alternative text |
| Module D | 39% | 44% | +5% | Reduction in contrast issues |
The LEaD team finished the project by updating the ADE and module leaders, and have so far received feedback from module leaders including:
“Thank you for reviewing the module again. I have made massive changes following the report you sent to me last year. I have attended workshop organised by LEAD and follow the guidelines, which are very helpful.”
What’s next?
LEaD’s DA team continues to work with staff across the university to improve the accessibility and inclusivity of our practices at City St George’s. Workshops on accessible materials and inclusive teaching practices continue to be offered regularly, and for those who prefer to learn at their own pace, the online guidance is always available. There’s also a way to organise bespoke training and feedback with the DA team – so get in touch!
