VCCS POLICY NO: N/A
EFFECTIVE DATE: 05/06/2026
REVISED DATE: 05/06/2026
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Purpose:
In accordance with Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, all persons are entitled to access the college website and its content. This policy provides guidance to the college community in creating, modifying or updating content on its websites.
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Definitions:
Accessible: Individuals with disabilities are able to independently acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions and enjoy the same services within the same timeframe as individuals without disabilities, with substantially equivalent ease and effectiveness of use.
Content: Anything on the college's websites, including but not limited to, audio, video, images, tables, forms, documents (in any format, including .docx and .pdf) and html.
College Websites: Any website under college control providing content and functionality for the college's programs or services, including all subordinate and intranet pages and sites and web-based interfaces to applications, whether developed, maintained, or offered in-house or through third parties. This definition does not include sites that are independent of the college and do not provide college programs or services (such as sites that are linked to from the college’s websites) or personal sites that are individually managed by faculty or students.
Digital Accessibility Benchmarks: The college has adopted the most current version of World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2, Level AA as its standard for digital accessibility. The college will routinely review the policy as standards evolve.
Equally Effective Alternative Access: As used in this policy, Equally Effective Alternative Access means an alternative format, medium, or other aid that provides timely access to and accurately communicates the same content as the original format or medium, and which is appropriate to an individual's disability. To provide equally effective alternative access, the college need not ensure that individuals with disabilities achieve the identical result or level of achievement as individuals without disabilities, but the college must provide appropriate auxiliary aids and services as necessary to afford individuals with disabilities an equal opportunity to obtain the same result, gain the same benefit or reach the same level of achievement, in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs.
Fundamental Alteration: A change to the college's services, programs or activities that fundamentally alters the nature of the services, programs or activities, including academic courses and technology. A determination of what constitutes a Fundamental Alteration may be made only by an individual or committee designated by the college president.
Undue Burden: A proposed course of action that would result in a significant financial and administrative burden. Because an institution must consider all resources available when reviewing claims of Undue Burden, the determination of what constitutes an Undue Burden may only be made by an individual or committee designated by the college president. In situations where an undue burden has been documented, the college will provide Equally Effective Alternative Access.
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Policy:
All content and aspects of the college’s websites should conform to Digital Accessibility Benchmarks, except where an individual or committee designated by the college president determines that doing so would represent an Undue Burden or Fundamental Alteration. In such cases, the college will provide Equally Effective Alternative Access as defined below.
All personnel who are involved in the procurement, preparation and maintenance of the college’s websites and digital resources, services and platforms are expected to implement measures to advance this policy. This includes incorporating accessibility into development roadmaps; planning for compliance in the project planning, design and proposal stages; expecting that vendors’ services comply with the Digital Accessibility Benchmarks; and testing for accessibility before publication or launch.
A website or web content is accessible if it has been designed so that individuals with disabilities can perceive, operate, navigate, interact with and understand it. Web accessibility encompasses disabilities that affect individuals' ability to access online content because of visual impairments (e.g., blindness or color blindness), auditory impairments (e.g., deafness) and motor impairments (e.g., lack of fine motor control or difficulty using a mouse). With the use of accessible design features and tools, web content can be displayed in ways that are more accessible to individuals with disabilities. Headers, document formatting tools, alternative text for images, captions for videos and the ability to navigate a page without using a mouse are examples of ways that web content and functionality can be made accessible to users with disabilities.
The college will provide a mechanism for users to inform the college of accessibility issues they encounter while using the college’s websites. The college will work to resolve reported issues as quickly as possible.
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Procedures:
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Other Information: