2025-06-14: Reflecting on GAAD 2025 at ODU: A Deep‑Dive into "Accessible by Design"

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Figure 1: A virtual slide from Old Dominion University's GAAD 2025 event highlights "Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD)" during a hybrid session on inclusive design.


Celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), Old Dominion University Libraries successfully hosted "Accessible by Design: Creating Inclusive PDFs Using Adobe Acrobat" in collaboration with the recently established Employees with Disabilities Association (EWDA). Led by Dr. Brett Cook-Snell, this hybrid workshop brought together faculty, staff, and students both in person at Perry Library Room 1306 and online via Zoom for a thorough investigation of digital accessibility that went far beyond technical training to address fundamental questions about inclusion, ableism, and universal design. I attended the session virtually via Zoom, and in this blog post, I will share my firsthand experience and reflections. Since its launch in 2021 (Figure 2), when the first event was planned as a library-only endeavor, GAAD at ODU Libraries has evolved into a ritual. It has evolved over years into a campus-wide celebration with past cooperation involving the Office of Educational Accessibility and several academic departments. The event last year, for instance, concentrated on increasing web archive accessibility; as the WS-DL blog summarizes, "Accessibility is not a one-time fix but an ongoing process that requires continuous evaluation and improvement." Reiterating ODU's dedication to creating a community of education, advocacy, and connectedness among all faculty and staff, regardless of disability status, this year's collaboration with EWDA marked yet another forward step.



Constructing Community via Cooperation and Leadership

The session began with strong reflections on the universality of disability; instead of merely explaining why accessibility matters, it aimed to demonstrate how to do the work step by step, including its challenges. As speaker, Tim Hackman, Dean of University Libraries, underlined that  “We're all only temporarily able-bodied, and disability touches every family eventually, so the real question is: Will the tools we build today still welcome us tomorrow?” Head of systems development at the library Holly Kubli gave insightful background on ODU's increasing dedication to GAAD, noting that this season marked the university's fifth year commemorating the day, from a library-only project in 2021 to a campus-wide cooperative effort. Combining advocates and practitioners from all across the university to foster "a community of education, advocacy, and connectedness among faculty and staff, regardless of disability status, to address shared challenges, promote inclusivity, and enhance accessibility across the university," the collaboration with EWDA marked a notable extension of these efforts. Identifying himself as queer, bipolar, and neurodiverse while acknowledging the land of the Powhatan Confederacy and Virginia's role in historical injustices, Dr. Cook-Snell, the recently elected president of EWDA, brought both technical expertise and lived experience to the workshop.  Emphasizing personal commitment to challenge university policies, his approach linked the work of accessibility to more general social justice initiatives.  Emily Harmon, vice president, who Dr. Cook-Snell credited as "the brains behind this operation," and Kristen Osborne, mentoring chair, helped to ensure virtual attendees stayed fully engaged throughout the session by facilitating correspondence between in-person and online participants (Figure 3).



Recognizing Systemic Barriers and Ableism

The workshop included a crucial instructional component on ableism and systemic barriers, which resonated with attendees before we began the technical training. From homes to businesses, grocery stores, and even family dynamics, the conversation looked at where ableism shows up in daily life. Participants offered careful examples covering the structural obstacles in education and the high cost of access tools to the planning stage when accessibility issues are sometimes disregarded.  One especially poignant illustration of how inclusion calls for deliberate attention even in close quarters was a participant reminding family members to say goodbye to a nonverbal nephew. The discussion touched on several forms of ableism, including the use of euphemistic language like "differently abled," microaggressions like "my OCD is kicking in," and presumptions about disabled people's capacities that result in either condescension or lowered expectations.  Participants highlighted the range of accessibility issues that exist throughout university operations by citing anything from the absence of Braille printers to rigid work rules.  This basis enabled one to link individual actions to more general concepts of equity and inclusion, so helping to explain why technical accessibility training matters beyond simple compliance.

Figure 2: A look back at GAAD celebrations at ODU Libraries: From 2021 to 2024

Technical instruction and practical learning

With Dr. Cook-Snell guiding participants through key steps including auto-tagging documents, adding alternative text to images, ensuring proper reading order, and making interactive forms navigable by assistive technologies, the technical part of the workshop concentrated on practical skills using Adobe Acrobat Pro creating accessible PDFs.  Emphasizing Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), the training focused on referencing ODU's official IT policy mandating compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.  Although hand editing is usually required for best results, participants discovered that the auto-tag feature in Adobe Acrobat provides a great basis for accessibility. Important ideas, including contrast ratios, descriptive link text for screen readers, and the distinctions between decorative and functional images that call for alternative text descriptions, were discussed in the session.  Dr. Cook-Snell explained the need of appropriate document structure for screen reader navigation, showed participants how to negotiate the reading order panel, and displayed the accessibility checker feature.  Participants asked intelligent questions about managing workflow when documents need frequent revisions, juggling accessibility with security concerns for sensitive documents, and selecting suitable screen readers for testing throughout the technical instruction. Several participants said they had fresh respect for accessibility tools they had not known existed; one attendee said, "I didn't know this tool existed.  I am thus actually quite eager to play about with it a little more.”  Another participant verified that the second time around the process became "slightly easier," so motivating ongoing skill development.  The conversation exposed the difficulty of implementing accessibility policies as well as the sincere dedication of ODU community members—even in face of technological constraints—to create inclusive digital spaces.

Figure 3: Image shows a hybrid session of the event in progress. In the top-left panel, a live video feed captures the in-person attendees at Perry Library Room 1306. The top-right panel features Kristin M. Osborne, joining virtually from ODU Global. The bottom panel shows Emily S. Harmon, also participating remotely.


Community Input and Next Projects

Extensive comments gathered at the workshop will guide the next EWDA projects. Participants suggested several valuable improvements, including providing step-by-step checklists for reference during hands-on activities, sharing materials through multiple channels (Google Drive, Zoom chat) for better accessibility, implementing a "flipped" approach where participants attempt tasks independently before group problem-solving, offering progressive learning opportunities through multi-session series, and establishing regular "office hours" for ongoing accessibility support. One participant's recommendation for a seminar series, "I think this would be a great seminar and not just stopping here, but offering it in several stages...  Like today was intro, then perhaps we do another one in a month with an emphasis on a different component". The event effectively exposed many attendees to EWDA's mission and ongoing projects, including developing mentoring programs, building communication channels via newsletters and social media, and forming advocacy committees to compile community comments on accessibility improvements. Encouragement of attendees to join EWDA's expanding membership—which welcomes allies dedicated to accessibility advocacy as well as workers with disabilities— to show their dedication to inclusive participation from the beginning, the company also declared an active logo design contest, inviting community members to provide graphic representations of their mission.



Looking Ahead: Institutional Change and Continuous Impact

Beyond the immediate attendees, the success of the workshop attracted interest from Dr. Cook-Snell, who mentioned Provost Payne's expressed desire in bringing comparable programming to the university level, and from Dean Dice of the College of Education, who underlined the importance of "actionable items" that can significantly challenge university community barriers.  This awareness reflects the larger momentum around accessibility that defined GAAD 2025 globally, as organizations all around concentrated on "Committing to Change" using pragmatic, hands-on methods to turn awareness into actual accessibility improvements. The popularity of "Accessible By Design" shows that effective, meaningful accessibility training calls for both consciousness-raising about disability inclusion and technical skill-building about accessibility.  The workshop laid a basis for ongoing institutional change rather than one-time awareness by combining useful tools with more general conversations of ableism and institutional barriers. While the passion and careful participation shown by participants suggest continuous interest in developing accessibility competencies, Dr. Cook-Snell promised to create more thorough written guides based on participant feedback and to set regular office hours for ongoing accessibility support.  Notwithstanding technical difficulties, the hybrid format effectively modeled inclusive programming by allowing both in-person and remote participants to interact with the material, so offering a template for the next EWDA projects. Accessibility is everyone's responsibility, as GAAD 2025 reminds us globally; ODU's workshop gave community members the tools and inspiration to make accessibility a top concern in their daily work, so transcending compliance towards real inclusion.




-- Md Javedul Ferdous (@jaf_ferdous)




Acknowledgment

I'd like to acknowledge Dr. Michael Nelson for his indispensable support in reviewing my blog. His proficiency and insights significantly enhanced its quality.
 

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