From policy to practice: how to embed accessibility standards at scale

To move reliably beyond providing individualised support for disabled students, all educators must design curricula that engage and empower each learner. However, the task of embedding universal design for learning into higher education teaching can feel overwhelming. To get started, universities should build a solid foundation of accessibility to grow from.

An accessible teaching and learning policy (ATLP) helps by setting out baseline standards across all taught modules and programmes. Our institution introduced its own last year, and while the policy itself was straightforward, the challenge was to get more than 2,000 academics – each with varying workloads, confidence levels and disciplinary contexts – to bring it to life. 

We quickly realised that collaboration would determine success, not just among educators and central teams, but also with disabled students, disability advisers and those who oversee legal compliance. Here is what we learned during the process.

Start with people, not policy

Policies don’t change practice – people do. Our early adopters played a crucial role. They were academics who already cared about inclusive design and volunteered to pilot the standards, test the guidance documents and share candid feedback.

Their value went far beyond feedback – they:

• Modelled accessible practice in real teaching contexts, bringing to light workload tensions and helping us find solutions
• Acted as trusted partners within departments, reducing scepticism and helping us understand local disciplinary norms
• Helped us refine training and resources before wider roll-out.

If you’re implementing a major change, identify these allies early. Support them, listen to them and platform them.

Bridge the communication gap between educators, disability teams and legal compliance

A communication disconnect between these staff was a persistent barrier. Each group often speaks a slightly different language.

• Academics focus on pedagogy and practicality
• Disability advisers focus on individual student needs
• Legal and compliance teams focus on minimum legal thresholds and risk.

When these conversations don’t align, staff receive conflicting messages and are often hesitant to act. We co-created a central Microsoft SharePoint resource with disability advisers, legal support and disabled students to provide clear information about the reasonable adjustments set out in the UK Equality Act 2010, along with  guidance on competence standards and best practice case studies from around the university.

This clarified key questions such as: 

• What’s a baseline accessibility requirement? 
• What’s the rationale for the recommended reasonable adjustment? 
• What’s legally required and what’s pedagogically desirable?

Bringing these groups together reduced anxiety about expectations on teaching staff, and helped them understand their responsibilities.

• A checklist for making disability inclusion a reality in higher education
• Universal design for learning: an introduction and getting started
• What the Baftas incident teaches us about psychological safety in universities

Build a support model that scales without overwhelming staff

To build capacity in departments, we used a hub‑and‑spoke model comprising:

• Central training: short, focused sessions delivered institution‑wide to introduce the standards and offer immediately actionable suggestions 
• Multimodal resources: step-by-step guides, FAQs, annotated exemplars and checklists 
• Localised adaptation: departments then contextualised the policy using discipline‑specific examples, tailored by department education leaders and supported by local early adopters.

If you want colleagues to embed accessibility, make the support itself accessible, flexible and tailored to different needs.

Align systems early: accessibility is everyone’s responsibility

Accessibility touches every part of the institution. We worked closely with:

• Quality and standards teams, ensuring accessibility became part of module approval processes 
• Digital teams, building accessibility prompts and templates into the virtual learning environment, making inclusive choices the default 
• Estates and infrastructure colleagues, ensuring teaching spaces supported effective use of audio-visual equipment. 

We partnered with disability advisers to map how the ATLP aligned with processes for documenting reasonable adjustments and existing student support pathways. This prevented contradictions and helped staff understand how accessible teaching helps disability services deliver more bespoke support. 

For leaders, the message is clear: accessibility must be treated as a whole‑institution endeavour.

Evaluate the process (not just the outcomes)

Student outcomes data often takes years to shift and is influenced by countless variables. Waiting for these results to judge whether a policy “worked” risks missing crucial learning opportunities and losing momentum. Instead, we adopted an action‑research approach to evaluate implementation in real time. This involved:

• Gathering immediate feedback from module leads 
• Observing workshop interactions 
• Reviewing accessibility compliance data from the virtual learning environment 
• Collecting reflective accounts from early adopters.

This process‑based evaluation uncovered small but important friction points, such as misunderstood terminology or difficulties navigating resources, that we could address quickly.

If you’re planning to implement accessibility standards or any major pedagogic change, four principles stand out:

• Centre disabled students in the work: their experience grounds decision‑making 
• Bridge communication gaps: staff leading strategic educational change, disability advisers and legal teams must speak to each other early and often 
• Align systems: policies are more likely to succeed when infrastructure, quality control processes and student support structures reinforce each other 
• Embedding accessibility is not a compliance exercise: it is a cultural shift towards more equitable learning.

Rachel Griffiths is a senior educator developer (inclusive education practice); Vrinda Nayak is the associate dean for taught students (racial equality and inclusion), both at the University of Exeter.

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