Digital Accessibility in Fine Arts and Music: Practical Fixes for Spring 2026

Arts and music courses often rely on rich, multimedia content -- images, audio, video, and complex notation -- that can present unique challenges for digital accessibility. This session will provide faculty and instructional designers with practical, actionable strategies to make arts and music materials more accessible to all learners. The session will focus on the most common accessibility barriers in these disciplines -- such as inaccessible images of artwork, music scores, audio/video content without captions or transcripts, and color contrast issues -- and share straightforward fixes that faculty can implement without advanced technical skills. 

By the end of the session, participants will be able to: 

1. Identify common accessibility barriers in arts and music course materials (e.g., images, audio/video, and color contrast issues) and explain why these create challenges for students using assistive technologies.
2. Describe practical strategies and tools for improving accessibility in fine arts and music content, including approaches for adding alt text, captions, and transcripts that align with WCAG 2.1 AA standards.
3. Apply a prioritized approach to remediation by recognizing which fixes are easiest for faculty to implement themselves and where to seek additional support for more complex issues.
4. Implement new, simple strategies to increase the accessibility of their pedagogy and assessment practices.

The format will be primarily presentational, with brief discussion pauses to address questions and share experiences. Participants will leave with actionable strategies, recommended tools, and resources to begin improving accessibility in their fine arts and music courses. The session will be recorded.

Register online with USM.

Presenter: Dr. Rhoda Bernard, Founding Managing Director, Institute for Accessible Arts Education and Assistant Chair, Music Education Department at Berklee College of Music. Dr. Bernard's Book: Accessible Arts Education: Principles, Habits, and Strategies to Unleash Every Student's Creativity and Learning (published in 2025 by Solution Tree Press; available at Amazon and at Solution Tree Press's website).