Centre for Inclusive Design alongside the University of South Australia, hosts one of the world’s only University-accredited professional certificate in web accessibility. The PCWA covers Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 and 2.1. This course gives you the insight into WCAG 2.0 and 2.1 to help make you an accessibility champion and is internationally recognised!
The course runs over a 6-week period with a recommended 10-12 hours dedicated to it per week. It is run via distance education making it accessible to all people, with alumni now spread across the world. For more information, please contact info@cfid.org.au.
Overview
- Qualification - Professional Certificate
- Provider - Centre for Inclusive Design (W3C Member) and University of South Australia
- Prerequisites - Some knowledge of web design or development
- Study Mode - Distance
- Course Duration - Six weeks
- Study Load - Set your own pace over the duration of the course. 10-12 hours a week including assessment tasks.
- Assessment - Three assignments examining website usability, captioning and compliance auditing.
- 2023 Course Dates -
Intake 1: Course commences Monday 13 February 2023 - Enrolments close 30 January
Intake 2: Course commences Monday 12 June 2023 - Enrolments close 29 May
Intake 3: Course commences Monday 9 October 2023 - Enrolments close 25 September - Cost - AUD $2,400 (ex GST) for Australian students / AUD $2,400 for international students
Course Structure
Learning modules you'll cover in the 6-week course include:
- Why should you care about the online needs of people with disabilities? Students first gain an understanding of the challenges faced by users with a disability through hands-on experience with assistive technologies. This module provides the ethical, practical and financial arguments for implementing accessibility across your organisation.
- W3C accessibility standards in policy and legislation - Focusing on the key institutions, policies and legislative frameworks that create and implement accessibility initiatives, such as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and its Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), students explore accessibility standards and how they have been adopted both in Australia and internationally.
- Essential WCAG 2.0 and 2.1 techniques - Week three focuses on the practical implementation of the WCAG 2.0 and 2.1 ‘A’ level of compliance, the relevant success criteria, and how to incorporate the guidelines into your daily work practices.
- Advanced WCAG 2.0 and 2.1 techniques - This module focuses on implementing the success criteria of the WCAG 2.0 and 2.1 ‘AA’ level of compliance and the merits of striving for the highest level of accessibility, ‘AAA’ compliance.
- Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 2.0 - Although WCAG 2.0 and 2.1 receives the most attention, the W3C WAI also provides guidelines for authoring tools and user agents. Discover ATAG 2.0 and how these authoring tool guidelines can be useful to industry professionals who create or use authoring tools.
- Evaluation and future technologies - The web is rapidly changing and new technologies bring with them significant implications for accessibility. In this module, students examine important trends such as the accessibility of mobile devices, apps and the cloud, their current accessibility and potential expanded accessibility, the way in which emerging HTML 5 and WAI-ARIA standards will provide support, along with the new Silver standard that will be focusing on what is likely to become known as WCAG 3.0.
Teaching Staff
Dr Scott Hollier – Senior Lecturer and Accessibility Consultant
As someone who is legally blind, when Scott first attended university he had to get his textbooks read to him. He has since committed his professional life to improving access to the web for people with a disability. His work focuses on the accessibility of computer and internet-related technologies, having completed a PhD entitled ‘The Disability Divide: A Study into the Impact of Computing and Internet-related Technologies on People who are Blind or Vision Impaired’.
Scott is the author of ‘sociABILITY: Social media for people with a disability‘ resource published by Media Access Australia (now Centre for Inclusive Design) which is now used by the United States Government to help agencies improve the accessibility of social media. He is also the author of Centre for Inclusive Design's Service Providers Accessibility Guide, designed to provide the National Disability Insurance Scheme service providers with practical guidelines on producing accessible communications for people with disabilities.
Scott is also the Specialist Adviser – Digital Accessibility for Centre for Inclusive Design and is a member of the Advisory Committee of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the organisation primarily responsible for developing international standards for the web.
Dr Ruchi Permvattana – Lecturer, University of South Australia
Dr Ruchi Permvattana is a published author in the field of accessible e-learning and has completed a PhD (Information Systems) titled “The VIVID Model: Accessible IT e-learning environments for the Vision Impaired”. Other qualifications include both undergraduate and Master degrees in Design, specialising in online interface design.
Dr Permvattana’s work experience includes several years of research for the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Curtin University, focusing on resolving online education for vision-impaired students, lecturing and subject coordinating for the School of Information Systems at Curtin University, and the creation and the design and development of accessible websites. Dr Permvattana’s primary career goal is to work towards improving the independence and employability of people with a range of disabilities.
Who should do this course?
- Developers and programmers
- Web designers
- Content writers
- User experience designers and testers
- Accessibility or compliance managers
- Project managers
- Scrum masters
- Web content managers, administrators and/or editors
- Senior ICT managers
- Digital team members and marketing staff
- Internal and external communications specialists and managers
Post Course Support
Once you complete the course, the alumni have direct contact with the course teaching staff through email and private forums. You will have the opportunity to:
- Continue your web accessibility learning by receiving the latest news on the industry
- Ask questions about web accessibility as they apply to your work environment and projects
- Engage with other students and learn from their experiences
Testimonials
- Senior Test Analyst, Planit - This six weeks course gave me the confidence and passion to learn about accessibility. I can now say happily that I am an Accessibility Professional and will keep working towards building an inclusive web.
- IT Infrastructure Support Analyst, Canada Revenue Agency - If you wish to fully understand the web, documents and software accessibility and how they relate to WCAG 2.0 [now WCAG 2.1], then the Professional Certificate in Web Accessibility is the right course!
Collaboration Partners
