Since the opening of the Usable Materials Center in 2022, Purdue instructors have received more help, guidance and support in developing accessible course materials than ever before. Today, these services continue to expand with more instructors being equipped with the skills needed to make their courses accessible to all students.
Purdue’s Disability Resource Center (DRC) launched the Usable Materials Center (UMC) to remove barriers for instructors aiming to improve the usability and accessibility of their course materials. Susan Lausier, manager of Auxiliary Aids and Services and assistant director of the DRC, oversees the center.
“Accessibility and inclusion are everyone’s responsibility at Purdue,” Lausier says. “While the UMC is providing an ever-increasing number of accessibility checks and document remediations, we want to equip instructors from a variety of disciplines with the knowledge, skills, and resources to select and develop their own usable materials. We also want to foster an ongoing dialogue around this topic, so we invite instructors to engage with the UMC in whatever ways will benefit them and their students.”
Pictured: Susan Lausier, manager of Auxiliary Aids and Services and assistant director of the Disability Resource Center
While material conversion and video captioning are the center’s most used services, the UMC is ramping up others, including:
- Accessibility checks
- Workshops
- Hands-on training
Cecilea Mun, a visiting instructor in the College of Liberal Arts, recently completed a virtual training with the UMC.
“During the training, someone from the Usable Materials Center teaches you how to remediate all of your documents for accessibility purposes. The center can also help remediate documents for you if you need additional support. It has saved me a lot of prep time for my future courses, and it makes the courses more accessible from the start.”
For more information about Purdue’s Usable Materials Center and accessibility services offered through the Disability Resource Center, please visit the DRC's website.
Read more stories related to Disability Awareness Month
Emily Jones
Communication Manager for Student Success Programs, jone1594@purdue.edu