University of Minnesota committee to shift Board policies from PDFs to accessible web pages to meet DOJ ADA guidance

The Governance and Policy Committee of the University of Minnesota heard staff describe a planned conversion of Board of Regents policy content from PDF documents to HTML web pages to comply with Department of Justice regulations implementing Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

"The biggest change ... you'll see with Board policy is shifting from using PDFs which you'll currently find on our webpage to actual web pages to house the content of Board policy," Jason Langworthy, Associate Secretary, said as he framed the Office of the Board of Regents' approach. Langworthy said the Office will update the policy template and page design and will return any change that would alter substantive policy for Board review and action.

The change is part of a systemwide effort to meet federal accessibility requirements, staff said. "We have been working with members of the University Marketing Communications web development team to create a new template for the HTML formatting, and it will include a print button," Krista Ibelby, Communications and Engagement Manager, said. She said the print function will generate a dated, policy-named printout sized to fit on 8.5-by-11 paper.

Committee members pressed staff on practical concerns such as font legibility and the ability to produce clean, printable versions. Chair Verhalen asked whether font choices like Arial could create readability problems because programs can render capital I and lowercase l similarly; Langworthy replied the team will follow web standards and choose accessible fonts, noting that Cambria has been used in current Word/PDF workflows.

Regents and staff also discussed the scale and resource implications of the work. Executive Director Steves said the committee's presentation offered "a glimpse" of a much broader effort across the University, with "hundreds and hundreds" of people working to meet a federal deadline. President Cunningham noted most of the work is being done by existing staff rather than by hiring large numbers of new employees, and cautioned that the effort will demand time and administrative expense.

The committee received the presentation as an information item; no formal committee action was taken on accessibility templates during the meeting. Staff said they will continue to work with policy implementers to ensure language is clear, the web templates follow accessibility best practices, and any substantive changes are returned to the Board for consideration.