By taking the broad concept of accessibility and breaking it down into achievable goals and milestones, the ACMM mitigates risk through iterative improvement and proactively addresses Office of Civil Rights (OCR) settlement requirements in a manageable timeline based on campus resources.

Accessibility Staffing Examples

An "IT Accessibility Officer" can help promote the topic of accessibility at the campus and it is critical that such a role not exist in a vacuum. This individual would not be expected to know how specific screen-readers function or the code necessary for keyboard accessibility on a website, but rather to coordinate and facilitate the institutional conversation specific to ICT accessibility. Possible responsibilities could include:

Lead a campus ICT accessibility committee or working group
Engage other constituent groups across campus that are involved with student services
Oversee ICT accessibility compliance documentation
Participate in the evaluation of exception requests

Sample Job Descriptions

The following include various accessibility job descriptions collected from state and national job postings. These job descriptions are intended to be a starting point for you to edit and modify as appropriate for your college's needs.

Institutional & IT Accessibility Role

Alternate Media & Assistive Technology Role

Instructional Designer & Accessibility Role

Caution - it can be tempting to include many different accessibility responsibilities into a single job description, such as combining an instructional designer role with an assistive technology specialist role as well as including IT procurement evaluation duties along with alternate media conversion responsibilities for students with disabilities. Adding too many responsibilities can dilute the actual effectiveness of the position and lead to challenges in meeting job expectations. It is recommended to define job duties and responsibilities so that it is clear if the individual will be focusing efforts on instructional/academic needs or that of institutional accessibility demands.

Preparing for the ACMM: Steps for Colleges and Districts

Colleges and Districts with an interest in participating in the Accessibility Capability Maturity Model (ACMM) can engage in a variety of preparatory steps, even if the organization has not scheduled an ACMM training and assessment. Colleges and districts can build a solid foundation for a successful ACMM implementation by working on any of the items below. Organizations can either choose items that reinforce existing accessibility efforts or those that require improvement in their organization.

Secure an Executive Sponsor for ACMM: This sponsor should be a Vice President or higher for single-college districts or a Vice Chancellor or higher for multi-college districts and will play a pivotal role in ensuring accessibility is an institutional priority.
Establish a Work Group/Committee/Task Force: Establish a committee of stakeholders from across the organization to begin accessibility planning efforts, discuss areas of greatest need, and strategize ACMM goals and milestones.
Promote Accessible Document Training: The foundations of accessible digital content are consistent across all platforms. Encourage or require faculty and staff to register for WebAIM Accessible Document training. This training is paid for by the Accessibility Center and is available at no cost to the CCC.
Create a Web Inventory: Gather a list of all websites and pages under the organization's purview, including the main website, departmental pages, and other affiliated websites. The Pope Tech Website Scanning tool can help with this inventory and identify accessibility barriers. This tool is paid for by the Accessibility Center and is available at no cost to the CCC.
Collect ACRs/VPATs for Technology Purchases: Encourage or require purchase requestors to include an Accessibility Conformance Report (also known as an ACR or VPAT) with other pre-purchase documentation. This is an important first step in evaluating the accessibility of acquired technology products and services.
Replicate Effective Processes In Other Areas: Identify successful accessibility efforts and extend them to other areas. For instance, if you have processes or procedures that are working well for online classes (such as implementing Universal Design for Learning, including accessibility statements, or selecting captioned videos), extend these processes to in-person classes. If there is one department that has robust processes for checking marketing materials for accessibility, replicate these in other departments, etc.
Address Accessibility Issues In Canvas: Instructors and support staff can quickly identify and remediate accessibility issues across one or several Canvas courses by using Pope Tech Dashboards for Canvas. Colleges and districts can install this tool in their Canvas instance and promote its use. This tool is paid for by the Accessibility Center and is available at no cost to the CCC.
Have Regular Conversations About Accessibility: Emphasize the crucial role of accessibility in larger conversations surrounding strategic planning, communications, technology acquisition and implementation, DEIA efforts, events, teaching best practices, and other relevant areas.
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ACMM Status Levels

Status levels are designed to reflect the maturity of each milestone in the Accessibility Capability Maturity Model (ACMM). The ACMM annual assessment uses five status levels: Not Started, Initiated, Defined, Established, and Optimizing. Each status level needs to be supported by evidence provided by the College/District/CCC Entity.

When determining the status level for a milestone, all related defining characteristics must be at the same status level in order to claim that level. Otherwise, the lowest level must be selected. The table below is a summarized version of a detailed document that describes each element of a status level. This document will be made available in the near future.

Status Level	Not started	Initiated	Defined	Established	Optimizing
Overall	No process	Ad hoc or developing	Common practice	Standard practice	Evolving practice
Processes/Procedures	None	Inconsistent, informal	Consistent, informal	Consistent, formal	Consistent, formal, continually optimized
Process Documentation	None	Generally absent	Outline	Complete, reflects standard practice	Complete, reflects evolving practice
Resources	None	Tentatively identified, not yet allocated	Identified, not yet allocated	Identified and allocated, in class specification(s)	Identified and allocated, admin review resourced, in class specification(s)
Scope/Scale	Not applicable	Small scale adoption or ad hoc	Pilot or significant adoption	All activities covered	All activities covered, performance data tracked
Responsibility & Authority	Nothing assigned	Tentatively assigned responsibility or authority	Assigned responsibility or authority	Formally assigned responsibility & authority	Formally assigned responsibility & authority, leads improvements
Evidence	Identify barriers to starting work	Description of ad hoc process or implementation plan Description of possible resources	Draft documentation Description of proposed resources Personnel assignment(s)	Documentation or process documents Budget allocations or other resources Personnel assignment(s) Class specification documentation	All evidence of Established, in addition to: Measures of success definition(s) Administrative review documentation Performance metrics data