The Web Accessibility Directive of the European Union came into force on 23 September 2020. The Directive obliges the University of Turku to ensure that all the materials (texts, photos, files, videos) shared on the public website have to be accessible. Therefore, also thesis files have to be accessible. The competence to produce accessible contents is also an important professional life skill.
In the “Creating an accessible thesis” course you get a short introduction to planning, checking and publishing texts that comply with the principles of accessibility. The course is particularly suitable for students and supervisors, but also to all other members of the University community who produce text documents.
The course is based on self-study. It is open on an ongoing basis, and can be completed at your own pace or e.g. according to a target schedule agreed on in a thesis seminar.
The course consists of six sections that contain instructions and instructional videos as well as thesis templates provided by the University.
After completing the course, you are familiar with the principles and basic concepts of accessible communications, you know how to use the templates of the University of Turku, complete checks and revisions on them with the help of an analysis tool, and publish them as accessible documents.
The Creating an accessible thesis course and its materials are available on Moodle: https://moodle.utu.fi/course/view.php?id=22834
Accessibility refers to both intelligible contents and technical accessibility. A thesis is accessible when
You can ensure the accessibility of your file by using the text styles and instructions of the thesis template provided by the University of Turku. However, read the instructions of your Faculty and Department carefully before using the template!
Once the Word file is accessible, it is easy to create an accessible PDF file.