In a recent video from Innovative Educators, Tom Tobin gives a short overview of what we can learn from Star Wars about making accessible places where intergalactic beings and droids can easily get around and communicate with each other. He highlights the consistent use of ramps, wide doors, limited or no stairs, and translation devices. Other Star Wars features include personal mobility devices that look like furniture or speeders, droid medical, automotive, and air traffic technicians and AI-assisted companions, sensory-rich and sensory-adjustable environments, fully accessible government, educational, medical, and community spaces, and wearable personal navigation tools. While some of these enduring, universal design features were meant to help us imagine an exciting galactic future, the film team of the franchise’s first movie was comprised of people from across the ability spectrum who used their needs and knowledge to intentionally shape and show a more accessible, usable world where anyone could be a hero.
Even though we don’t have intergalactic cloud cities or regular access to personal hovercrafts yet, there’s a lot we can learn from Star Wars’ universal design imperative – and the timing is perfect. The federal WCAG 2.1 Accessibility Standards must be met by April 2026, a component of which requires public colleges and universities to ensure students can easily get around our Blackboard courses and communicate with each other.
Course accessibility is certainly not a new concept, but as technologies have evolved and more universities offer hybrid and online learning options, the need for proactive design has become essential to ensure that all students, regardless of course modality, can engage with digital content. In a recent interview, Sheryl Burgstahler (retired Director of Accessible Technology Services at University of Washington), had this advice for colleges and universities responding to the WCAG mandates:
Applying Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Principles is Proactive
Applying UDL principles to our Blackboard Ultra courses and materials is a proactive way to meet the WCAG 2.1 standards. Even before a student shares an accommodation request, by applying UDL principles to our courses, we can offer flexible content delivery (videos, audio, text, and images), engagement, and assessment methods, which align with WCAG’s focus on perceivable, operable, and understandable digital environments. By designing our Blackboard courses to support a wide range of learning needs and assistive technologies, we can reduce barriers to content and increase accessible, engaging, and enjoyable learning for everyone. If you’ve recently completed CAIFS’ Engaged Pedagogy Course, the New Faculty Navigating Your First Year Course, the Online Teaching Certificate, the Hybrid Teaching Certificate, or consulted with CAIFS on any of your course design practices, you likely have applied UDL principles in your courses and are well positioned to help USC Upstate achieve WCAG Compliance.
Starting Small is a Good Idea
Burgstahler suggested starting easy, not beginning with PDF files, or maybe avoiding PDFs, like she does, all together. (tip: if you don’t have complex images, tables, or graphs, consider exploring the Blackboard Ultra feature “convert a file” to turn simple PDFs into Ultra Documents). Learning Management Systems (LMS) like Blackboard Ultra (View Blackboard Ultra Accessibility Overview), even in the last year, have made their tools more intuitive than ever, allowing users to easily use hierarchical headers in text and tables, add alt text to images, and receive immediate feedback from ALLY on how to improve their overall course accessibility score. Similarly, Yuja, for example, generates mostly accurate captions for our videos, but also has made it increasingly easy to edit captions right on the video screen. These tools allow us to make small adjustments to our courses resulting in big improvements to accessibility.
Tackling the Work in Groups Works
Burgstahler also suggested groups of faculty working together on accessibility makes the work more manageable and enjoyable. For example, if an academic division uses programmatic courses, they may consider having some faculty work on ensuring the videos have accurate captions, another group ensuring the documents are accessible, and a final group adding accurate alt text and explanations to academically significant pictures, tables, and charts.
These actions can positively impact hundreds of students who take our courses and bring more of our course offerings into WCAG compliance.
Seeking Support Along the Way is Valuable
While many institutions, including USC Upstate, rely on faculty to make their own course content accessible, there are tools and resources to help, as well. For example, ChatGPT and Co-Pilot can create downloadable accessible assignment templates in .docx format. There are several practical trainings coming up that will offer the ins and outs of making word documents, powerpoint, and email accessible. And if you need additional help along way, CAIFS has a small but mighty accessibility team who are skilled at making documents, PDFs, videos, powerpoints, and other content accessible. Complete the short Accessibility Assistance form and we’ll be in touch.
Contributing to a Cultural Shift Leads to a Greater Sense of Belonging
Contributing to a cultural shift toward greater content accessibility in our courses is both a professional responsibility and a powerful act of fostering belonging. When faculty collectively prioritize accessibility, it normalizes practices and creates learning environments where all students can thrive. Small, consistent changes made by individual instructors and instructional leaders can ripple outward, influencing departments, colleges, and ultimately, the entire educational landscape. By modeling and implementing accessible course design and using the dynamic features in Blackboard Ultra, faculty can become catalysts for lasting, systemic change that benefits the learners of today and tomorrow.
As the fall semester approaches and we consider the question, “how Star Wars is my course?,” it’s worth remembering that some of the most powerful lessons from the galaxy far, far away center on resilience, innovation, collaboration, and making spaces where everyone belongs. It was those small and intentional steps, taken by individuals and collectives, that ultimately led to a stronger, more enduring galaxy for everyone. Bringing greater accessibility practices to our courses can also be achieved through small, intentional steps that, over time, create more welcoming, engaging, and empowering learning experiences for our students.
Images in this blog post are created by Co-Pilot AI and are generated for educational purposes. Images created with Microsoft Designer (Co-Pilot AI), © Microsoft, and do not show a real place.