{"id":8496,"date":"2026-05-21T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ltdev\/?p=8496"},"modified":"2026-05-06T11:30:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T10:30:13","slug":"global-accessibility-awareness-day-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ltdev\/2026\/05\/21\/global-accessibility-awareness-day-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ltdev\/files\/2025\/05\/image-8.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"998\" height=\"244\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ltdev\/files\/2025\/05\/image-8.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8251\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/accessibility.day\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Global Accessibility Awareness Day<\/strong><\/a><strong>&nbsp;(GAAD)<\/strong>&nbsp;takes place on the 3rd Thursday of May each year. Individuals are encouraged to take an hour to experience first-hand the impact of digital accessibility (or lack thereof). This year&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/accessibility.day\/participate-directly\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">GAAD<\/a>&nbsp;takes place today on&nbsp;<strong>Thursday 21st May 2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Within this blog post, you can find out about asynchronous and synchronous content available to you to help you understand how to ensure your practice is accessible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This blog content is relevant to colleagues in all roles across our University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How can I increase my awareness and understanding of digital accessibility?<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Asychronous resources<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>There are plenty of resources you can use to get started and learn about how you can make further considerations around accessibility and encourage others to do the same. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can check out the following resources available at Newcastle:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Our&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ltdev\/2023\/05\/15\/7066\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Blog Series<\/a>&nbsp;from GAAD in 2023&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Our <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ltdev\/2025\/05\/12\/global-accessibility-awareness-day-2025\/\">Blog Series<\/a> from GAAD in 2025<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>LTDS&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncl.ac.uk\/learning-and-teaching\/effective-practice\/digital-accessibility\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Digital Accessibility<\/a>&nbsp;webpage \u2013 in particular you may wish to look at:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/newcastle.sharepoint.com\/sites\/LTDS\/Internal%20Only%20Webdocs\/Forms\/AllItems.aspx?id=%2Fsites%2FLTDS%2FInternal%20Only%20Webdocs%2FEveryone%2FAccessibility%2FSummary%20of%20Accessibility%20Resources%2Epdf&amp;parent=%2Fsites%2FLTDS%2FInternal%20Only%20Webdocs%2FEveryone%2FAccessibility\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Summary of Accessibility Resources<\/a>&nbsp;at Newcastle&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/newcastle.sharepoint.com\/sites\/LTDS\/Internal%20Only%20Webdocs\/Forms\/AllItems.aspx?id=%2Fsites%2FLTDS%2FInternal%20Only%20Webdocs%2FFileStore%2FFiles%2FDesigningforDiverseLearnersNCL%2Epdf&amp;parent=%2Fsites%2FLTDS%2FInternal%20Only%20Webdocs%2FFileStore%2FFiles\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Designing for Diverse Learners<\/a>&nbsp;checklist&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>LTDS&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncl.ac.uk\/learning-and-teaching\/effective-practice\/universal-design\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Universal Design for Learning<\/a>&nbsp;webpage (You may also wish to look at&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/udlguidelines.cast.org\/static\/udlg3-graphicorganizer-digital-numbers-a11y.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Universal Design for Learning Guidelines<\/a>).&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Accessibility in Practice Webinar<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>As well as engaging with the online asynchronous recordings, you can also sign up to attend our <a href=\"https:\/\/elements.ncl.ac.uk\/course\/view.php?id=2647\">Accessibility in Practice<\/a> online webinar to learn more about how you can ensure your digital content is accessible in practice. The next session is being delivered on <strong>Wednesday 1st July, 15:00-16:30<\/strong>. If you can&#8217;t make this session, please select the &#8216;<em>declare interest<\/em>&#8216; button so that you can be notified when a further session is added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Additional resources<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The University&#8217;s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Team also deliver a <a href=\"https:\/\/elements.ncl.ac.uk\/course\/view.php?id=2816\">Disability and Accessibility<\/a> session aims to provide colleagues with baseline knowledge and skills to effectively support disabled students and colleagues at Newcastle University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Global Accessibility Awareness Day&nbsp;(GAAD)&nbsp;takes place on the 3rd Thursday of May each year. Individuals are encouraged to take an hour to experience first-hand the impact of digital accessibility (or lack thereof). This year&nbsp;GAAD&nbsp;takes place today on&nbsp;Thursday 21st May 2026. Within this blog post, you can find out about asynchronous and synchronous content available to you &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ltdev\/2026\/05\/21\/global-accessibility-awareness-day-2026\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2026&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8577,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[631,701],"tags":[416,769],"class_list":["post-8496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accessibility","category-effective-practice","tag-accessibility","tag-digital-accessibility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ltdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ltdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ltdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ltdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8577"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ltdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8496"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ltdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8499,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ltdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8496\/revisions\/8499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ltdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ltdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ltdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}