A significant portion of the strategy to ensure digital accessibility at the college involves St. Olaf WordPress theme updates. Because the theme dictates the display of content network-wide, technical fixes by web developers can resolve “large swaths of errors” — such as navigation menu issues — simultaneously without requiring action from individual site admins.
However, we still need Key Admins and individuals across campus to play an active role in fixing errors and issues to ensure digital accessibility moving forward. Key Admins are responsible for a page-by-page audit of their specific areas and applying fixes to the digital content they oversee. To do that, we have a number of important tools and resources available to St. Olaf employees:
How-To Videos and Guides
“How-to” videos and fix guides for common accessibility errors. Training assets and information on using WordPress for our web content are being expanded to continue to help us meet the federal guidelines and ensure full digital accessibility.
Software Checkout
Adobe Acrobat Pro: View the instructions for the software license checkout process for Adobe Acrobat and Creative Cloud, and consult the Knowledge Base Article to learn more about this process. Once the instructions are available, we will include them here in addition to the Software License Checkout section of Account Services.
Equalize Digital Updates: A guide for Key Admins using the plugin will be made available via Using WordPress resources. The general training walkthrough also provides an overview.
WordPress Theme Updates
The Web Team will improve accessibility of the St. Olaf website by making minor changes to the WordPress theme. While these changes should not affect the process of creating content, and should largely go unnoticed by both the public and the key administrators of St. Olaf websites, they will make the theme more accessible and easier to navigate for those using assistive technology.