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0 comments on "Oxford Annual Disability Lecture 2026: video, podcast and transcript"

In early June, Sarah Lewthwaite delivered the Oxford Annual Disability Lecture (“Digital Accessibility at the Crossroads: Infrastructure, AI, and the Future We Build“) at an online and in person event at Oxford’s Life and Mind Building.

The lecture is now available as a video (including BSL, captions), podcast, and transcript with alternative formats are available via https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/2026-disability-lecture

Screenshot of Sarah's presentation, with the title slide, and Sarah gesturing and a BSL interpreter, Mark Bennett, signing.

Sarah’s talk considered that state of digital accessibility in view of new laws committing to accessibility as a foundation for digital life, and recognising that accessibility must be built into systems and infrastructure from the start. Artificial intelligence, by contrast, does not have the same settled direction. AI has the potential to build and scale accessibility, but it also risks reinforcing patterns of exclusion and creating new ones if left unchecked. 

Hosted by the Disability and Neurodivergence Advisory Group and the Equality and Diversity Unit, Sarah explored contemporary answers to long-standing questions about who technology serves. How do we ensure our universities, workplaces and wider digital society are accessible to all? How do we make sure that lived experience of disability is recognised and valued in the design and development process? These questions are not new, but the scale, speed, and nature of AI demands new answers. Sarah’s talk will draw on current research into digital accessibility, accessibility education and AI. She will consider key issues, conceptual tools, and research-led routes for positive action.

0 comments on "Second AI and Accessibility Skills report published, June 2026"

Our new report examines critical perspectives on the impact of artificial intelligence on digital accessibility professional practice and skills development. Critical Approaches to AI and Accessibility Capacity Building was published on 1 June 2026.

The report documents insights from the second in a series of collaborative workshops on AI and Accessibility Skills, run in partnership with Jisc, and held online on 27 February 2026. It follows and builds on our first report which summarised the first workshop at Jisc London in June 2025.

The second workshop brought together 48 participants from higher education, industry, policy, governance and research organisations. The report explores insights and strategic priorities from discussions prompted by our expert speakers, who examined how AI and digital accessibility practices are shaping disability futures, fundamental shifts in accessibility skills, and the role of d/Deaf-led community engagement in development and governance. Preliminary policy/practice recommendations address human-centred AI, structural bias, and professional competencies, education and accountability.

The workshop series forms part of the UKRI-funded Teaching Accessibility in the Digital Skill Set project, with plans to run further workshops through to 2027.

Please cite the report as:
Lewthwaite, S. and Coverdale, A. (2026) Critical Approaches to AI and Accessibility Capacity Building: Insights from the Second AI and Accessibility Skills Workshop [white paper]. University of Southampton. UK. https://doi.org/10.5258/SOTON/PP0180

0 comments on "New AI and Accessibility Skills report launched, February 2026"

Our new report examines the impact of artificial intelligence on digital accessibility professional practice and skills development.

AI and Accessibility Skills: Building the Accessibility Professional of the Future was published on 5 February 2026, documenting insights from a collaborative workshop held in partnership with Jisc in 2025. The workshop brought together 40 accessibility leaders, educators, researchers and practitioners from higher education, industry, policy and governance organisations across the UK.

The report explores how AI-enabled tools are reshaping accessibility workflows in areas including design, coding, captioning and testing, whilst raising critical questions about reliability, potential deskilling, and the displacement of human engagement with disabled user communities. Expert speakers examined the distinctively human skills that AI cannot replicate, AI’s limitations in generating accessible code, and ethical concerns regarding BSL avatar technologies and community co-design.

The workshop forms part of the UKRI-funded Teaching Accessibility in the Digital Skill Set project, with subsequent workshops planned across 2025-2027 to sustain sector-wide dialogue as AI’s role in accessibility practice evolves.

0 comments on "New Teaching Accessibility group list launches for educators"

We’ve launched a new mailing list for accessibility educators and practitioners, providing a group space for community-driven knowledge exchange on teaching digital accessibility.

As AI tools increasingly mediate professional practice, we wanted to create a space that emphasises the importance of collective expertise, community knowledge sharing and mutual support. The Teaching Accessibility mailing list, hosted on JiscMail, is free and open to all, and direct to your inbox, with no advertisements or corporate ownership.

Whether you’re teaching accessibility in higher education or colleges, delivering professional training, developing curricula, or supporting workplace learning, this group is what we make it. Share pedagogical approaches, ask questions, discuss teaching challenges, exchange resources, and build connections across institutions and sectors. The community will be what you make it and what you need it to be.

Join us: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa-jisc.exe?A0=TEACHING-ACCESSIBILITY

0 comments on "June 2025: AI and Accessibility: Building the accessibility professional of the future"

Later this month, we are hosting an event with Jisc in London.

‘AI and accessibility skills: building the accessibility professional of the future’ is a collaborative workshop exploring the future of accessibility work and skills development in the context of Artificial Intelligence, on Friday 27th June, 12 noon-16.30, at Jisc London.  The event is free to attend, with lunch included. For more details and to register, please visit the Jisc Registration page. For those unable to attend, future events are planned across the UK. We will be reporting from the workshop – so watch this space for updates, or get in touch directly.

0 comments on "Teaching Accessibility YouTube Channel"

We’ve launched a new Teaching Accessibility YouTube Channel. The Channel already includes all video contributions from our 2025 Southampton International Symposium on Teaching Accessibility. You can browse these individually, or follow the flow of the scheduled conference through the SISTA2025 playlist. We also have a resources playlist, and great video from Kate Sonka’s visit to Southampton, introducing the work of Teach Access in November 2024. There is more to come, so please subscribe to the Channel for further updates.

0 comments on "Visiting Speaker: Kate Sonka @ Soton, 11 Nov 2024"

On Monday 11th November (12-1pm GMT), Southampton Education School launches a new Education Seminar Series, focused on leadership in education practice, advocacy and the professions. We’re delighted that the inaugural seminar will be presented by visiting speaker Kate Sonka, Executive Director of Teach Access, a US non-profit organisation working with industry, disability advocacy groups and educators to address the digital accessibility skills gap. Kate is visiting the University of Southampton as a guest of our UKRI Teaching Accessibility project. Kate’s presentation will explore how educators can make classrooms and curricula more inclusive and accessible for all. If you would like to attend via Zoom, please contact the Soton Education Office directly via: EducationFOS@soton.ac.uk. This event will include BSL interpretation, and recordings will also be available after the event. We hope to see you there!

0 comments on "Out now: What Every Engineer Needs to Know about Digital Accessibility"

Sarah Horton (our Visiting Fellow) and David Sloan have recently published the landmark book ‘What Every Engineer Should Know About Digital Accessibility‘ Synthesised from decades of experience working at the cutting-edge of digital accessibility practice, Horton and Sloan distil the key principles, methodologies and approaches that every engineer needs in their tool kit. What Every Engineer Should Know About Accessibility delivers a perfect balance of conceptual and practical content, for a deep dive, or for reference. It also brings in expert voices from the international vanguard of accessibility – advocates, academics and industry leaders. The result is a range of perspectives that highlight the innovation and richness that is at the heart of engineering for accessibility; and the real-world harm that can and does result from digital exclusion. For a product, service, platform or tool to be truly excellent, it must be excellent for everyone. In this ground-breaking book, Horton and Sloan show how this excellence can be engineered for all, with disabled people at the centre.

We heartily recommend this book – and there is a 20% discount available [code: EFLY03] on the £29.99 cover price available from Routledge at time of writing. Congratulations to Sarah H and David on this excellent work!

0 comments on "22/8/24: Teach Access and IAAP Webinar: ‘What Everyone Should Know About Digital Accessibility’"

On Thursday 22nd August, 4pm BST / 11am EDT, join the International Association of Accessibility Professionals and Teach Access for a free 1-hour Webinar focussed on the foundational principles of digital accessibility, with Sarah Horton and David Sloan.

To register: https://www.accessibilityassociation.org/s/webinar-details?id=a0ATn000000VOR3MAO

Panel speakers include:

  • Sarah Horton: UX and Accessibility Strategy Lead at Harvard Web Publishing
  • David Sloan: Chief Accessibility Officer at Vispero® and User Experience Practice Manager at TPGi
  • Dr. Yasmine Elglaly: Associate Professor at Western Washington University and leader of the @KIND lab
  • Dr. Sarah Lewthwaite (University of Southampton – and Principal Investigator of the Teaching Accessibility project).
  • Meenakshi ‘Meena’ Das: Software Engineer at Microsoft focusing on creating inclusive frontend experiences.

The session will be moderated by Samantha Lynch Johnson, Digital Accessibility Engineering Manager at CVS Health. This promises to be an excellent webinar, offering diverse perspectives on ways to establish digital accessibility effectively in a range of contexts. We hope to see you there!

0 comments on "New paper: Digital Accessibility Education in Context"

We have a new Open Access research paper now available in ACM’s Transactions on Accessibility Computing (TACCESS). The paper ‘Digital Accessibility Education in Context: Expert Perspectives on Building Capacity in Academia and the Workplace‘ considers the socio-cultural conditions in which accessibility teaching and learning takes place, the institutional and organisational challenges that fundamentally shape the nature of accessibility education. The paper has ‘Just Accepted’ status, with formal copy to be updated soon.

Abstract

The social model of disability, accessibility legislation, and the digital transformation spurred by COVID-19 expose a lack of accessibility capacity in the workforce, indicating persistent gaps in academic and professional education. We adopt a socio-cultural lens to examine how the context of education and training influences teaching and learning in university and workplace sectors, and how expert educators manage and negotiate these contextual factors to build accessibility capacity. This paper reports qualitative research with 55 experienced educators using expert panel method and focus groups. Analysis highlights the important disconnects and contextual challenges that educators must navigate and negotiate to affect and embed cultural change. We find that faculty and workplace cultures frequently perpetuate precarity in accessibility education, individualising the responsibility to ‘heroes’ or ‘champions’, while disciplinary and role-based silos limit the scope for raising awareness and developing widescale competency. Conversely, centres of excellence and communities of practice can cultivate and sustain links between education and research, engage expert users, and promote interdisciplinary and cross-role learning environments, where accessibility is increasingly recognised as a shared endeavour. We conclude that greater collaboration between academia and industry can enhance pedagogical understanding, to transform accessibility educational practices and build and sustain capacity for the future.

Cite: Coverdale, A. Lewthwaite, S., and Horton, S. (2024) Digital Accessibility Education in Context: Expert Perspectives on Building Capacity in Academia and the Workplace. Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS).