Ensuring ADA Compliance in Higher Ed: Why Google Docs Isn't Enough
For public and private universities across the United States, the Google Workspace for Education suite has become the undisputed standard for productivity. Its dominance is no accident; Google has mastered the art of seamless, cloud-based collaboration that perfectly suits the needs of a modern campus.
The Google Appeal in Academia
The reasons universities flock to Google are obvious. Everything is online, version control is automatic, and real-time collaboration allows students and faculty to work together from anywhere in the world. It simplifies administrative workflows and provides a familiar interface for students who grew up using these tools in K-12.
However, this convenience comes with a significant, often overlooked catch: Google Docs was not built with deep accessibility compliance in mind.
The Accessibility Gap
While Google Docs offers basic features like heading styles and alt-text for images, it lacks the sophisticated tools required to meet the rigorous standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504/508 of the Rehabilitation Act.
When documents are exported to PDF—the most common format for syllabi, research papers, and course materials—the native Google export process fails to maintain the structural integrity required by screen readers. This leaves universities in a precarious position.
The Liability Risk
Legal and Financial Exposure
If a professor uploads a non-compliant PDF to a Learning Management System (LMS) like Canvas, Blackboard, or Moodle, the university is legally liable. ADA lawsuits against higher education institutions have seen a sharp increase, with settlements often reaching six or seven figures, not including the reputational damage.
Beyond Compliance: Student Equity
While avoiding lawsuits is a powerful motivator, the core of the issue is student success. When a student using a screen reader or assistive technology encounters a broken PDF, they aren't just inconvenienced—they are being denied the same quality of education as their peers.
Inaccessible course materials contribute to higher dropout rates among students with disabilities. By ensuring every document is born accessible, universities move from "checking a box" to fostering a truly inclusive learning environment.
The Scalability Challenge
A large university can generate tens of thousands of new documents every semester. Manual remediation—the process of hiring experts to fix PDFs after they are created—is prohibitively expensive and impossible to scale.
Inkable Docs solves this by moving accessibility to the start of the document lifecycle. By empowering the original creators (the faculty) to fix issues as they write, the university eliminates the bottleneck of manual remediation and drastically reduces long-term costs.
How Inkable Docs Solves the Crisis
Inkable Docs doesn't just check for errors; it provides a pathway to automatic remediation. Our platform is designed specifically for the Higher Ed environment:
Faculty-Friendly
Professors can continue working in Google Docs. Inkable provides a sidebar that guides them through fixing accessibility issues in real-time.
Admin Automation
University admins can set up workflows to automatically remediate documents, ensuring compliance even if the original author missed a step.
Beyond the Basics
Inkable Docs features a specialized PDF engine that goes far beyond Google's native capabilities. It handles:
- Complex Table Tagging: Ensuring screen readers can navigate data tables logically.
- MathJax/LaTeX Support: Converting complex formulas into accessible formats.
- Nested List Logic: Maintaining the correct hierarchy of information.
- Language Metadata: Automatically tagging document language for proper screen reader pronunciation.
Protect Your Institution
Don't let your digital accessibility be a liability. Empower your staff with the tools to make every document ADA-compliant without changing their workflow.