Old Dominion University

Old Dominion University, with Virginia Tech Libraries, will explore how to enhance the accessibility of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) for blind and low-vision (BLV) library users. The current limited accessibility of ETDs poses a significant barrier to BLV users’ academic and professional pursuits, hindering their ability to engage with scholarly research and contribute to their respective fields. This project will conduct exploratory user studies with diverse BLV participant groups to uncover their accessibility barriers, behavior and strategies, and needs and preferences when interacting with ETDs. The project will result in a report on the research, technical, and implementation challenges that need to be addressed to make ETDs more inclusive for BLV users; design requirements for future assistive technologies to increase accessibility of ETDs; and platform-agnostic accessibility suggestions for authors to make their ETDs more usable for BLV users. In addition to the BLV community, the outcomes will benefit students, library staff, assistive technology developers, and accessibility researchers.