Syllabus
About this class
About this class
To learn how computing can enable new solutions to accessibility, including both access to the world and access to computers? Similarly, how can a disability studies perspective guide us in developing empowering and relevant solutions to accessibility problems? This course explores both of those questions through a combination of discussions, reading, and building. In addition, by studying access technology, we can gain valuable insights into the future of all user interface technology.
What it is about?
Access technology (AT) has the potential to increase autonomy, and improve millions of people’s ability to live independently. In addition, accessibility is a human rights issue and it is the law. If you’re creating interactive technologies, you should know how to build regular interfaces that are accessible as well as understanding the value of innovating new approaches to accessibility. Disability touches almost everyone either directly or indirectly at some point in life, temporarily or permanently. Let’s create a future we will also want to and be able to be part of.
In this course we will focus on a combination of practical skills such as how to create accessible of documents, websites and apps and how to do disability based UX; advanced skills such as how to address accessibility in visualization, AR/VR and AI/ML; and forward looking topics such as intersectional concerns, accessible healthcare, and accessibility in disaster response. The largest project in the class will be an open ended opportunity to explore access technology in more depth. We will also cover disability justice and advocacy.
What are the Prerequisites and Expectations?
The only requirement for this class is that you are comfortable programming and picking up new languages and tools that you have not been exposed to before. You will have some control over this, however, basic web skills are likely to be useful. The primary programming project in this class is one you design yourself.
In addition, please familiarize yourself with the course academic conduct policy. Looking beyond policy, plagiarizing is a violation of disability justice and in direct conflict with the learning goals of this course.
What is the Teaching Philosophy and Approach?
Many of the goals in this class center around learning by doing. This means that hands on time trying out everything from implementation to evaluation is critical to learning. Active learning has been shown to increase student performance in STEM subjects.
Thus, class time will be used as much as possible for in class exercises and discussion for understanding using a variety of technologies. We also highly encourage questions in lecture. Often many students share the same question and those questions can help the instructor gauge student understanding.
Preparation outside of class and participation in class are both very important and will improve your class experience. Preparation may include online discussion, pre-class readings and videos, and post-lecture reflections in addition to homework. Participation in class will include discussion, question asking, and active engagement in learning exercises.
Logistics
Logistics
This is an in person class. As much as possible, we ask that you attend in person. That said, we know that many individual concerns may make this a barrier. We will do our best to support remote participation when there is a need for this due to a family obligation, disability, or other concern.
When and Where is the Class Held?
See Canvas for all zoom meeting links for classes and office hours.
- Class Time: 2025-11-18 17:32:03 +0000 (PDT)
- Class Location: CSE 022
How do I reach the Instructors?
 |
Jennifer Mankoff (they/them) | Instructor |
 |
Lucille Njoo (she/her) | TA |
Office Hours
| Day | Time | Who | Where |
| Tuesdays | 2:30-4 | Jen | CSE II 283 (confirm via signup link) |
| Friday | 2:30-3:30pm | Lucille | On Zoom |
| Asynchronous | Any | Post to discussion board* | |
| By Appointment | Any | Post to discussion board |
*You can discuss matters with us privately on the discussion board. This notifies the whole course staff at once and is usually faster than email.
Staff mailing list: Mail
How do I reach other students in the class?
We have a class discussion board, where you can make public posts that benefit the whole class, and are answered more quickly because your fellow students can help the course staff by responding also.
- This is the best way to ask questions about things like homework and programming
- Before posting, please search through the questions that have already been posted in case someone has already asked the same question.
Another great way to meet students is to come to class in person!
How does Synchronous Remote Participation work?
When you are remote, ideally you will still participate synchronously. To participate synchronously, you need to do the following:
- Find a zoom buddy (this is your responsibility to do ahead of class if you are attending remote synchronously)
- Post in the class discussion class logistics board to report who your zoom buddy is
- Attend via zoom and participate in discussions with the help of your zoom buddy
- Fill out the remote participation survey and report who your zoom buddy was, and how you participated.
Will lectures be recorded?
Class sessions will be recorded when possible (guest lecturers may refuse this). Recordings will only be accessible to students enrolled in the course to review materials.
The University and Zoom have FERPA-compliant agreements in place to protect the security and privacy of UW Zoom accounts.
Students who connect by Zoom but do not wish to be recorded should:
- Change their Zoom screen name to a school appropriate screen name that hides any personal identifying information such as their name or UW Net ID
- Not share their computer audio or video during their Zoom sessions (please notify us first!).
Learning and Grading
Learning and Grading
This class uses a combination of in class work, individual assignments, and one larger project. Students spend a majority of the class on a longer open ended final project that is more research oriented. In addition, every student must co-lead a discussion, and every student must complete each competency at least twice.
While grading is a necessary part of what we do at UW, I want to focus this class on learning; and to ensure that my approach to assessment is inclusive and focuses on a justice based approach. There has been a lot of innovation in assessment in recent years, driven partly by COVID-19. We have tried to learn from this in our grading.
There will not be quizzes, or a midterm or final exam. Instead, your knowledge will be assessed Competency based grading in alignment with the disability justice focus in this course. Competency based grading is designed to reward growth and final understanding, rather than penalizing you if you initially have trouble with a skill or topic.
What is “Competency Based Grading”?
Competency based grading separates out how you learn a skill from whether you know it. Many of these competencies are assessed repeatedly. I don’t care if you get them wrong at first, as long as you eventually learn them. If you learn them all, and participate fully in the class, you will get an A.
In the image below, you can see how traditional grading assigns a score for each assignment and adds them together. If you score badly on your first assignment, that negatively affects your grade, even if you demonstrate that you’ve learned everything you needed to know in it during later assignments. In contrast competency-based grading is structured around learning goals. All of the different things you do that demonstrate progress on those learning goals are grouped together to help assign a score on that learning goal.
The competencies needed for this course are listed on the assignments page, and can all be found in canvas as well.
Each time you turn in an assignment, you tell us which competencies we should assess. We may also decide to assess competencies such as whether a document is accessible, with accessible image descriptions. If an assignment is not accessible we will not assess any competencies in it. Once you achieve competency, we expect you to maintain it – for example, repeatedly turning in inaccessible images after achieving competency in image descriptions will lower your score.
When you we assess a competency, we rate your skill as “no evidence” “below competent” “basic knowledge” or “excellent”. Various combinations of “basic” “excellent” and “below competent” result in various final grades in the class, with all excellents being a 4.0 and the grade going down based on the number of competents versus excellents. However, if even 1 skill is below competence, the highest possible grade in the class is a 3.2.
How your grade is calculated
Your grade is calculated in a multi-phase fashion. The goal is to measure what you know about accessibility, your work in the class, and to encourage participation
Phase 1: Core Knowledge: Competencies & Final Project
You must complete and handin a reflection on each competency at least twice. If you turn in a competency only once, your maximum score on that competency is “Competent”. Additionally, to achieve a score of “Excellent” on a competency, your final score on that competency must be excellent. The same is true to achieve a score of “competent”. If you turn in a competency twice, and are not happy with your score, you are welcome to turn it in another time.
All competencies are weighted equally. You can get a B (3.1) if you are competent on every competency. You need to be excellent on every competency to receive an A (3.9). The specific calculations are:
- Num Competents/2 + Num Excellents/1.5
Phase 2: Applied Effort
Your work on projects and exercises can modify the score you earned from your competencies.
If you complete all your project and exercise work, you keep 100% of your score from the first step. However, if you don’t do any of the project or exercise work, your score from the first step will be cut in half. Performance between 0 and 100 will scale this effect accordingly.
This is important because effort and practice are an important part of your learning.
Phase 3: Competency Adjustment
The final project will be evaluated through a competency based lens. If your project demonstrates a lower score on a competency than your submission of those competencies, your personal competency score will move down one category on that competency. If it demonstrates a higher score, this will not move your personal competency score up.
Phase 3: Engagement
Your engagement score will reflect your participation in the class across multiple dimensions such as whether you answered reading questions; participated in discussions and exercises in class; and attended class.
- By default, your grade on the 4.0 scale is rounded to the nearest decimal point (for example, a 3.89 becomes a 3.9 but a 3.84 becomes a 3.8).
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If you participate in at least 90% of the lightweight activities, we will add .05 before rounding (a 3.84 becomes a 3.9).
- You need to collect 10 points to raise a grade by 0.05. You get to choose what works best for you. Examples:
- Completing a small group activity
- Completing an in-class assignment (such as laser cutting)
- Reporting back to the room after a small group discussion in class
- Helping a student out with something relevant to class such as how to use a screen reader
- Leading a paper discussion in class
- Turned in answers to most reading questions
This is important because consistent engagement is also part of learning. This is intended as a small, but meaningful, incentive to stay engaged, which is an important habit for learning.
Why do I have to write so many reflections?
Reflection is a way to examine the present while critically looking at the past in order to inform the future. It is also a vital part of the engineering process, and will be a vital part of you honing your skill as a Programmer, Computer Scientist, and/or Engineer.
In general, what does it mean to reflect well:
- First and foremost, the reflection answers any guiding questions given.
- Specific details of the experience(s) being reflected upon are described clearly and concisely and in such a way that a non-expert (in this field) reader can understand. This does not mean you must explain it so that a novice reader can understand the problem deeply, just a non-expert (someone who knows the field but is not an expert in the field.) Note a reflection is NOT just a factual recounting of a situation or situation(s).
- There is a “depth” to the reflection. There are a number of ways to make a reflection deep, thoughtful and thorough.
- The reflection elaborates what the significance and meaning are of the given examples and why they are particularly important.
- The reflection includes a personal reaction to the events or examples described. Reactions are open and honest and indicate the writer’s ability to appraise what is presented.
- The reflection describes connections between these details and other events, examples, ideas or concepts from the past or present.
- The reflection may raise questions or have implications on future work.
Does the class have a regrading policy?
Actually, regrading (of competencies) is required. You must hand in at least two examples of each competency for grading before regrading can be used. They do not have to be the same example.
Assignment completion is not regraded. However this only impacts a small portion of your grade (< 15%).
Accessibility and Inclusivity
Accessible and Inclusivity
We hope to make this class accessible and inclusive. The class is a shared learning environment and it is important to us to make it a welcoming environment for everyone, from all backgrounds. We strive to treat everyone in the class with respect and understanding.
How does this class support Accessibility?
We know that students in this class may need materials to be accessible by screen reader, or may need extra time on exams. We have structured the class to be as accessible as possible to all students by default.
If you have a temporary health condition or permanent disability (either mental health, learning, or physical health related) that impacts your academic experience, please let us know how we can accommodate you.
You are NOT obligated to disclose any of these issues with the instructor, only specify if there’s any accommodations required. For more on accessibility in this class and how we accommodate you (and each other), please see our Accessibility Policy
What about health and wellness beyond accessibility accommodations?
It is very important to us that you take care of your mental health throughout the course. We have built flexibility into course assessments with the goal of reducing stress. However we know that sometimes that is not enough. Everyone on the course staff is available to chat, and you can always attend office hours for a non-academic conversation if necessary. Beyond the course staff, the University of Washington provides the following resources for mental health concerns. Your anonymity and privacy are protected.
- Please reach out to the UW Counseling Center for any help and concerns related to mental health (including increased stress), available to all UW students at no cost.
- If you are ever feeling uncomfortable and need to talk or are worried about someone close to you, it is highly recommended to visit the UW Heath and Wellness programs. They offer resources to students that can help.
- If you’re concerned for yourself or a friend, please call SafeCampus at (206) 685-7233.
How do you accommodate religious holidays?
You may observe religious holidays that overlap class times. We ask that you complete the class attendance requirements for remote students in this case. If you have additional concerns that this policy does not meet, please contact the instructors. In addition, here is some potentially helpful information about UW policy: Religious Accommodations Policy. Accommodation can be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form on UW’s site.
What should I do if something happens that makes me feel unsafe or excluded?
If you have been subject to sexual harassment, you feel you have been discriminated against, our you have been made to feel uncomfortable in any way, please tell us. You might choose to speak with your instructor, teaching assistant, the chair of the department, depending on the circumstances.
Should you feel uncomfortable bringing up an issue with a staff member directly, , there are a number of Community Feedback Mechanisms and Resources including the Anonymous Feedback form, but understand we can not respond to you directly if you use the latter. Responses, if possible, will be broadcast to the class as a whole or systematic changes to the class when necessary.
You can also file a complaint with the UW Ombudsman’s Office for Sexual Harassment. Their office is located at 339 HUB, (206)543-6028. There is a second office, the University Complaint Investigation and Resolution Office, who also investigate complaints. The UCIRO is located at 22 Gerberding Hall.
If something about the course materials makes you feel excluded, please let us know. We also review them ourselves with inclusion in mind each time we prepare to teach.
We have tried to make the course inclusive of people who have work, childcare or appointments that have to be prioritized at specific times. However if we can do something to improve this further, or you have needs we haven’t thought of, please tell us.
COVID safety
COVID safety
Masking is currently optional, however people in the room include those who are high risk with respect to COVID and people who live with vulnerable family members. Masks offer another layer of protection to further reduce the risk of transmission for all of us, and help to support these individuals. Thus, in this class, wearing a mask indoors when around others is recommended, and I ask that you attend class remotely if you are sick or have potentially been exposed to COVID-19.
Why are masks passed around in class?
According to the UW face covering policy.
As part of the University’s multi-layered strategy to limit the transmission of COVID-19, face coverings, particularly well-fitting, high-quality masks (e.g., N95, KN95, surgical mask) remain a useful tool in helping to limit the spread of COVID-19.
To help support the access needs of these individuals, masks will be available in the classroom as you enter, and if you would like to mask, you are welcome to make use of them.
When should I attend remotely?
If you are sick or have potentially been exposed to COVID-19, stay home. We will not be assessing you on attendance, so you will not be penalized for missing class to keep our community safe.
Below, we briefly describe the accommodations for students having to miss class due to potential illness, with full information in the linked pages.
- Lectures: Course content will be posted as a set of readings/videos that can be watch asynchronously. Recordings of the live class posted on course website, and all materials posted online.
- Office Hours: We will host remote office hours. Please contact the course staff on the discussion board if none of the times/locations work for you.
- Asynchronous help is available via the Discussion Board, post online to get asynchronous help from a member of the course staff.
Do I need to maintain social distancing?
Vaccinations and masking provide strong protection against the spread of COVID. Currently, UW does not require social distancing in the classroom or office hours for students who are vaccinated and wearing a mask.
Of course, some students might feel more comfortable keeping a little distance. If you would like to keep space between you and another student, please kindly ask them to leave a space between you and them if there is room available. Similarly, if someone asks you to maintain a space between them, please respect that request if possible.
What if I get sick or may have been exposed to COVID-19?
See this FAQ by UW on what you should do if you get sick. You should also check out the Remote Access options listed above!
If you believe you have been exposed to COVID-19, follow the recommendations outlined in this flowchart by EH&S.
What if Jen or a TA gets sick?
The course staff is committed to keeping you safe, so we will not make you risk a potential exposure to COVID to attend class. If one of the course staff feels ill, we will move any in-person activities we are hosting to be purely online or have someone else on the course staff fill in for us while we are potentially contagious.
Please make sure you check your email frequently for announcements from the discussion board and before you attend an in-person event to make sure it is still happening in-person. We will always try our best to give as advanced notice as possible for any changes from in-person to remote for a day.
Academic Conduct
Integrity is a crucial part of your character and is essential for a successful career. We expect you to demonstrate integrity in this class and elsewhere.
The Paul G Allen School has an Academic Misconduct policy, and the University of Washington an Academic Misconduct and Community Standards and Student Conduct Page policy. Please acquaint yourself with those pages, and in particular how academic misconduct will be reported to the University. Knowingly violating any of these principles of academic conduct, privacy or copyright may result in University disciplinary action under the Student Code of Conduct.
Your academic conduct in this course is evaluated in at least the four areas described in detail below.
Honesty and Respect in Communications
Individuals are expected to be honest and forthcoming in communications with TAs and the instructor.
In addition, individuals are expected to show respect for the intellectual contributions of others through citation. The essence of academic life revolves around respect not only for the ideas of others, but also their rights to those ideas. It is therefore essential that we take the utmost care that the ideas (and the expressions of those ideas) of others always be handled appropriately, and, where necessary, cited. This is an issue of Citational Justice, and a core value of this course. It is also in line with the disability justice values of the course.
When ideas or materials of others are used (particularly in your creative projects), they must be cited. The citation format is not that important - as long as the source material can be located and the citation verified, it’s OK. In any situation, if you have a question, please feel free to ask. Here are some examples of how you might use (and cite) different types of content:
- Media you have created or generated yourself (i.e. pictures you have created or taken yourself, text you have written yourself) do generally not require citation. However if you have published them (on a blog, in an article etc), they may belong to the publisher and require citation.
- Images that are in the public domain (something from Wikipedia), or with a creative commons license that allows for reuse without explicit permission of the owner, require citation based on their license. Instructions on how to search for images that are fair use are here. Creative Commons Kiwi is a really informative video on Creative Commons licensing; and here are best practices for citing Creative Commons works.
- If you are writing some text (a paper, analysis, etc), you can use quotes as long as you give attribution to the sources of the quote. You can not write an entire document out of the quotes of others, or include copied text with no citations. The citation format is not that important - as long as the source material can be located and the citation verified (a URL in a comment is generally fine), it’s OK.
- If you are writing code, clearly indicate (e.g. with comments) which portions of your code are completely original and which are used or modified from external sources, if any code is used that builds off of/is inspired by external sources (e.g. adaption of an example exercise, online tutorial you find). Note that solely changing identifier names or rearranging other source material is not considered your original work - see the examples of appropriate use below for details.
Some examples of appropriate use:
- A student finds a blog post explaining why and how to address WCAG guidelines. They rewrite much of it in their own words, but for a few sections that are particularly clear, they copy the information, put it in quotations, and name the source and provide a link to it right next to the quote.
- A student closely follows a tutorial to understand a new concept in Android Development (e.g. animations). The student cites the tutorial they used in the file header then substantially modifies the tutorial code to include what is specified for the creative portion of the assignment, documenting which portions of the code are their own so TAs know which portions to grade (and to determine whether the material cited as being learned from the tutorial is sufficiently adapted to be considered the student’s own work).
- A student is having difficulty generating audio from text for an accessibility feature of an app they are building. They look for a solution and find an app very similar to the one they intend to build. They fork it, and modify it for their final project, and documents this with a comment that includes where it was found. When grading the app, the instructional staff may weight features that were provided by the original source less than features that the student added themselves.
Students with questions about any specific situation should ask the instructor for clarification.
Collaboration Policies
In this class, are encouraged to discuss class material, including assignments, lecture material and readings with your classmates. Even better if this takes place on Ed where other students can benefit and we can guide you as to what is supportive and what crosses the line to too much sharing.
Some assignments are individual. Even when as assignment is individual, you may discuss homework assignments with other students (i.e. provide advice, brainstorm) as long your writing and/or implementation is entirely your own, and you document what you do. You may also look at other sources online to learn how to achieve new things, but we expect you to document this, and it may impact the credit you get for your work. You should never copy (plagiarize) from another person in this school (past or present) or from material that you find online directly and submit it as your own work.
To facilitate this, and to be very clear
- You may not use code or writing directly from any external
sources (including copying lecture/lab material directly into an
assignment) without appropriately crediting the source as described above in
Honesty and Respect in Communications
- You must credit a classmate when their advice had a significant intellectual impact on what you did
Privacy and Fair Use
To support an academic environment of rigorous discussion and open expression of personal thoughts and feelings, we, as members of the academic community, must be committed to the inviolate right of privacy of our student and instructor colleagues. As a result, we must forego sharing personally identifiable information about any member of our community including information about the ideas they express, their families, lifestyles and their political and social affiliations. If you have any questions regarding whether a disclosure you wish to make regarding anyone in this course or in the university community violates that person’s privacy interests, please feel free to ask the instructor for guidance.
In addition, out of respect for each other, and in accordance with federal guidelines such as FERPA, we will not share each other’s discussion posts or assignments without permission. As instructors, we will ask you before sharing an assignment with a community sponsor, for example. Similarly, you should not share your fellow classmates’ work without permission, and credit. We also ask that you not share the ideas ideas presented in this class without credit. While the class website is public, we ask that you do not take things out of context.
In addition, any tangible medium such as digital and physical documents are protected by copyright law as embodied in title 17 of the United States Code. These expressions include the work product of both: (1) your student colleagues (e.g., any assignments published here in the course environment or statements committed to text in a discussion forum); and, (2) your instructor (e.g., the syllabus, assignments, reading lists, and lectures).
Within the constraints of fair use,
you may copy these
copyrighted expressions for your personal intellectual use in support
of your education here in the UW. Such fair use by you does not
include further distribution by any means of copying, performance or
presentation beyond the circle of your close acquaintances, student
colleagues in this class and your family. If you have any questions
regarding whether a use to which you wish to put one of these
expressions violates the creator’s copyright interests, please feel
free to ask the instructor for guidance.
Appropriateness
Recall that one of our course policies is to engender an
inclusive environment. As such it is important that you are thoughtful about
what you say or write. Please make sure that
images and text you are using are school appropriate
and follow
the guidelines of expected behavior. If you have any questions,
please do not hesitate to ask the TA or your instructor. Inappropriate work
submitted may be ineligible for credit on that assignment.
AI Use
Generative AI
It is hard to find someone who has not heard about ChatGPT and related tools, and these tools are undeniably useful for generating ideas, providing suggestions, and more. However, we recommend that you use generative AI in moderation. Generative AI can help you to summarize text, improve grammar, write code, collect relevant resources to read, and generate ideas. It can also lead you to misinformation and is generally less powerful than the hype might lead you to believe, as eloquently described by UW faculty member Emily Bender in her Seattle Times OpEd. AI can be biased (including disability bias), flat out wrong, is built on writing by other people that it might plagiarize and probably doesn’t know much about this course or how to do well in it. If you are interested in learning more about generative AI’s limitations, here is a helpful repository.
In addition to the above mentioned concerns, if you start to rely solely on generative AI, you may limit your own development in critical thinking and writing, and if the results are that your writing is narrower and shallower in scope this may impact your grade.
In this class, we will ask you to follow these ethical guidelines when using generative AI such as ChatGPT. NOTE this policy most likely will evolve over the quarter, since this is such a new situation. I will announce modifications and expect you to abide by them.
- You may use generative AI for assignments and exams unless I specify that it may not be used. If guidelines are provided you should additionally follow those guidelines.
- Unlike blog posts and research articles, you do not need to attribute artifacts/quote text or label code produced by generative AI when you use it. However, you must do the following or you will face academic consequences including but not limited to failing an assignment or an exam.
- You must cite the AI program you used in the artifact you hand in
- If it copies text from other sources and you don’t put that text in quotes and provide proper attribution, you will be held accountable for that.
- If it provides ideas closely based on other sources and you don’t cite those sources, you will be held accountable for that.
- You must still comply with the academic integrity policies of the institution. This includes refraining from using generative AI to plagiarize or cheat. For example, you may not use AI to create fake data (accessibility reviews, interview data, user data, etc.) and pass that off as based on real people.
- You will be held to the same standards when you use generative AI as for any assignment, regardless of whether you or the AI created something, including:
- If you turn in artifacts that are not accessible, you will be graded accordingly
- If you turn in artifacts that contain false or incomplete claims, you will be graded accordingly
- If you turn in code that does not compile or is incomplete, you will be graded accordingly
- You will be graded based on the critical thinking and writing skills, accuracy, and accessibility of the things that you produce.
Breaking the rules above, or generally using AI tools in ways that are nefarious or unacknowledged, is academic misconduct and may be subject to the misconduct policies detailed here.
Also please note that using such tools has consequences unrelated to your schoolwork. For example, generative AI models use an enormous amount of water and energy: ``ChatGPT needs to “drink” a 500ml bottle of water for a simple conversation of roughly 20-50 questions and answers, depending on when and where ChatGPT is deployed.’’ In addition, you are probably donating your data to the companies that deployed them. Please take reasonable steps to avoid making our assignments easier in future iterations of the course (e.g., once the tool provides a correct answer, don’t give it positive feedback).
To summarize, you may use generative AI unless otherwise specified. However, you must use it ethically, check its work, and ensure that you do not cheat or plagiarize when using it. Further, you will most likely not receive a high grade if you rely on it to the exclusion of your own critical thinking, writing and accessibility skills.