Accessible Curriculum Vitae (CV) Process

CVs posted to NIU websites must be accessible to comply with the 2024 ADA update. Web Strategy and Support collaborates with the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning (CITL) to provide document accessibility recommendations.

Web Strategy and Support

Web strategy and support staff research and implement accessibility best practices for documents linked from NIU websites. The web team partners with website designated contacts to update web content. To update your CV linked from an NIU website, please reach out to your website designated contact.

Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning (CITL)

CITL staff research and implement accessibility best practices for accessible instruction. The CITL team offers a faculty support hotline and one-on-one support to answer questions about creating accessible documents.

Accessibility Recommendations

To make your CV accessible, please follow these recommendations adapted from the CITL accessible syllabus guide and Microsoft’s “Make your Word documents accessible to people with disabilities” article.

Headings

People who use screen readers (an assistive technology for people with visual disabilities) can listen to a list of the headings in your CV to help them find desired information.

Check your CV: Document uses Style elements like Headings in a hierarchical manner (and does not skip heading levels)

Lists

Lists are more accessible than tables for people using a screen reader.

Check your CV: Lists have been created using the list feature in Microsoft Word

Links

To add a link, write out the link text. Please ensure the link title is meaningful and doesn’t use “click here” or show the URL. Most academic style guidelines include guidance for creating accessible links, such as APA and MLA.

Check your CV: Link text is descriptive (not URL) and describe to the user the content of the linked page (consider using URL shorteners like GoURL or shortDOI)

Images, Charts and Graphs

If your CV has images, charts or graphs, please add alternative text to convey their meaning to people who can't see them.

Check your CV: Images and non-text elements contain meaningful alternate text or are marked as decorative

Document Properties

Document properties help users find and identify your CV when using assistive technology.

Check your CV: Document properties: title and author (Under “File” --> “Info”)