Thesis and Dissertation Digital Accessibility

Overview 

At the Graduate and Professional School, we are striving to amplify the impact of our graduate students’ research. Our goal is to ensure that the valuable insights captured in theses and dissertations are accessible to a wider audience beyond academia. By promoting digital accessibility and innovative dissemination strategies, we strive to create an environment where scholars, professionals, and the public can easily discover, engage with, and benefit from the groundbreaking work of Texas A&M graduate students.

Digital Accessibility

Digital accessibility ensures that everyone, including people with disabilities, can access and use digital content and services. To help meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA standards, Thesis and Dissertation Services has developed a new Word Template and Walkthrough Guide designed to ensure accessibility when converting to PDF. We are also working on updated resources for our LaTeX Template and anticipate releasing a new version in the near future. We strongly encourage students to use these tools so their final thesis or dissertation is fully accessible.

Templates and Guides

• Word Template and Walkthrough Guide
• LaTex Template and Instructions

PDF Accessibility Check Guide

Thesis and Dissertation Services’ initial goal is to pass five key accessibility checks in the Adobe Accessibility Checker.

These checks and detailed instructions for remediating issues in PDFs using Adobe Acrobat Pro are outlined in our PDF Accessibility Check Guide. We understand that not all graduate students have access to Adobe Acrobat Pro. That’s why our Word Template and Walkthrough provide formatting and step-by-step guidance to ensure accessibility upon conversion to PDF. As noted above, we are also developing a LaTeX Template and Walkthrough to achieve the same accessibility standards.

Download Guide