Promoting accessibility in education truly means changing how people learn, teach, and engage in school life. At RMIT, these efforts have been recognized through four initiatives that won the Inclusion Action 2026 award.
The Accessibility in Action Award is presented by the Australian Centre for Disability Information in Education (ADCET) on Global Accessibility Awareness Day. This award recognizes initiatives that promote accessibility in higher education in Australia and New Zealand.
Of the four RMIT University initiatives honored this year, two were developed and implemented by project teams from RMIT Vietnam.
Designing digital learning materials with visually impaired students.
RMIT Vietnam's Inclusive Digital Learning Initiative was recognized for engaging visually impaired students directly in co-designing highly accessible digital learning materials.
The project began when a visually impaired student at the school pointed out barriers to accessing existing learning materials – while technically sound, they were still difficult to use in practice. From there, the project team collaborated with visually impaired students using screen-reading software to identify specific difficulties in interaction, image description, and content navigation.
This served as the foundation for RMIT to redesign learning materials on the Canvas learning platform, develop alternatives for hard-to-reach activities, standardize visual instructions, and provide resources to support instructors in designing more accessible courses. To date, these learning materials have been applied to over 120 courses, serving more than 12,000 students.
The project team monitored how visually impaired students used assistive technology in their learning process to identify barriers to interaction, visual representation, and content navigation. (Image: RMIT) In addition to the award from ADCET, this project also won Platinum in the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion category at the LearnX 2025 awards, and its presentation was nominated for Best Short Paper at the 2025 conference of ASCILITE, an association for technology in higher education in Oceania.
Students rate accessibility in sports and recreation.
RMIT Vietnam's second award-winning initiative was a student-led report assessing the accessibility of sports and leisure services at RMIT. This initiative demonstrated that accessibility initiatives can extend beyond the classroom and digital platforms.
In this project, a number of students with disabilities and students directly supporting students with disabilities planned and conducted a comprehensive assessment of the accessibility of facilities and sports and recreational activities at RMIT, and subsequently proposed specific improvements.
The team identified barriers related to infrastructure, communication, sensory environment, and participation levels. The assessment results contributed to driving practical changes such as improving signage systems, adjusting event organization, adding quiet hours or women-only hours at the gym, and upgrading physical accessibility.
Notably, students were involved throughout the entire process, from survey design and results analysis to contributing to improvement solutions.
RMIT students and staff collaborate to assess accessibility in order to better understand and improve the student experience on campus. (Image: RMIT) Supporting neurodiverse students in their daily studies.
The RMIT Library's Neurodiverse Student Support Programme was recognized for integrating accessibility into daily learning support activities.
The program provides training workshops, suitable learning spaces, and online resources to address the barriers neurodiverse students may face in the university environment. The focus is on practical solutions such as sensory-friendly learning spaces, structured support services, and individual counseling, minimizing the need for students to constantly seek assistance themselves.
This approach reflects a shift from making adjustments for individual clients only after barriers have arisen, to integrating inclusive standards and procedures right from the design and implementation stages of library services.
Testing beyond compliance standards.
User experience designer Sandy Houston received an individual award for her contributions to user experience testing and product improvement.
Over the past three years, he has focused on improving RMIT Library's digital platforms for greater usability and consistency. His work includes optimizing navigation of the Learning Lab tools, adding light and dark interface modes, reducing interface complexity, and supporting improvements to the physical signage system within the library space.
The core of this approach is direct user testing, rather than simply meeting theoretical standards. By working directly with visually impaired users, neurodiverse students, and advisory groups, the project uncovered issues that conventional assessment methods might miss, while fostering a culture of accessibility testing in library practices.
The four honored initiatives demonstrate accessibility being implemented across RMIT, from digital learning and library services to student life. This also serves as a meaningful reminder for Global Accessibility Awareness Day: awareness is important, but it is only truly valuable when it leads to concrete changes in practice.
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Top image and profile picture: Bilal Ulker – stock.adobe.com
Source: https://www.rmit.edu.vn/vi/tin-tuc/tat-ca-tin-tuc/2026/jun/rmit-nhan-giai-thuong-hanh-dong-thuc-day-hoa-nhap-2026
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