University Diploma Digital Accessibility Referent: a first successful promotion

21 people have just obtained the digital accessibility referent university diploma
(DU RAN) from the University of Reunion, out of 23 registered, including 9 with honors. This
diploma, all distance learning and accessible, financed with the support of the Fund for the Integration of
Disabled People in the Public Service (FIPHFP) started in September 2023
to end in April 2024.

Referent in digital accessibility, a profession to be developed

“The digital accessibility referent is the conductor who carries the collective digital accessibility approach within an organization” indicates Pierre Reynaud, educational manager of DU RAN and himself digital accessibility referent at the University of Reunion. “It is the absence of training attesting to the skills necessary for this function that pushed us to create this diploma,” he continues.
On the other hand, digital accessibility is struggling to develop primarily due to a lack of strike forces, that is to say a specialized public capable of carrying out projects in this area. Training digital accessibility advisors therefore meets a pressing need, at a time when inaccessibility can be very expensive.
In fact, if you are an administration or a large company, it can cost you up to 75000 euros per site per year if inaccessibility is noted.

Distance learning, accessible to all

As the training takes place completely remotely, one of the challenges was obviously to offer trainees a fully accessible educational platform. This is how the University of Reunion has acquired a new Moodle platform dedicated to DU, configured to have an optimum level of accessibility. The intervention of a specialist with dual skills in Moodle and digital accessibility was necessary. This experience acquired for the DU was capitalized during the recent upgrade of the other educational platforms of the University of Reunion.

DU in figures

The DU RAN is five Teaching Units (UE) containing 36 courses. It is also more than
100 hours of video lessons recorded live to be available in replay for
trainees, and taught by 17 teachers.

Among the speakers, we include:

  • 4 teachers and research professors from the universities of Bordeaux and Réunion;
  • 4 digital accessibility representatives already in place;
  • 9 experts in digital accessibility from the best French companies working in the field.

On the trainee side:

24 people took part at the start of the lessons. One of them gave up
after 15 days due to work overload due to an unforeseen shift.
This first promotion includes more precisely 18 women and 5 men aged 25 to over 60 years old. What can be said about them:

  • 13 are under an employer agreement and 10 are under an individual paying agreement;
  • 12 work in the public sector, including 6 in universities;
  • 3 are disabled (visually impaired and blind);
  • 7 have rather technical profiles;
  • 10 already work in digital accessibility and want to be better recognized thanks to a university diploma;
  • 1 is in retraining and discovers the subject;
  • 21 obtained the diploma.

And now ?

And now ? It’s time to take stock! The first session of the DU RAN constituted a real experimental laboratory for putting digital accessibility into practice on the educational platform most used in universities. Combining motivated interns and quality speakers, the experience proved enriching for some, but also for others. There is no doubt that this training responds to an identified need for skills development for a well-targeted audience. It can and must improve further, in the event of a second session, now very likely, from 2025.

Participants have the floor

We obviously questioned our trainees about this “intensive training of 6
months”, according to the words of one of them. Here are some examples.

"I am now equipped to carry out accessibility projects within my
administration and contribute to a more inclusive digital”, tells us Alexandra Guiderdoni,
digital project manager at the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Sovereignty
industrial and digital (SIRCOM).


Valérie Mansard, digital accessibility referent (ENS Éditions, ENS de Lyon) and blind
for ten years underlines “the quality of the teaching team and
speakers"And"the application of theoretical lessons to concrete cases
transposable” in his professional environment.


Xaviéra Autissier, Web Team Manager and University Digital Accessibility Representative
de Lorraine confides to us: “stakeholders involved sent us their
knowledge and allowed us to debate passionately around this theme
thus creating a strong dynamic which brought together the group of students that we were for
form a network of Digital Accessibility Referents”.


And finally, let us mention Delphine Bouan, digital transformation project manager – Nantes
University which calls itself “very proud to be part of this promotion thati”, she hopes
"will become a strong and influential community to achieve social equity always
more fair and reasonable.” She adds that “having the DU brings it a lot of legitimacy"
in addition to his motivation.

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