Antelope Valley College logo

Universal Design for Learning and Accessibility in the COR

Title 5 requires a documented curriculum committee procedure that ensures Course Outlines of Record reflect Universal Design for Learning (UDL) strategies. It also establishes a separate requirement for representative textbooks, including OER, to meet universal design course standards.

UDL Is Proactive Course Design

UDL anticipates learner variability by building flexible pathways into curriculum from the beginning. It complements—but does not replace—the college’s responsibilities to provide individualized disability-related accommodations and accessible technology, materials, and services.

Title 5 Requirements

Separate the documented UDL procedure from the materials requirement.

Go to Title 5 Requirements

Three UDL Domains

Representation, engagement, and expression support learner variability.

Go to Three UDL Domains

UDL Across the COR

See how UDL can be reflected in multiple COR elements.

Go to UDL Across the COR

Materials Review

Evaluate representative textbooks and OER separately.

Go to Materials Review

Two Distinct Title 5 Requirements

Documented Procedure: § 55001(c)

The curriculum committee must maintain a documented procedure designed to guarantee accessibility for every student and ensure that individuals with disabilities can participate equally through CORs reflecting UDL strategies.

Required strategies: multiple means of representation, engagement, and expression.

Representative Materials: § 55001.5(a)(3)

Each COR must include representative textbooks, including OER, that meet universal design course standards.

Separate review: A COR may reflect UDL strategies and still require additional evaluation of its representative materials.

Important distinction: Section 55001(c) creates an institutional procedure that must ensure CORs reflect UDL. Section 55001.5(a)(3) separately places representative textbooks and OER among the required elements of every COR.

The Three UDL Domains

CCCCO guidance frames the domains as access to participation, access to information, and access to demonstrating proficiency. The regulatory term “expression” corresponds to the broader UDL domain often called “action and expression.”

Multiple Means of Engagement

Access to participation

Clarify relevance, value, purpose, and authentic application.
Provide meaningful choices consistent with outcomes.
Use structured collaboration, feedback, reflection, and community-building.
Support sustained effort through scaffolded practice.
Use modality-appropriate interaction, participation, community-building, and feedback, such as structured online discussions, live problem solving, collaborative studio work, or guided in-person practice.

Multiple Means of Representation

Access to information

Present essential information in accessible, flexible formats.
Use clear organization, examples, visuals, demonstrations, and explanations.
Define specialized vocabulary, symbols, and notation.
Represent varied perspectives and contexts authentically.
Provide essential information through modality-appropriate combinations of accessible text, visuals, demonstrations, captions, recordings, transcripts, examples, and live or recorded explanations.

Multiple Means of Expression

Access to demonstrating proficiency

Align evaluation directly with observable outcomes.
Use varied, rigorous assessment methods when each measures the intended learning.
Provide transparent criteria, models, feedback, and practice.
Avoid requiring one mode unless that mode is an essential outcome.
Where the outcome allows, permit modality-appropriate ways to demonstrate proficiency, such as written analysis, oral explanation, projects, demonstrations, presentations, simulations, or recorded performance.

Operationalizing UDL Across the COR

The COR does not need a single UDL paragraph or one field containing all three domains. Evidence can be distributed across multiple elements, provided the COR as a whole meaningfully reflects the required strategies.

Catalog Description

State the course purpose, relevance, and student learning in clear, student-centered language.

Outcomes and Objectives

Use observable, measurable expectations that identify what students must demonstrate and align with evaluation.

Course Content

Organize essential knowledge logically and use scaffolded progression that avoids unnecessary cognitive overload.

Instructional Materials

Build access into materials through flexible formats and accessible design rather than relying only on later remediation.

Assignments

Describe structured practice, clear expectations, and varied ways to analyze, apply, reflect, create, calculate, or demonstrate skill.

Instructional Methodology

Include interactive lecture, formative checks, structured discussion, guided practice, case-based exploration, collaboration, demonstrations, or simulations as appropriate.

Methods of Evaluation

Use varied, rigorous assessment methods aligned with outcomes and transparent criteria.

Modality and DE Addendum

Describe how authorized in-person, hybrid, synchronous online, or asynchronous online delivery provides multiple means of representation, engagement, and expression while preserving the same outcomes and rigor.

How Modality Can Support UDL

Different modalities can provide different pathways to participation, information, interaction, practice, and demonstration of learning. For example, asynchronous online delivery may provide flexible timing and repeated access to recorded or written materials, while synchronous, hybrid, or in-person formats may provide real-time discussion, demonstrations, campus resources, and structured interaction.

UDL review should therefore consider how the course is designed within each authorized modality. The COR and, where applicable, the distance education addendum may describe modality-appropriate strategies for representation, engagement, expression, interaction, feedback, and accessibility.

The COR does not need to promise that every modality will be scheduled. It should identify or support appropriate UDL strategies for the modalities the college authorizes.

Important limitation: offering multiple modalities, approving distance education, or labeling a course online, hybrid, or in person does not by itself demonstrate UDL. The curriculum should still reflect multiple means of representation, engagement, and expression.

Representative Textbooks and OER

Section 55001.5(a)(3) requires representative textbooks, including OER, that meet universal design course standards. The regulation does not provide a detailed statewide checklist, so the curriculum committee’s documented procedure should define how evidence will be evaluated and recorded.

Practical Review Prompts

The questions below are not additional regulatory text. A publisher statement, VPAT, accessibility conformance report, OER accessibility review, or local testing may provide useful evidence, but no single document should be treated as conclusive without review.

Availability and Format

Is an accessible digital version available when the material is adopted?
Can the content be used with common assistive technologies?
Are headings, reading order, lists, tables, and navigation meaningful?
Can users resize or reflow content without losing information?

Non-Text Content

Do meaningful images, charts, and diagrams have useful text alternatives?
Do videos include accurate captions and audio include transcripts?
Are equations, symbols, tables, and interactive elements accessible?
Can essential activities be completed without relying only on color, sound, vision, or a mouse?

Documentation and Follow-Through

What evidence supports the accessibility conclusion?
Are known barriers identified rather than obscured by a generic claim?
Does review include homework systems, simulations, media, and ancillary materials?
Is the materials review documented in the curriculum workflow?

Potentially Strong UDL Evidence

Meaningful evidence across all three domains
Methods connected to outcomes and course content
Accessible formats and proactive barrier reduction
Varied but equally rigorous learning and evaluation
Transparent expectations, scaffolded practice, and feedback
Documented review of representative materials

Not Sufficient by Itself

“UDL will be used.”
“Materials will be accessible.”
An ADA, accessibility, or UDL checkbox
Distance education approval, a modality designation, or the availability of multiple modalities without described UDL strategies
One optional format with no evidence across other domains
Listing a textbook or OER without reviewing evidence
Relying only on accommodations after barriers occur

Questions for Faculty and Curriculum Reviewers

Does the COR reflect multiple means of representation, engagement, and expression across the document?
For each authorized modality, does the COR or DE addendum explain how students can access information, participate and engage, and demonstrate proficiency while meeting the same outcomes?
Are the strategies specific enough that instructors can understand how they may be implemented?
Do alternatives preserve the same course rigor, objectives, and standards?
Are instruction, assignments, and evaluation aligned with outcomes and objectives?
Does the COR proactively reduce barriers rather than relying only on after-the-fact accommodations?
Have representative textbooks, OER, platforms, and ancillary materials been evaluated separately?
Has the UDL and materials review been documented through the approved curriculum process?

Important Process Limitation

A single COR review can evaluate whether the document reflects UDL strategies and whether the listed representative materials have supporting evidence. It cannot, by itself, prove that the college has satisfied § 55001(c). AP&P must also maintain and follow a documented institutional procedure.

Statewide Sources and Resources

Title 5 § 55001 Title 5 § 55001.5 CCCCO Final Regulatory Text (PDF)CCCCO COR and UDL Webinar (PDF)CCCCO Course Outline Resources ASCCC COR Reference Guide

Return to AP&P Home