[Athen] Rec's for PDF remediation on a giant scale

[Kevin Andrews via athen-list]

Jumping in with some lived-reality perspective from Georgetown, since we’re
actively navigating this right now under pretty real austerity conditions.


We have an Acrobat Pro *site license*, and I want to be clear for folks
reading along: that solves licensing, not remediation. At scale, Acrobat
helps with OCR and basic tagging, but it does not eliminate the human labor
required for structure, reading order, tables, math, figures, or meaningful
alt text—especially for STEM content. That’s where time and money actually
go.


Budget is a huge constraint for us at the moment, so the conversation
internally has had to shift from “how do we make everything accessible” to
“how do we make defensible, impact-driven decisions.” That’s meant being
very explicit about tradeoffs:

   -

   Not all legacy PDFs are equal in risk or usage.
   -

   Automated tools are, at best, a first pass—not an end state.
   -

   Vendor remediation often scopes *out* alt text, math, and complex
   figures unless you pay significantly more.
   -

   Retrofitting thousands of documents is often more expensive than
   replacing or re-authoring the most critical ones over time.


What’s been most helpful for us is framing this as *triage and lifecycle
management*, not a one-time cleanup project: prioritizing high-use /
high-risk materials, de-emphasizing low-traffic archives, and being honest
with stakeholders about what’s achievable under current financial
conditions.


No silver bullets here—just hard constraints and deliberate choices.
Sharing in case it’s useful context for others facing the same pressures.


On Thu, Feb 5, 2026 at 9:22 PM Monica Olsson via athen-list <
athen-list at u.washington.edu> wrote:


> Hi Amy, I plan to send you a document about Doc Access and security and

> thought that I had stated this in a prior email. Not a lot of folks know

> about the tool yet, in fact we (SBCTC) are they very reason a Canvas LTI

> tool even exists for the Doc Access tool. They built it for us :) I expect

> if our trial is successful and the tool is used at scale (really any scale)

> they will see a ton of higher ed clients over night…but we are kind of

> getting in at the beta stage. So, your inquiry to ATHEN may open a can of

> worms that I'm not entirely prepared for, but I guess it puts the tool on

> people's radar too!

>

> Get Outlook for iOS <https://aka.ms/o0ukef>

> ------------------------------

> *From:* athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu> on

> behalf of Amy Rovner via athen-list <athen-list at u.washington.edu>

> *Sent:* Thursday, February 5, 2026 5:46:49 PM

> *To:* Wallace, Sagan <Sagan.Wallace at oregonstate.edu>; Access Technology

> Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>; Susan Kelmer <

> Susan.Kelmer at colorado.edu>; Joshua Hori <jhori at ucdavis.edu>

> *Subject:* Re: [Athen] Rec's for PDF remediation on a giant scale

>

> * [Sent from outside SBCTC] *

>

> I'm very interested in the security of DocAccess. I hear that it can be

> embedded in Canvas. Is that how you are using it? I'm very suspect when

> companies using AI are too close to student data.

>

> Thank you!

> Amy

>

> *Amy Rovner, MPH RD*

> Director eLearning Services

> Accessible IT Coordinator

>

> *Shoreline Community College*

>

> *www.shoreline.edu <http://www.shoreline.edu/>*  |  206.546.6937

>

> eLearning Office: 206.546.6966

>

> eLearning Email: *elearning at shoreline.edu <elearning at shoreline.edu>*

>

> *Shoreline Support Center <https://support.shoreline.edu/>*

>

>

> [image: Shoreline logo with tagline, Engage. Achieve.]

> ------------------------------

> *From:* athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu> on

> behalf of Joshua Hori via athen-list <athen-list at u.washington.edu>

> *Sent:* Monday, February 2, 2026 2:56 PM

> *To:* Wallace, Sagan <Sagan.Wallace at oregonstate.edu>; Access Technology

> Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>; Susan Kelmer <

> Susan.Kelmer at colorado.edu>

> *Subject:* Re: [Athen] Rec's for PDF remediation on a giant scale

>

> [ CAUTION: This email originated from outside Shoreline Community College.

> Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and

> know the content is safe. ]

>

> DocAccess has been looking very interesting. They not only use AI for alt

> tags but also integrate with AIRA.io to provide human audio descriptions of

> images.

>

> Best,

>

> Joshua

>

> *From: *athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu> on

> behalf of Wallace, Sagan via athen-list <athen-list at u.washington.edu>

> *Date: *Wednesday, January 28, 2026 at 8:16 AM

> *To: *Access Technology Higher Education Network <

> athen-list at u.washington.edu>, Susan Kelmer <Susan.Kelmer at colorado.edu>

> *Subject: *Re: [Athen] Rec's for PDF remediation on a giant scale

>

> So far everyone I've looked at will do large-scale projects, but not write

> alt text (though they'll include it if you write it). I used Allyant for

> outsourcing PDFs at the time.

>

> Since I'm feeling snarky....why not just dump them in an ABBYY hot folder

> and call it a day? They're not going to make accessible STEM PDFs anyway,

> so why waste time finding the best option? 🙃

>

> Sagan Wallace

>

> *they/them*

> ------------------------------

> *From:* athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu> on

> behalf of Susan Kelmer via athen-list <athen-list at u.washington.edu>

> *Sent:* Wednesday, January 28, 2026 6:42 AM

> *To:* Access Technology Higher Education Network <

> athen-list at u.washington.edu>

> *Subject:* [Athen] Rec's for PDF remediation on a giant scale

>

>

> [This email originated from outside of OSU. Use caution with links and

> attachments.]

> I hope everyone's semester has gotten off to a bang-up start!

>

> A department on my campus has a enormous stockpile of

> scientific/engineering-type PDFs that are publicly available, and that

> department wants to undertake turning them all into accessible documents.

> Yes, they really want to do this, and first they asked me if I wanted to

> take on the project.

>

> No thanks.

>

> So I'm looking for recommendations for any large-scale PDF remediation

> companies that could do this kind of work.   Please and thanks.

>

> *Susan Kelmer*

> Alternate Format Production Program Manager

> Disability Services

> Division of Student Life

> *T* 303 735 4836

> *www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices

> <http://www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices>*

>

> _______________________________________________

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>



-- 
Best Regards,
Kevin Andrews
Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Coordinator
University Information Services
Georgetown University
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