TLDR: The Department of Instructional Innovation and Design (DIID) at Northeast Iowa Community College (NICC) has received a 2025 D2L Excellence Award for their groundbreaking Accessibility Hub. This innovative platform, built within the D2L Brightspace learning management system, significantly streamlines accommodation services for students and faculty, enhancing accessibility and student success.
Northeast Iowa Community College’s (NICC) Department of Instructional Innovation and Design (DIID team) was recently honored with a prestigious 2025 D2L Excellence Award at the D2L Fusion global conference, held on August 6, 2025, in Savannah, Georgia. This accolade recognizes innovative educators and institutions that leverage D2L’s Brightspace platform to revolutionize learning experiences and foster student success.
The DIID team earned the award for their exceptional work in designing and implementing the Accessibility Hub. This custom-built Brightspace course, developed in close collaboration with NICC’s Accessibility Services, serves as a centralized resource that streamlines accommodation tracking, documentation, and communication. The Hub simplifies internal processes, reduces staff workload, and significantly improves student engagement by making it easier for both students and faculty to access and manage support services.
Key features of the Accessibility Hub include the integration of tools like YuJa Panorama and the Brightspace Accessibility checker, ensuring the resource is user-friendly and compliant with accessibility standards. It also utilizes the Groups tool to grant individual access to accessible textbook files, and students can interact with their texts using tools such as ReadSpeaker and Panorama. An assignment dropbox within the Hub triggers alerts for staff when students are ready to receive their files.
Jennifer Wood, Director of Accessibility Services at NICC, praised the system, stating, “The ability to use Brightspace for audio books has been great. It has allowed us to save accessible versions and grant access to specific students. It has also given us a space for peer notetakers to share notes in a confidential way.” The impact of the Hub is evident in its usage data: it has facilitated the automated delivery of 12,000 personalized messages to 350 students, and students have accessed accommodation letters over 3,000 times.
Beyond receiving the award, the DIID team demonstrated their expertise by delivering five presentations at the Fusion conference. These included ‘Learning Over Letter Grades: Leveraging Outcomes and Competency-Based Strategies to “Ungrade”’, ‘Ditch the Detectors: Leveraging Brightspace to Encourage Authenticity in the Age of AI’, ‘Oral Assessment in the Age of AI’, ‘The Accessibility Hub: Using Brightspace to Provide Accommodation Letters & Other Accessibility Services’, and ‘Pathways to Mastery: Leveraging Brightspace Automations for Competency-Based Education’.
MJ Dachelet, Executive Director of Instructional Innovation and Design, commented on the achievement, “This award reflects the DIID Team’s strategic collaboration across the College. The Accessibility Hub is just one example of the innovative solutions the team is developing to support our students, advance the NICC mission and amplify the work of our faculty and staff.” Dachelet also highlighted future initiatives, including supporting program areas with Open Educational Resources, expanding Z-degree offerings, and rolling out several competency-based education (CBE) programs in the coming years, further pushing the boundaries of how their Learning Management System (LMS) can be used to improve education through creative API programming and custom widget design.
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The DIID team members recognized for this achievement include Jordan O’Connell (Instructional Designer), Travis Hunt (LMS Administrator), MJ Dachelet (Executive Director), Shannon Brenner (Instructional Designer), Marilee Mai (Faculty Support Specialist), and Caleb Feuling (Instructional Systems Support Specialist), who received the award alongside Interim College President Dave Dahms.
