Federal Work-Study (FWS) Internship Program: Library Graduate Digital Accessibility Lead (Student Wage)

The Library Digital Accessibility Lead leads one of two sub-teams within the UVA Library Digital Accessibility Student Team: Captioning & Transcription or PDF & Document Remediation. The Lead directly supervises two undergraduate Library Digital Accessibility Assistants, providing day-to-day task direction, quality review, and professional mentorship. In addition to team leadership responsibilities, the Lead performs advanced production work in their track and contributes to workflow design, quality documentation, and program assessment. The position reports to the Library's Digital Accessibility Specialist.

This role is well suited to graduate students seeking professional experience in accessibility program management, library services, or a related field. Specific responsibilities vary by track.

Primary Responsibilities

Team Leadership and Quality Assurance (approximately 35% of effort)

• Provide day-to-day direction to two undergraduate Assistants, including task assignment, workload pacing, and deadline management

• Review all undergraduate output before final submission, applying established quality benchmarks

• Deliver structured, constructive written feedback to undergraduate team members on a regular basis

• Serve as the first point of escalation for undergraduate questions, edge cases, and complex or unfamiliar material

• Document recurring quality issues and communicate patterns to the Digital Accessibility Specialist to support training improvements

Advanced Production Work (approximately 45% of effort)

• Leads perform advanced production work in their assigned track, handling complex or escalated materials that exceed undergraduate skill level. Track-specific responsibilities will be provided in the position supplement.

• Across both tracks, all Leads are expected to: Handle materials requiring specialized accessibility judgment and Maintain accurate production logs and contribute to team throughput tracking

• See tracks for additional details

Workflow, Documentation, and Assessment (approximately 20% of effort)

• Contribute to workflow documentation and onboarding materials during the first weeks of each semester

• Develop or refine quality checklists and standards for use by undergraduate team members

• Contribute to documentation of institutional accessibility standards and guidelines for use by future team cohorts and other Library units

• Support end-of-semester assessment of throughput, quality metrics, and team sustainability

• Participate in cross-team coordination with the other Graduate Leads as needed

Additional Track-Specific Responsibilities

Captioning & Transcription Focus Area

In addition to team leadership responsibilities, the Lead performs advanced captioning and transcription production work and co-leads the semester's multilingual captioning pilot, testing LLM-based workflows for non-English language media. Job functions include:

• Create accurate captions and transcripts for Library digital media using captioning software tools

• Edit and correct auto-generated captions to meet quality standards for timing, accuracy, speaker identification, and readability

• Edit captions and transcripts for materials with multiple speakers, background noise, or technical vocabulary, applying judgment about clarity and speaker attribution

• Follow established style guides and quality benchmarks for caption formatting

• Submit completed work to the Graduate Captioning Specialist for quality review and incorporate feedback

• Assist with quality review of LLM-generated captions for non-English language media as directed by the Graduate Captioning Specialist

• Flag accuracy concerns and document recurring issues for pilot evaluation

• Design and document test protocols for evaluating AI-generated captions in non-English languages

• Evaluate third-party and AI-generated caption outputs against FCC caption quality standards and WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 1.2, documenting error patterns by type for pilot reporting

• Coordinate undergraduate quality review of pilot outputs and synthesize reviewer feedback

• Contribute findings and recommendations to the pilot evaluation report

PDF and Document Remediation Focus Area

In addition to team leadership responsibilities, the Lead performs advanced remediation work on complex or high-priority materials and contributes to workflow design, quality benchmarking, institutional documentation, and end-of-semester program assessment. Job functions include:

• Remediate PDF and document files to meet WCAG 2.1 AA and PDF/UA accessibility standards

• Correct and add reading order, semantic tags, heading structure, alt text for images, and document metadata using Adobe Acrobat Pro

• Apply quality control for complex content types such as tables, charts, and multi-column layouts, flagging items that require escalation to the Graduate Remediation Specialist

• Perform remediation of complex or priority documents, including materials with mathematical content, multi-column layouts, data tables, forms, or scanned content requiring OCR correction

• Handle escalated files that exceed undergraduate skill level or require specialized accessibility judgment

• Apply the full remediation tool stack as needed: SensusAccess, Equidox, Adobe Acrobat Pro, PAC 2024

• Maintain accurate production logs and contribute to team throughput tracking

• Assist with evaluation of third-party tools and vendor accessibility documentation (VPATs) against WCAG 2.1 AA standards, as directed by the Digital Accessibility Specialist

Submit a CV/resume as well as a cover letter detailing your experience with accessibility, attention to detail, or related skills, and your commitment to digital equity and information access. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS

Education: Bachelor's degree. Registered as a graduate student.

Licensure: None

PREFERRED REQUIREMENTS

• Prior experience with captioning, transcription, or audio/video editing

• Familiarity with captioning platforms such as YouTube Studio, Verbit, 3Play Media, or Amara

• Experience with or interest in linguistics, a second language, or translingual content — particularly relevant for supporting the multilingual captioning pilot

• Prior experience with PDF editing, document formatting, or accessibility remediation

• Familiarity with Adobe Acrobat Pro, Microsoft Word accessibility features, or HTML/document structure concepts

• Background in a STEM field or familiarity with technical notation (formulas, equations, diagrams) is a plus, given the volume of STEM content in Library collections

• Familiarity with version control or document management practices, such as tracking file versions, naming conventions, and organized handoffs

• Interest in disability studies, media accessibility, or library and information science

In addition to the job duties and responsibilities outlined above, this position will participate in an asynchronous co-curricular workshop series through Canvas. Through this robust internship experience, students will receive dedicated career support from their supervisor and gain key skills and competencies that align with future job interests. The FWS Internship will look great on your resume and provide the student with impactful stories to share in interviews. TFWS Internships are best suited for graduate students.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS

This is primarily a sedentary job involving extensive use of desktop computers. The job does occasionally require traveling some distance to attend meetings, trainings, and programs. Hybrid work might be possible after an initial training period.

WEEKLY HOURS

Up to 20 hours/week; average 10-12 hours across the semester

Hourly Rate: $22/hour

The University of Virginia is an equal opportunity employer. All interested persons are encouraged to apply, including veterans and individuals with disabilities. Learn more about UVA’s commitment to non-discrimination and equal opportunity employment .