Tips
Designing New Courses
Design any new course with accessibility practices and universal design for learning principles in mind.
- What is Universal Design for Learning?: http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl/whatisudl
- Ten Steps Toward Universal Design for Online Courses: http://ualr.edu/disability/online-education/
- Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age: Universal Design for Learning: http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/101042.aspx
- Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education: http://udloncampus.cast.org/
Microsoft Word Documents
Create accessible Microsoft Word documents by adding in headings, alternative text for images, meaningful text descriptions for links, and table headers. You can check the accessibility of your Word document by running the Accessibility Checker (Word 2010 or higher). You will find it under File > Info > Check for Issues > Check Accessibility.
- Microsoft Word Accessibility Checklist: http://accessibility.temple.edu/sites/accessibility/files/documents/Microsoft%20Word%20Accessibility%20Checklist%20v4%203.docx
- How to Make a Word Document Accessible: http://www.pcc.edu/resources/instructional-support/access/word.html
- Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: http://adod.idrc.ocad.ca/
- Creating Accessible Microsoft Word 2013 Documents: http://ncdae.org/resources/cheatsheets/word2013.php
- Creating Accessible Word Documents (Microsoft): http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/creating-accessible-word-documents-HA101999993.aspx
Microsoft PowerPoint
Create accessible Microsoft PowerPoint documents by using slide layouts, adding alternative text for images and meaningful text descriptions for links, and checking reading order of text boxes. You can check the accessibility of your PowerPoint document by running the Accessibility Checker (PowerPoint 2010 or higher). You will find it under File > Info > Check for Issues > Check Accessibility.
- Microsoft PowerPoint Accessibility Checklist: http://accessibility.temple.edu/sites/accessibility/files/documents/Presentations%20Checklist%20v07b.docx
- PowerPoint Accessibility: http://www.pcc.edu/resources/instructional-support/access/powerpoint.html
- Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: http://adod.idrc.ocad.ca/
- Creating Accessible Microsoft PowerPoint 2013 Presentations: http://ncdae.org/resources/cheatsheets/powerpoint2013.php
- Creating Accessible PowerPoint Documents (Microsoft): http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint-help/creating-accessible-powerpoint-presentations-HA102013555.aspx?CTT=3
Alt-Tags for Images
Make sure descriptions exist for all images (including charts and graphs) either through a visually displayed textual description near/around the image or an alt attribute (alt txt) that is accessed and read by an assistive device. Remember that you want to provide the most relevant information about the image; what should the person know about why this image is here.
Video Scripts
Create a textual script first for any audio recording you will be creating. This can then be reused as a transcript that can accompany the audio file.
Captioning Video
Use the appropriate tools to make sure there is closed captioning for the video content that you find or create. Zoom and YouTube both have automatic transcription features but these along do not make your videos accessible. Closed captioning should be accurate and use punctuation to properly communicate meaning and who is speaking.
- Adding Closed Captions to Ensemble (Note: on this page, the 2 options available to Brandeis members is Amara and uploading a caption file): https://help.ensemblevideo.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003653103-Closed-Captions
- Editing Zoom Transcriptions: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115004794983-Automatically-Transcribe-Cloud-Recordings-#viewedit
- Captioning YouTube Videos: http://ncdae.org/resources/cheatsheets/youtube.php
- Google Presentation Live Caption: This does live captioning for Google Presentations. It's not recommended for videos but is useful for webinars/live Zoom sessions.
PDFs
Make sure any PDFs that you create or use in your courses are tagged PDFs in order to be accessed by an assistive device. To check a PDF to see if it is a Tagged PDF, open the PDF in Adobe Reader. Click on the File menu and then Properties. Under Advanced, you will see Tagged PDF and either Yes or No.
- PDF Document Accessibility: http://www.pcc.edu/resources/instructional-support/access/pdf.html
- PDF Conversion in Microsoft Word/PowerPoint 2007/2010: http://ncdae.org/resources/cheatsheets/pdf.php
- Creating Accessible PDF Documents In Adobe Acrobat XI: http://ncdae.org/resources/cheatsheets/acrobat-xi.php
- Accessibility Resources from Adobe: http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/
Other Websites
Ensure that any web sites you use in your courses are accessible.
- Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool (Check a web site’s accessibility with WAVE): http://wave.webaim.org/
Linking
When adding links to web sites into a document or into your course site, make sure to clearly identify the link destination so that users know where they will be taken if they click instead of using “click here” (for example).