Accessibility of Online Classes by Design

November 1, 2016

First: A word about Power Pointless! We at the University of Illinois Springfield Center for Online Learning, Research and Service present often at academic conferences. We encourage attendees to freely share presentation materials online using web-native tools that encourage collaboration and updating. You may follow the session using your personal mobile device to dig deeper into the topics we discuss and share with others following the conference.

Learning Outcomes

• Understand responsibilities in meeting accessibility regulations

• Apply standards for accessibility to online course tools used frequently in teaching

• Apply student-centered teaching to online course design

ADA Review

Making Files Accessible Checklist - Word, Excel, Powerpoint, HTML, Multimedia

The Americans with Disabilities Act, Title II and Title III

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act

Section 508, Section of the Rehabilitation Act - Electronic and Information Technology

Concepts

1. Build Content First, then begin to design the course

• Select accessible, open materials

• When recording videos, create closed-captions or transcripts

2. Create the a consistent and simple navigation path

• Blackboard is committed to accessibility.

• "Accessibility is an imperative, not an afterthought"

3. Model good "accessibility" etiquette in Discussion Boards

• Use This as a Discussion Board Title: Question About Assignment #2.

• Don't Use This: Question

4. Use color and font variation sparingly. Use strong contrasts and clean fonts.

• Color Contrast Examples

5. Use accessible formats of Word, PDF, HTML, and PowerPoint.

• How to Make Powerpoints accessible

• Create and verify PDF accessibility

• How to make WORD documents accessible

• How to create accessible EXCEL documents

6. Learn more about accessibility

• Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning - Feb. 2016

• About Universal Design

• Creating accessible courses in Blackboard

• Faculty responsibility discussed - Inside Higher Ed - 2013

• Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act

Links

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234800316_Integrating_accessibility_into_the_computer_science_curriculum

http://cs.winona.edu/CSCap/papers/sigcse2002.pdf

Functional Accessibility Evaluator 2.0

Spiders a website for WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA requirements and generates a summary report

https://fae.disability.illinois.edu/

AInspector Sidebar (for Firefox)

An Firefox Add-on to evaluate the current DOM of a web page for WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA requirements

http://ainspector.github.io/

Accessibility Bookmarklets (Safari, Chrome and Firefox)

Browser add-ons that help make hidden accessibility information visible to sighted developers

https://accessibility-bookmarklets.org

Videos

How to Add subtitles and closed-captions to a YouTube video

Screen Reader on PDF scanned as Image video (30 seconds)

Screen Reader on PDF scanned with Optical Character Recognition (but not tagging for reading order) video

Screen Reader on PDF Optical Character Recognition and Tagged for Reading Order video (50 seconds)

Lawsuits Proliferating Regarding Accessibility of Online Learning

Accessibility from a distance in higher education from University Business

US Dept of Justice Letter to UC Berkeley August 30, 2016

The Struggle to Make Online Courses Accessible in Higher Ed from Converge: The Center for Digital Education

Why online ed accessibility is not a “when we get to it” issue from eCampus News

5 Signs That You’re Vulnerable to a Digital Accessibility Lawsuit from 3PlayMedia

Spring 2016 Digital Accessibility Legal Update from Law Offices of Lainey Feingold

An incomplete list of some of the recent actions from University of Minnesota

University Accessibility Policies and Resources

A Course Accessibility Checklist

DO-IT publication that could be basis of a plan -- Real Connections: Making Distance Learning Accessible to Everyone

Boise State University Report: Recommendations to Promote Online Course /Content Accessibility by Christine Bauer

Shippensburg University IT Accessibility Plan

Penn State Accessibility Plan

Michigan State College of Natural Sciences Web Accessibility Five Year Plan (2015)

University of Maryland 3-Year IT Accessibility Plan

San Jose’ State Faculty Development of Accessible Online Materials

A university-wide accessibility plan (with updates of milestones achieved)

Perhaps the best discussion and note the appendix: A Working Model for Complying with Accessibility Guidelines for Online Learning by Cifuentes, Janney, Guerra, and Weir

Contact information

Dr. Vickie Cook

vcook02s@uis.edu

@DrVickieCook

Director of the Center for Online Learning, Research and Service

University of Illinois Springfield

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https://sites.google.com/a/uis.edu/colrs_cook/

http://www.uis.edu/colrs

217-206-7317