3a (part 1)

Accessibility

In this section I will focus on my work in making course materials accessible. I am aware of the Equality Act 2010, which states in section 20 that “reasonable adjustments” should be made to avoid putting people with a disability at a “substantial disadvantage”, and that to avoid this, “information is provided in an accessible format”.

in practice, for online learning, this means course materials must be useable by anyone, whether or not they have a visual impairment, dyslexia, or other specific learning difficulty (SpLD). As a lot of the material I produce is either directly coded in HTML format or eventually published in it, I also refer to the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines document. This is currently at version 2.1 and details ways of ensuring web content is fully accessible.

I take accessibility seriously: at the University of Wales my work included assisting students with screen reader software, and over time this has given me insight into how materials need to be presented in order for it to work properly. I helped SpLD students with ClaroRead. This could read Word documents, PDFs and web pages by highlighting text with a cursor, and was able to save passages of text as audio files for later playback. If needed I encouraged the use of NVDA, a web screen reader which allows users to use the keyboard to highlight different screen elements.

Although this is old experience (ending in 2012) I believe it is relevant, so I have attached a job description which covers my duties to “explore the student’s difficulties in relation to learning and identify ways of using assistive software and technology or differing means of communication that will encourage independent learning skills.” (13b)

Job description - Support Mentor.pdf

Accessibility in learning materials

I believe that rather than trying to revisit published material to make it accessible, it should be designed from the beginning with accessibility in mind. At UCEM I aim to do this in the following ways:

General visual principles: There must be no repeated flashing elements. Contrast is important, bearing in mind that different colours of similar value (i.e. similar relative lightness) will be hard to tell apart for people with some visual impairments. Fonts and font sizes should be consistent. Text should not be in long, unreadable blocks, and preferably broken down into short paragraphs and lists.

HTML/CSS material: Use semantic HTML5 code. For example, follow a <h1> to <h6> heading structure rather than simply changing the font size; use <em> tags for emphasis rather than italics.

All images should have alt text. I have used Google Sites to add alt text to every image in this portfolio.

You must be able to tab to all elements; once a text element is highlighted the screen reader reads it; once an image is highlighted it reads the alt text.

Adding an image description then alt text

Applying image description and alt text in Moodle

Bootstrap: My use of Bootstrap code for the creation of Moodle content has had various benefits for accessibility, including allowing tables and images to scale to the width of the device screen.

I have collected sample code which can be used to easily create coloured text boxes to signpost learners through their material.

Using Bootstrap to create coloured text boxes

Signposting content via simple coloured text boxes in Bootstrap

Presentations: I encourage tutors to use the department’s standard Powerpoint template for learning materials, which was designed for maximum accessibility, with consistent fonts, font sizes, colours, and plain backgrounds with no visual distractions.

Here is an example of a Powerpoint with accompanying audio, published in HTML5 by iSpring.

Using iSpring to turn Powerpoints into interactive HTML5 presentations

Authoring tools: Publish using HTML5 output and never solely in Flash. Avoid elements that can only be selected with a mouse (examples are drag-and-drop questions and mouse-drawn hotspot areas in Storyline), as these cannot be recognised by screen readers. Clean design is important for accessibility: white space, consistency in font size and styles, alignment, balance.

Audio and video: To avoid discrimination, these need a transcript; overly long videos should be broken down into separate parts.

Transcript from an instructional video

Moodle has an optional text editor called Atto which includes a built-in accessibility checker. I included this feature as part of a checklist I produced for the Content Development team when reviewing modules before publication.

In addition I will check for consistent heading styles, consistent use of code etc, but obviously with dozens of modules released every semester, there needs to be consistency in the team. As a department we are developing processes to ensure greater consistency between modules.

Excerpt from my module setup checklist

Accessibility for everyone

Putting accessibility first for SpLD learners inevitably results in materials that are more accessible for everyone. The use of Bootstrap and responsive HTML5 code in Moodle pages and books means that all visual elements can scale to fit any device screen.

This includes tables:

Responsive tables - code and example

Also, videos. I used to find embedding Youtube videos frustrating, as by default Moodle includes them in a non-responsive, fixed-width container which tends to look too small on desktop devices and inconsistent on mobile.

I found, tweaked, and shared some code to embed Youtube videos in the VLE in a responsive video frame that scales to the width of the page, and did the same with code for videos from other sites.

HTML5 code for responsive video frames

Responsive video frame

Other accessibility considerations that benefit all learners are:

avoid cognitive overload: in 2a I referred to Richard Meyer’s principles to combat this;
user interfaces should be clear and easy to understand;
use standard filetypes: don’t expect all learners on a course to have an unusual piece of software, and certainly not if they need to pay for it;
avoid large downloads: don’t waste learners’ mobile data, and consider those with low access speeds;
supply material in more than one format where possible: for example, transcripts for videos, and study papers in PDF, HTML and ebook format.

I argue that we need to ensure all material is prepared in an accessible format, rather than waiting until there is a student query, and reacting to it when asked. I have found accessibility can be seen as an optional extra by staff who feel pushed for time. To avoid this, it is important for managers to understand the implications of not spending enough time on material to make it accessible, and to plan accordingly.

For example, I have only been able to produce closed captions for one video; my solution for the others was to create screenshot-heavy transcripts, which work, but are not ideal.

VLE instructional video with closed captions

Closed captions for an instructional video

Transcript with screenshots