Accessibility Basics
Accessibility Basics
When most people hear the word "disability" they think of an elderly individual in a wheelchair. We want you to think beyond that. While 26% of people are disabled (Center for Disease Control CDC), nearly everyone will experience some form of disability in their lives.
The reality is it is much easier and more time-effective to build a document that is accessible than it is to remediate for accessibility (even if you have to learn the accessibility piece as you are building).
Everyone should benefit from your course content. There are four main types of accessibility issues when it comes to digital content.
Visibility: Includes those who have no vision or low vision; they may be using screen readers, high contrast settings, or magnifiers. Document structure helps these individuals.
Audibility: Includes those who have low hearing or no hearing; narration or video is often difficult for these individuals. You want to make sure you’re adding captions and subtitles to your recordings. If you’re doing a presentation, a sign language interpreter/live captions should be included as you do not know who is hard of hearing or deaf in the audience.
Mobility:
Physical Mobility: Loss of range of motion.
Electronic Mobility: The ability to review documents across multiple devices and have them appear the same no matter where someone is looking at it.
Cognition: The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.
One of the common things we hear is, “Why do I need to make my content accessible? I don’t have any students with paperwork accommodations.” While this may be the case now, you may easily have a student later who does have accommodation paperwork. It’s estimated that approximately 10% of people have a learning disability (Butterworth and Kovas 2013). While this doesn’t seem like a lot, it’s effectively 1 in 10 individuals; therefore, if you have a course capped at 19 students odds are you have at least one student with a learning difference even though they may not have paperwork
Getting accommodations is expensive, so odds are you have students who will benefit from accommodations, but access to them is impossible for a gambit of reasons. There may be financial barriers.
A student, or their family/caregiver/guardian, might think they don’t “need” an accommodation. A student who is color blind might think that they don’t need or cannot get an accommodation, but they are at a great disadvantage if your course content doesn’t meet color contrast standards.
Richard Berg et al. (2014) found students leverage closed captioning even though none of the students in the study had an auditory learning difference.
Oregon State University and 3Play Media’s study found that 98.6% of students said captions were helpful, 97% reported using captions in f2f and online classes, and 80% used video transcripts. Only 6% listed the reason as disability accommodations vs 76% that listed “learning aid” as their reason.
As Corinne Grey, CEO of Uncomfortable Revolution, says, “If you embrace diversity but ignore disability, you’re doing it wrong” (URevolution). In order to be fully diverse, you have to accept individuals with disabilities also.
Accessible course content is required under Federal law. Many schools have been sued for noncompliance. Don’t become a statistic. The moment you put something in a digital space (e.g., email, Blackboard, Canvas, Google Drive), it must meet web accessibility standards; if it doesn’t, you are opening yourself up to litigation. Accessibility compliance is like speeding....ignorance of the law (or the speed limit) won’t help you out.
ADA Compliance for Online Course Design (Educause Review)
Finally, it is simply common courtesy. If you see someone struggling to open a door because their hands are full, you will probably feel inclined to hold the door for them. You should think of accessibility in that sense.
Any institution that receives federal funding is required by federal law to maintain and provide accessible documents!
Section 508 requires institutions to provide accessible content to students of all learning abilities; it aims to make websites, web apps, electronic documents, and software accessible to everyone.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 level A and AA are explicitly referenced in the refreshed Section 508.
Any content you deliver to students in a digital method (e.g., email, Blackboard, Canvas, or Google Drive) must meet 508 standards.
Accessibility is worth it. In order for your classroom to be fully diverse, you must also embrace those with disabilities. In order to be fully accessible, a mental shift must occur. Most people see accessibility as something they "have to do." But in order to truly be accessible, you have to think of accessibility as something that is simply part of producing any content. This is a mental adjustment that takes time. However, if asked, most educators will say they will do anything they can to help a student who wants to succeed achieve success.
Whenever someone attends one of our workshops, they are normally a bit overwhelmed and possibly feel a little guilty. The reality is you cannot know what you do not know, but what you can do is commit to arming yourself with the knowledge to do better going forward.
Understand that learning how to generate accessible content takes time. It will not happen in a day, and you probably will not get it right the first time. That is okay. You do not get upset with your students if they do not get it perfect the first time. We give you the same grace to make mistakes. You are trying to learn, and we are proud of you for taking those first steps.
While we know that there are tools to check for accessibility, the reality is they aren’t the best place to start. It is nearly always more work to remediate an inaccessible document than it is to make it accessible from the start (even if you have to learn the accessibility piece as you build). You should not see these tools as a starting point. You should see the accessibility checker as a polishing tool…just like spell check. If you are relying on the accessibility checker, you are for sure missing things because this is a tool, and just like every other tool, you have to know how to use it and how it’s supposed to function. So while it might tell you that you have an accessibility error, if you don’t understand the error, you won’t have any idea how to fix it.
Additionally, accessibility tools don’t catch everything. For example, if a tool is checking for alternative text, it cannot tell if the alt text is good.
The best thing you can do is commit yourself to learning digital accessibility concepts and ensure that all of your future work meets accessibility standards. It is much faster to make a document accessible from the start (even if you have to learn the accessibility concept) than it is to remediate an inaccessible document.
10 Tips for Creating Accessible Course Content (Iowa State University)
20 Tips for Teaching an Accessible Online Course (University of Washington)
AccessDL (University of Washington)
Accessibility (Microsoft)
Accessible Syllabus (Tulane University)
Accessible Syllabus Template (Temple University)
Accessibility (Portland Community College)
Accessibility Fundamentals (Microsoft Learn)
Accessibility & Usability Overview (Florida State University)
Accessibility @ HHS (Department of Health and Human Services)
Accessibility: What’s the Difference Between WCAG Levels A and AA? (My Accessible Website: Making Accessibility Easy YouTube)
ADA Compliance for Online Course Design (Educause)
All Teachers Should Be Ready To Incorporate Assistive Tech (ISTE)
An inclusive, accessible Microsoft 365 (Microsoft Accessibility)
An Intro to Designing Accessible Data Visualizations (Sarah L. Fossheim)
Assistive Technology for Learning: What You Need to Know (Understood)
Blaming Screen Readers (Adrian Roselli)
CAST (Center for Applied Special Technology)
Considerations for Course Design (Appalachian State University)
Course Syllabi (University of Minnesota)
Creating Accessible Learning Environments (Vanderbilt University)
Creating an Accessible Syllabus (California State University)
Creating Accessible Content (Portland Community College)
Designing Accessible Online Courses (University of Washington)
Designing an Accessible Online Course (Explore Access)
Designing an Accessible Syllabus (Stanford University)
DO-IT Center (University of Washington)
Doubling Down on Accessibility: Microsoft’s Next Steps to Expand Accessibility in Technology, the Workforce and Workplace (Official Microsoft Blog)
Duke Accessible Syllabus Project (Duke University)
How Can You Integrate Accessibility into Your Syllabus (University of Washington)
Improving Accessibility Often Falls to Faculty. Here’s What They Can Do (EdSurge)
Inclusive Design (Microsoft Design)
“Nothing About Us Without Us” -- Mantra for Movement (Huffington Post)
Path 6: Designing for Accessibility in Online Learning (Western University)
Principle: Accessible -- Ensuring Accessibility (World Health Organization)
Understanding the Faculty Role in Digital Accessibility (Inside Higher Ed)
ADA Compliance for Online Course Design (Educause)
Broadening the Right to Sue (Inside Higher Ed)
Nearly 1 in 5 People Have a Disability in the U.S., Census Bureau Reports (United States Census Bureau)
Old Dominion Violated Disability Law, DOJ Finds (Inside Higher Ed)
Higher Ed Accessibility Lawsuits, Complaints, and Settlements (University of Minnesota Duluth)
Legal Battle Over Captioning Continues (Inside Higher Ed)