Since joining the PDLT team, I have significantly increased my knowledge of the rules and regulations that govern accessibility standards for web content and how to apply this knowledge in my role. A 2018 EU Directive states that all FE / HE institutions should ensure that websites / learning environments are ‘perceivable, operable, understandable and robust” (Art. 4. Web Accessibility Directive) and that all institutions must provide an inclusive and accessible experience to all learners.
My colleagues within the PDLT team have been responsible for promoting an understanding of the accessibility guidelines and have shared their knowledge with me during my time in the team. I attended an accessibility workshop on 1st April 2019 which looked in detail at the accessibility regulations and provided advice on how to create accessible documents. The session and support from colleagues has developed my awareness of:
To help ensure that the University delivers accessible material I have built accessibility standards into my testing checks for Canvas content. This ensures that images that aid learning are accompanied by alt text, videos are accompanied by closed captions and text is formatted with headers. The inbuilt Canvas accessibility checker is a useful tool that helps to highlight if there are any accessibility issues on a page. I have promoted the use of this tool to the instructional designers by sharing the Canvas guides and offering online demonstrations on virtual calls so that they can quickly find content that doesn’t adhere to accessibility standards.
The importance of accessibility checks was highlighted to me when I attended a testing session with visually impaired students. This was the first time I had seen teaching material in Canvas accessed by a user with a screen reader and it made me appreciate how frustrating it can be to navigate through a page that does not adhere to accessibility standards. The feedback from the students was invaluable as we found unforeseen issues with the Canvas LMS platform itself where the screen reader would tell the user there were hyperlinks when in fact there was not. I fed back the problem to Canvas for further investigation.
This testing session also helped to highlight how the click and reveal buttons in Canvas were not accessible as they were not detected by tabbing through the page and therefore would not show to a screen reader.
I worked with colleagues to apply a html fix to these buttons throughout Canvas to ensure that they show when a user tabs through the page. I have learnt a lot about html since working with Canvas and now regularly apply fixes within the platform as required. Once this html fix was developed I shared it with our instructional designers and those responsible for accessibility within Departments. Experiencing inaccessible content first hand from a user’s point of view helped to show me the importance of the accessibility checks I perform, and encouraged me to develop my testing further so I now use the NonVisual Desktop Access when performing checks.
I routinely feed these issues back to our Customer Service Manager at Canvas to pass onto the product development team. Testing the LMS in this way helps to educate our supplier about accessibility standards and hopefully will improve their product as a result. Canvas have shared their Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) with us and confirmed that they are striving for WCAG 2.1 Level A/AA and Section 508 conformance. We have been given assurances from Canvas that they plan to make necessary improvements to meet EU WCAG 2.1 standards by August 2020.
It is important that I continue regular accessibility checks to ensure that the University offers a positive and equitable student experience to all and in doing so, also remains compliant with EU law. I will continue to learn about accessibility tools to help us achieve this. Sharing a clear picture of accessibility provision and gathering feedback from end users informs my understanding of what is working well and what needs more development. As previously stated, I will continue to share this with Canvas to support their product development.