Embedded Files
Your department or team will need to have a coordinated approach to ensure that you plan to make things accessible, and manage to maintain these accessibility standards.
What you need to do or think about:
What you need to do or think about:
Accessibility Statement
Accessibility Statement
You need to have an accessibility statement on your area of the website or department vle homepage to explain what is and isn't accessible and who to contact.
Our Blackboard accessibility statement and Canvas accessibility statement are examples that you can follow.
For other software and systems, systems owners should undertake training on how to produce an accessibility statement for their service. See the Creating Accessibility Statements page. You can view our University web site accessibility statement for an example.
Reference: Accessibility statement guidance from gov.uk website
Action plan
Action plan
How will you ensure staff are aware of the digital accessibility requirements? (Ensure they complete the digital accessibility tutorial)
How will they receive the training they need to produce accessible sites and documents? (See Creating Accessible Documents page)
How will you prioritise what materials need converting?
Do you want to run a project with help from interns? Look out for any Student Success project funding that may be available each year.
How will you ensure that materials continue to be made in an accessible way going forward?
How will you ensure learners know how to use the more accessible formats?
How will you measure the impact of your efforts?
Read our blog post on Shifting Digital Accessibility practice at the University. Could you use the same model to design and reflect on work at a department level?
Blackboard Ally
Blackboard Ally
Departments using the VLE, Yorkshare, can have Blackboard Ally turned on for their sites. This is likely to be available by default from July 2020 to all staff and students.
Ally is a tool that works seamlessly on Blackboard to provide tips and step-by-step guidance to help instructors to improve content accessibility.
In addition to providing instructors with an accessibility report, Ally automatically creates alternative versions of the files. This allows students to choose the type of file they want that best suits their needs. While instructors are in the process of improving files, students still access alternative copies.
Live teaching
Live teaching
What are some things you need to consider when teaching students who may have vision impairment? See our guidance on Live Teaching for students who screen magnify.
For hearing-impaired students, you may find our page on Good practice to assist individuals with hearing loss useful.
User research
User research
Consider running a user research session so that the department is aware of the challenges that learners can face.
View PDLT and Library's blog post from our user research session and a guide on how to organise a user research session [Google Doc].
Other things to consider:
Other things to consider:
News: Keep up with digital accessibility news at the Digital Accessibility blog site.
Procurement - Any new service or resource you acquire should meet the new guidelines.
Recruitment and training - consider how you will upskill staff in the department and how you will introduce new staff to the skills required to create accessible documents and sites. Add this to your action plan.
References:
References:
Action plan - what needs to be done? [gov.uk website]
University of York links
University of York links
IT Services: Accessibility page
Library: Creating accessible files. Sensus is a tool that creates alternative formats, provided the original file is fairly accessible. Also find out more about accessible readings for students.
Marketing: Creating accessible content
Future Teacher webinar recording and interactive resource features Lilian Soon, PDLT, Emily Brunsden's case study (Physics) and advice from JISC's Alistair McNaught.
Contact digacc-support@york.ac.uk if you have any questions.
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