Creating ADA Compliant Studies

1. Creating ADA Compliant Studies Kelly Hermann, Director of Disability Services Kathleen Stone, Director of Curriculum and Instructional Design

2. Laws and Regulations • ADA: American with Disabilities Act of 1990 • The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 • 504 • 508 • WCAG 2.0 Guidelines

3. What are the issues • Compatibility with assistive technology • Navigation to required course components and structures • Use of third party vendor sites and products where accessibility is unknown • Captioning and transcripts

4. Relevant cases • Kindle – the case that started it all • Louisiana Technical university – working with My “insert your subject here” labs and other third party sites • South Carolina Technical Community College system – no complaint necessary

5. Strategies: Documents • Style headings • Alternative text for images, tables, charts • Null attribute for purely decorative images (alt="") • Complex images explained in context • Descriptive text for links • Table of contents for longer documents • Font size smaller than 9 points • Low contrast between the text and the background • “Click here” and “Read more” as link text • Visual clues only (e.g., click on the red button)

6. Bad Document! Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations are often seen as the opposites of one dimension (Lepper, Corpus, & Iyengar, 2005). This means that students are engaged in an activity either because they are interested in the activity or because they are interested in the reward they will get after completing the activity. Read more… Intrinsically motivated students persist when confronted with a challenge and generally exhibit higher academic performance than extrinsically motivated students (Goldberg & Cornell, 1998). Look at the diagram of intrinsic motivation definition on the right.

7. Bad Document continued Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations are often seen as the opposites of one dimension (Lepper, Corpus, & Iyengar, 2005). This means that students are engaged in an activity either because they are interested in the activity or because they are interested in the reward they will get after completing the activity. Read more… Intrinsically motivated students persist when confronted with a challenge and generally exhibit higher academic performance than extrinsically motivated students (Goldberg & Cornell, 1998). Look at the diagram of intrinsic motivation definition on the right.

8. Strategies: Media • Accurate synchronized closed captions • If audio only - transcript • If video only – descriptive text transcript of screen action • Use our Library resources • Films on demand • Alexander Street Press

9. Vimeo vs. YouTube

10. Strategies: Web 2.0 Tools • Some Basic Questions • Can you use the keyboard instead of the mouse? • Does the cursor move in a logical order or flow? • Is there ALT text for all non-text elements? • Are there captions for audio and visual elements or transcripts for audio only elements? • Voki • Voicethread • Prezi

11. Where to go for more info: • Student Services and/or Disability Services with concerns about a student. We are here to help and happy to consult • Instructional designers and web designers – especially when developing/revising a course

12. Where to go for more info cont. • Web resources – some valuable places to go: • Web AIM – www.webaim.org • Penn State Accessibility website – accessibility.psu.edu • Others on our website – www.esc.edu/disabilityservices • Disability Services Blog http://commons.esc.edu/disabilityservices/

13. Questions? Kelly.Hermann@esc.edu Director of Disability ServicesKathleen.Stone@esc.edu Director of Curriculum and Instructional Design