Online Courses and Accessible Content

1. Basic Steps of Creating Accessible Content Online Courses and Accessible Content

2. Agenda • WKU’s Disability Accommodations Statement • Policies, Procedures, and Legal Issues • Why Accessibility is Important • Common Accessibility Issues • Highlight of Accessibility Features • Ensure accessibility of: • Accessible Multimedia (Audio/Video) • Microsoft Word documents • PDF files • PowerPoint presentations • Accessibility @ WKU & Resources WHAT IS ADA? ADA stands for the Americans with Disabilities Act.

3. Disability Accommodations Statement & QM: 8.1 The course employs accessible technologies and provides guidance on how to obtain accommodation. 8.2 The course contains equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content. 8.3 The course design facilitates readability and minimizes distractions. 8.4 The course design accommodates the use of assistive technologies. "Students with disabilities who require accommodations (academic adjustment and/or auxiliary aids or services) for this course must contact the Office for Student Disability Services. The Office for Student Disability Services (OFSDS) telephone number is 270-745-5004. Please DO NOT request accommodations directly from the professor or instructor without a letter of accommodation from the Office of Students Disability Services (SDS)."

4. Why is Web Accessibility Important? • Content design improves for all users • Interface usability improves for all users • It’s a policy and the law • As Steve Krug says, “It’s the right thing to do” This 11.5 minute video provides an overview of the difficulties users with disabilities face on the web and some of the motivations for web accessibility (Video).

5. Policies, Procedures, and Legal Issues • State Systems requiring Accessibility in HE (CA, TX) • States Authorization Issues (26 States); International Issues (UN) • Legal Issues-2010 (i.e. court cases: Penn State, and Kindle XD) • Accreditation Entities (Mapping Accreditations Co-principles with Accessibilities in Distance Education)

6. Accessibility is a Process • Accessibility can’t be learned in a day… • Training should extend over a long period… • Leaving accessibility to the end is NEVER a workable strategy. • Accessibility is a design parameter, not a feature request.

7. Status of Digital Accessibility in Postsecondary Settings (1998)? National Data on Postsecondary Web Accessibility

8. Status of Digital Accessibility in Postsecondary Settings (2008)? National Data on Postsecondary Web Accessibility

9. Everyone benefits from Accessibility! Traditional Demographics Current Demographics

10. Why is Web Accessibility Important? • Estimates suggest that at least 10% of the population has a disability that will affect the use of a computer • In the U.S., over 8 million people are blind or visually impaired • Over 20 million deaf and hard of hearing people in the U.S • Nearly 1 million of these can’t understand any speech at all • Over 50% of U.S. population over age 65 has some kind of impairment • By 2020, predicted to be 53.7 million Stats from User-Centered Website Development: A Human-Computer Interaction Approach, McCracken and Wolfe, Prentice Hall, 2004, pp210-211 and Human Computer Interaction, 3e, Dix, Finlay, et al., Prentice Hall, 2004, p. 384.

11. Common Accessibility Issues: Vision • Low Vision • For many, screen magnification enables use of web pages • Designers can help by using large typefaces suited to reading on a screen Verdana vs. Arial Georgia vs. Times New Roman

12. Common Accessibility Issues: Vision • Blindness • What is displayed on monitor is simply not available to blind • For those WITH hearing, a screen reader may assist • Speech synthesizer that reads aloud text appearing on computer screen • Includes text in menu selections, dialog boxes, forms, etc.

13. Common Accessibility Issues: Vision • Color Deficiency • Often referred to as color blindness, though true color blindness is very rare • Many estimate that upwards of 8% of males and 0.5% of females in U.S. have some degree of color deficiency • Most common type is red/green confusion Stats from User-Centered Website Development: A Human-Computer Interaction Approach, McCracken and Wolfe, Prentice Hall, 2004, pp210-211 and Human Computer Interaction, 3e, Dix, Finlay, et al., Prentice Hall, 2004, p. 384.

14. Common Accessibility Issues: Vision • Red on Green

15. Example - Visual Impairment

16. Common Accessibility Issues: Hearing • Hearing Issues include • Deafness • Unable to recognize conversational speech through hearing • Hard of Hearing • Some loss of hearing function but still able to use hearing for communication • Often requires amplification

17. How Accessible is our WKU Learning Management System(Blackboard) &Why Should We Care? video

18. Closed-Captioning • Transcription team: undergrad work-study students.

19. Closed-Captioning • Transcription team: use a “Wave pedal” start/stopspeed, etc.

20. Closed-Captioning

22. We mark our closed-captioned presentations (CC)

23. Accessible Multimedia (Audio/Video)

24. Additional Benefits • Can upload the closed-caption file as additional learning resource for students (additional content) • Captioning makes it easier for students to learn spelling and obscure terms • Can translate transcripts and have subtitles (Dual-language lectures) • Searchability! • Good Karma 

25. Online Quizzes & Tests • Online Quizzes, Homework or Learning Activities • Think about requiring limited time– is it necessary? • For students w/accommodation—allow more time as per the accommodation. • you give students with documented disabilities the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge of the course material without the stress of a timed exam. • For more information including publications and citations go to (Accessible Resources).

26. Online Quizzes & Tests • Online Quizzes, Homework or Learning Activities • If you are given choices for display, please use the vertical layouts rather than horizontal (screen readers read the information more accurately based on the hidden table structure that the programmers implemented for the student interface.) • The quiz may require more scrolling to finish, but each question will be focused on assessing knowledge and not comprehension of technology or deciphering screen layouts.

27. Testing Compliance • Free Validators & Screen-readers: • Total Validator – also extension/plug-in for Mozilla Firefox • WebAIM’sWAVE • Automated evaluation tools: • $$ HiSoftware’sAcc Verify, Repair, Monitor

28. Accessible Word & PDF Documents Training (~1 hour) • Structure and Reading Order • Creating Alternative Text in Word   • Creating Accessible Acrobat Document • Testing Word & PDF for Accessibilities

29. Office 2010 Accessibility Highlights • Accessibility Checker in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint make it easier for users to identify and fix accessible issues in user-generated-content. It works like grammar checker. • Add captions to video: Microsoft PowerPoint add-on, called STAMP let’s you add captions in video within your PowerPoint slides which makes it possible for students with hearing impairments to read video captions

30. More Office 2010 Accessibility Highlights • DAISY add-in for Word translate Word Documents into digital talking books. • Speak text-to-speechfeature plays text as spoken word for Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, and OneNote • Customizable Ribbon to it easier to access commonly used features.

31. What Can We Do NOW? • Consider your contribution • Colleagues, Department, and Institution-wide can help create success • Is your program application process accessible as appropriate? • Professional organizations? Think beyond your course

32. Resources Quality Matters WAI Access Learning Access Wizards Ohio State University Web Accessibility for All WebAIM University of Washington The College of New Jersey

33. Thanks for your Attention! & Questions?