Tag: accessibility

Meeting the Accessibility Needs of Adult Students

by Feb 01, 2016

Adult students have a higher incidence of disability and are less likely to seek accommodations than the general student population. What should we do to support them? Anticipate their needs. Why? The Adult Educator Handbook of Rights and Responsibilities, issued by the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning in 2005, succinctly describes the impact that meeting the accommodations of adult learners can have. Adult educators in the state of Kansas reported that students were more trusting and more productive, their self-confidence and self-esteem improved, and, because they were more comfortable, they had increased interaction with staff and other

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Planning for Accessibility: January 2016 Online Learning Webinar

Jan 07, 2016

The first Online Learning Webinar of 2016 focused on accessibility. In Planning to Write for Accessibility, Christine Scherer and Krissy Wilson demonstrated a number of simple steps that designers and developers can take to make course sites more accessible. They demonstrated how screenreaders work and how to use functions that already exist within Canvas to increase accessibility. A recording of the presentation is available on Adobe Connect, and the presentation slides are available for viewing and download: Planning to Write an Accesible Online Course – SPS DL Webinar – 1_2016. If you are interested in learning about improving accessibility in your course, please

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Seeing Differently: Designing for Students With Colorblindness and Low Vision

by Dec 14, 2015

Lots of minute decisions govern color selection in design. What colors show allegiance with a university or college? What colors highlight the most important information in an infographic? What colors best distinguish between different types of data? One question that is rarely asked is, “Are these colors accessible?” Who Benefits? Colorblind students see colors differently. This may manifest in many different ways, but are predominantly classified as those with difficulty differentiating between red and green and those with difficulty differentiating between blue and yellow. Consider taking a colorblindness test or reading more about colorblindness. Students with low vision often require

Seven Resources for Designing with Accessibility

by Aug 17, 2015

The Online Learning Consortium (OLC) presented a number of resources for accessible course design at a recent accessibility workshop. The best of those resources are highlighted here, with information about how each can support designers and faculty in improving course accessibility. General Accessibility Resources Web Accessibility in Mind (WebAIM) An excellent resource containing numerous articles on various aspects of Web accessibility, types of disability to consider, how to implement alternative text, keyboard navigation, document design, and more. The site also provides links to accessibility tools and checkers. Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project This site contains techniques for making accessible

10 Steps to Make Your Course Accessible with WCAG 2.0, Part II

by Jun 22, 2015

Last week, we discussed the first five strategies for improving the accessibility of your online content, as outlined in the OLC and 3PlayMedia webinar. Today, we’ll review the last five tips for implementing WCAG 2.0. 6. Don’t Auto-Play Multimedia In addition to captions and transcripts, it is important to make sure that multimedia doesn’t autoplay and can easily be paused. Auto-play media can interfere with a user’s ability to navigate through a page, especially if the controls to pause or stop the media are difficult to locate or are not keyboard accessible. 7. Use Accessible JavaScript JavaScript can be used

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