Creating Accessible Course Design

Just like in our face-to-face classes, we need to consider how accessible our online teaching materials may be to those with differing abilities and learning needs.

General Recommendations

Where possible, use the same format for similar materials throughout your course so that students learn quickly where to look for important information or how to access key functions. For example, weekly discussion forums should use a similar format from week to week; assignment guidelines for different assignments should have a similar format so that deadlines and key information can be easily found.

Provide options for learning by presenting content in multiple ways (e.g., in a combination of text, video, audio, and/or image format). See specific suggestions for providing content in different formats below.

Assume students have a wide range of technology skills and plan to provide instruction or guides for any technology students need to participate in your online course. While you can generally assume that upper year students will be familiar with the basics in Moodle, you may need to provide information about more advanced Moodle features or other educational technology.

Don’t necessarily assume that low-tech = low quality. For some activities and learning outcomes, low tech can not only be more accessible, but also more effective. This article on “platforming down” makes a good case for low tech as accessible practice.

This resource from eCampus Ontario gives good advice on how to create lower bandwidth versions of various types of content.

The KIC book scanners in the library have optical character recognition (OCR), which means they can scan text and make it readable. If you are scanning course material you can make your document more accessible by saving the file as a Searchable PDF. This will allow the text to be read by screen readers and make it easier for students to find content within the text.

If your document is difficult to see, use the settings to adjust the brightness and contrast to make it easier to read.

Read more on the library's page for Resources on Accessible Teaching.

General guidelines for creating readable, accessible text documents are as follows:

Use large, bold fonts on uncluttered pages with plain backgrounds.

Use color combinations that are high contrast and can be read by those who are colorblind.

Use clear, consistent layouts and organization schemes for presenting content.

Structure headings, tables and lists using style features built into Moodle, Microsoft Word, Google Docs, etc. People with visual impairments use these document structure tools to navigate through a document.

Use descriptive wording for links (e.g., “Mixing paint tutorial” rather than “click here”).

Screen reader technology can usually read files saved in PDF or common word processing formats (such as Word or Google Docs), but they cannot read text scanned as images or created in less common platforms.

If you are scanning text, use optical character recognition so it can be read with a screenreader. Save the file as “Searchable PDF” to use OCR.

Wherever possible, use actual text instead of images with texts embedded in them. If you can’t avoid using images with text, provide a caption or description of the text that those using screen readers can access (just as you would with other images—see below).

If you are creating Moodle books, make sure you make them printable which will allow students to export them as PDFs. Do this by adding the Administration block to the book view (i.e. add it when you are actually viewing one of the pages in the book) and then the print option will show up for students.

Those with visual and certain types of processing impairments rely on image descriptions that a screen reader can read as they navigate the page. When you are uploading images to your Moodle site, always provide a description of the image, as well as an image caption.

Within My Media there is a button to display the listed content in high-contrast and black and white:

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Those with hearing impairments find captions and transcripts essential to fully engage with video and audio content. See this guide on how to order and edit captions for uploaded videos:

Google slides has a fairly good automatic captioning function if you are creating video lectures. The TLC is research other programs to create automatic captions and transcripts.

Some students will find real-time conversations in BlueJeans or Zoom difficult to participate in for a variety of reasons, whether emotional or technological. BlueJeans currently support live in-call captioning; this guide explains how to enable captions also for recorded sessions.

The following tips can make the real-time Zoom or BlueJeans conference more accessible for all:

Have students identify themselves when they speak in large group discussions—a simple “This is Gabe. I have a question about x.” Those with visual impairments or who are unable to view video because of weak internet connections will not be able to follow speaker highlighting.

Give clear instructions about when and how students should use the chat function, or consider turning off the chat function for some discussions: having two parallel conversations happening simultaneously can be distracting and confusing for those with certain types of cognitive processing impairments.

If you are using the chat function, consider assigning someone (a co-instructor, TA or student) to bring forward important ideas and questions into the main discussion so those with visual impairments don’t miss important information.

If it’s available, use the closed captioning function on BlueJeans or Zoom to caption real-time discussions. If this feature is not available, you are able to add captions to video recordings of discussions using the MyMedia function in Moodle (see guide).

The library has built their own site for Resources on Accessible Teaching.

Not all library material is published in accessible formats, but if you can, try to find an electronic version of a text.

Search the library resources using the General Search option and narrow your results by eBook or article using the limiters on the left side of the screen. Most of these resources will provide multiple format options of the text (audio, larger print, etc).

Once you find the resource you can use the permalink or download and embed it into your Moodle site (within Copyright guidelines).

If you need help finding electronic versions, ask a library staff member for help: library@ecuad.ca. It’s possible that the resource is only published in print, but the library can try to find an alternate format for you.

20 Tips for Teaching an Accessible Online Course by Sheryl Burgstahler

Teaching Techniques: Making Accessible Learning

TRU Accessibility Quick Guide