Accessibility and

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Accessibility and

• Practical Solutions
• Stacy Smith
• Adaptive Technology Specialist
• Disability Support Services, K-State

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What is meant by Accessibility?
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Accessibility defined

• A term used to describe the relative ease or
  difficulty in reaching a waterfall.
• --www.world-waterfalls.com/glossary.php

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Accessibility defined

• In the age of information technology,
  accessibility refers to the possibility for
  everyone, regardless of physical or technological
  readiness, such as people with disabilities, to
  access and use technology and information
  products.
  -- www.remedy.com/customers/dev_communi
  ty/UserExperience/glossary.htm

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Why consider accessibility?

• Federal Law mandates equal access to
  education, employment, communication, technology,
  and other resources for persons with disabilities.

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Disability law

• Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
• Prohibits discrimination on the basis of
  disability
• Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments
  of 1973
• Ensures that Federally funded institutions such
  as Universities provide equal access to students
  with disabilities
• Section 508 of the the Rehabilitation Act
  Amendments of 1998
• Requires electronic and information technology to
  be accessible to persons with disabilities

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Legal conclusions for education

• Universities must provide equal access to
  educational opportunities for otherwise qualified
  students.
• An otherwise qualified student meets the
  academic and technical standards requisite to
  admission or participation.
• The experience for persons with disabilities must
  be equivalent to that of other participants

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The bottom line

• Accessibility is the right thing to do.
• Increasing enrollment of students with
  disabilities.
• Entities that accept Federal funds must meet
  Federal regulations.
• All States accept Federal funding.

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What has to be accessible?

• Course management software
• Web pages that support the course
• Course content such as presentations, documents,
  pdfs, graphics, images, video, etc.

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Providing accessible content . . .

• How do I do that?

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The good news

• Axio is quite accessible
• Navigation
• Email and message boards
• Variety of file types supported
• Does not mean that every Axio feature is
  accessible!
• Axio team interested in accessibility
• Request feedback, program that, repeat
• Variety of tools already exist
• Most of you arent responsible for LMS development

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The bad news?

• Cant use all these cool tools?
• My course has to be boring and plain?
• This will take a lot of work and effort?
• The university has to spend lots of ?

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The bad news?

• Cant use all these cool tools?
• My course has to be boring and plain?
• This will take a lot of work and effort?
• The university has to spend lots of ?

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Use what you want . . .

• . . . But plan for accessibility. Considering
  accessibility in delivering eLearning hinges on
  preparation. What have you done, as an
  instructor, to prepare for the eventuality of a
  student with a disability enrolling in your
  course?

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Learn about the end user

• How do students with disabilities interact with
• The WWW?
• Turn off images
• Tab through web pages
• Download free reader software
• Common file types/components?
• Try built-in text-to speech
• Bandage your fingers and participate in
  text-based chat
• Close your eyes and listen to a visual lecture
  with visual aids

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Resources

• ReadPlease www.readplease.com
• Mozilla FireFox http//www.mozilla.com/en-US/fire
  fox/
• Developers Toolkit extension
• FireVox extension
• Speech-to-text built into MicroSoft Office, Apple
  OS
• Text-to-speech built into MicroSoft Office, Adobe
  Acrobat (full version)

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Start planning. Plan. Plan some more.

• The Office of Civil Rights states that
  accommodations should be planned for at the
  beginning of course development, rather than on
  an ad-hoc basis once the student enrolls
• Planning saves time and money
• Planning provides a marketing advantage
• Disabled population is growing
• Accessible to handheld devices

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Learn the standards

• As administrators/instructors, you have two main
  areas of concern
• Web design and delivery
• World Wide Web Consortium (www.w3.org)
• Federal Government (www.section508.gov and
  www.access-board.gov)
• WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind
  www.webaim.org)
• Course content
• WebAIM (see above)
• Vendor sites (Adobe, MicroSoft, etc)

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Apply principles of Universal Design

• Universal Design is the design of products and
  environments to be usable by all people, to the
  greatest extent possible, without the need for
  adaptation or specialized design.

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Seven principles of Universal Design
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One Equitable Use

• The design is useful and marketable to people
  with diverse abilities

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Two Flexibility in Use

• The design accommodates a wide range of
  individual preferences and abilities.

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Three Simple and Intuitive

• The use of the design is easy to understand,
  regardless of the users experience, knowledge,
  language skills, or current concentration level.
• (see next slide for example)

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Google Simple and Intuitive
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Four Perceptible Information

• The design communicates necessary information
  effectively to the user, regardless of ambient
  conditions or the users sensory abilities.

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Five Tolerance for Error

• The design minimizes hazards and the adverse
  consequences of accidental or unintended actions.

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Six Low Physical Effort

• The design can be used efficiently and
  comfortably and with a minimum of fatigue.

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Seven Size and Space for Approach and Use

• Appropriate size and space is provided for
  approach, reach, manipulation, and use regardless
  of users body size, posture, or mobility.

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Practical application
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1 Accommodation

• Extended time on exams is the most common
  accommodation.
• Grant student a timed exception on Axio

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Online tests and screen readers

• Screen readers rely on
• Cues, such as periods and commas, to judge how
  the text-to-speech should be paced
• Solution? Use periods at the end of questions
• Code, to know what to read first, and how to
  proceed from there
• Use tables carefully. Avoid matching questions
  if a student relies exclusively on a screen
  reader.

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1 Presentation method?

• PowerPoint
• Make good design choices

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Poor design choices

• Clutter things that dont convey necessary
  meaning
• Information overload too much information on
  one page
• Unnecessary conservation some people load their
  slides with lots of text because they think
  PowerPoint slides are expensive and they cant
  use as many as theyd like. As a result the text
  gets smaller and smaller and the slide looks like
  its nothing but textunless youve been clever
  like me and youve put cool images of Santa on
  the page.

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1 Presentation method?

• PowerPoint
• Make good design choices
• Ensure sufficient but not too much contrast

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My title is here

• My first bullet is here
• My second bullet is here
• My third bullet is here
• My fourth bullet is here
• My fifth bullet is here
• Arent rainbows pretty?

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1 Presentation method?

• PowerPoint
• Make good design choices
• Ensure sufficient but not too much contrast
• Provide alternate text for images
• Saving PowerPoint
• Offer options two file formats preferable
• Saving as a .ppt file preserves students ability
  to manipulate text size, contrast, etc IF they
  have PowerPoint
• Saving for the web is acceptable unless the
  student relies on a screen reader

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Presentation solutions

• Illinois Accessible Web Publishing Wizard
• http//www.accessiblewizards.uiuc.edu/
• Avoid PowerPoint use HTML to create native
  web-based presentations
• Positives completely accessible
• Negatives have to create own file structure,
  buttons, etc
• Methods authoring software (DreamWeaver, etc),
  hard code, CSS and templates

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Simple accommodations benefit many

• Creating a video? Script it.
• Your presentation will be better
• Record without an audience. No dead space during
  questions fewer ums and ahs
• Transcript becomes a natural by-product
• Scanning documents?
• Make sure to use Optical Character Recognition
  (OCR) to convert images into text.
• Using images, graphs, charts?
• Provide alternate text, whether its a word
  processing file, web page, .pdf, PowerPoint, etc

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I cant plan for everythingcan I?

• Include a statement in your syllabus encouraging
  students with disabilities to disclose
• Exercise your flexibility and creativity
• Offer alternative assignments if necessary
• Rely on the expertise of others

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Accessible design benefits everyone

• Students with disabilities
• Students with undocumented disabilities
• Students with different learning styles
• Non-native speakers (ESL)
• People using older, slower technology
• People using the smaller, portable technology
• Benefits instructors, too!

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Instructors benefit . . .

• Well-organized, clean, and flexible courses
• Improved student participation and feedback
• Increased retention of students
• Favorable student evaluations

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When students and instructors are happy . . .
. . . Everyone wins.
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Questions?

• Thank you.