Accessibility Issues for online courses

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Accessibility Issues foronline courses

• Penny Everett Julie Voce
• Learning Technologies Support Service
• University College London

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Helping you to make your online content accessible
Keeping you up-to-date with requirements of SENDA
Understanding discrimination and how the law
affects you
Supporting you with your Learning Technology
needs.

• There are many advantages to running a blended
  course, but does the on-line element of your
  course comply with the new law?

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Legal Requirements
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• Disability Discrimination Act of 1995 was passed
• It protects anyone who meets the definition of
  disability
• SENDA (Part 4 of the DDA) was passed in 2001
• The Special Educational Needs and Disability Act
  aims to ensure that disabled people have equal
  opportunities to benefit from, and contribute to
  the learning and services available in higher
  education institutions
• Came into force in September 2002.

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The Issues
Find out about more about different types of
disability.

• Who is responsible?
• What type of student does it cover?
• What exactly is Disability Discrimination?
• Categories of Disability
• What is reasonable adjustment?
• What should I do about my old web pages?
• None of my students are disabled!!

Continued/
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The Issues /continued
Return to first page

• Design of your Web pages
• Graphics
• Navigation
• Tables
• Fonts
• Contrast and Colour
• Text composition.

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The Issues /continued
Return to first page

• Will my Web pages look less attractive?
• Do I have to go on a special course?
• Useful Web sites.

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Who is responsible?
We all are!
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What type of student does it cover?

• The Act makes it unlawful to discriminate against
  disabled students or potential students
• Full-time and part-time students
• Postgraduates and undergraduates
• Home, EU and international students
• Students on short courses and taster courses
• Students taking evening classes and day schools
• Distance and e-learning students
• Students undertaking only part of a course or
  visiting from another institution.

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What exactly is Disability Discrimination?

• Discrimination has taken place if - for a reason
  which relates to his or her disability - it
  treats him or her less favourably than it treats
  or would treat others to whom that reason does
  not, or would not, apply.
• Who is defined as disabled?
• A person with a physical or mental impairment
  which has a substantial and long-term adverse
  effect on his or her ability to carry out normal
  day-to-day activities.
• 15 of the UK population is disabled and in
  2001-2 there were 2.8 registered disabled
  students at UCL
• 60 of blind/partially sighted people read print.

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Categories of Disability

• The Act includes people with
• Physical or mobility impairments
• Poor motor skills (provide large screen selection
  areas)
• Visual impairments
• Blind or partially sighted (provide alternate
  text for graphics)
• Hearing impairments
• Hard of hearing (provide text when using
  voiceover)
• Dyslexia
• There is no one form of dyslexia (provide
  contrast, larger line spacing, open font,
  relevant information at the beginning)

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What do I have to do?

• You have to make reasonable adjustment?
• What about my old Web pages?
• None of my students are disabled to my knowledge
  do I still have to make my Web pages
  Accessible?

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What is reasonable adjustment?

• Ask How effective the adjustment is in
  preventing the disadvantage
• Some of the factors taken into consideration are
  the
• Service providers financial and other resources
• Cost of making the adjustment
• Time and effort
• Potential disruption
• Your Web pages should be made accessible to as
  many students as possible
• ALL graphics must have alternate text or coded as
  blank text, e.g. logos
• Navigation has to be planned to take into account
  assistive technology such as screen readers and
  those with motor impairment
• Tables need to be designed with screen readers in
  mind
• Fonts should be chosen that are easy to read
• Contrast and colour should be planned to include
  the colour blind
• Text composition should be aimed at dyslexic
  students.

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What should I do about my old web pages?

• You should re-visit them as soon as is
  reasonable
• The absolute minimum check would be that all
  graphics have alternate text added to them or no
  text markers (e.g. when displaying logos) where
  appropriate.

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None of my students are disabled!

• Do I still have to make my Web pages
  Accessible?
• Under the Act, there is a responsibility to make
  anticipatory adjustments. This means that
  institutions should consider what adjustments
  future disabled students may need, and make them
  in advance.

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There are 5 main areas of disability to take into
consideration

• Colour blindness

Find out more about these by clicking on each
title?

• Motor impairment

• Sight impairment

• Hearing impairment

• Dyslexia

Return to The Issues
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Colour blindness

• One out of 12 men and one out of 200 women are
  colour blind!
• Use high contrast
• Avoid the use of colour to determine
  colour-coding, or colour-dependent navigation.

Paste screen grabs into Microsoft Word and
select black white colour in the Picture
toolbar to observe contrast.
PowerPoint is an excellent resource for
establishing contrasting colours. You will
automatically see this when you edit a text box
which contains coloured text (here is an example
of the contrast to blue).
PowerPoint is an excellent resource for
establishing contrasting colours. You will
automatically see this when you edit a text box
which contains coloured text (here is an example
of the contrast to red).
Continued/
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You can see clearly from the diagram the
difference in reading abilities when broken down
by sex.
boys
girls
Poor contrastThis is what colour-blind students
will see!
Reading test Level 4 Key Skills 6
Insufficient contrast
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You can see clearly from the diagram the
difference in reading abilities when broken down
by sex.
Clear labelling
Good contrastThis is what colour-blind students
will see!
Reading test Level 4 Key Skills 6
Sufficient contrast
girls
boys
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Motor Impairment

• Motor impairment may be a permanent, temporary or
  progressive situation that a student may have to
  deal with.
• Adjust hot spots on your images to cover a
  reasonable area to allow for students who may be
  motor impaired
• Provide alternative tests when using timed
  responses.

Continued/
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Motor Impairment Continued/
Find out what its like to be motor impaired by
trying out this simulation providing you rest
your mouse on a square within the time allotted
you will see it change to another image.
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Motor Impairment Continued/
Find out what its like to be motor impaired by
trying out this simulation providing you rest
your mouse on a square within the time allotted
you will see it change to another image.
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Motor Impairment Continued/
Find out what its like to be motor impaired by
trying out this simulation providing you rest
your mouse on a square within the time allotted
you will see it change to another image.
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Motor Impairment Continued/
Find out what its like to be motor impaired by
trying out this simulation providing you rest
your mouse on a square within the time allotted
you will see it change to another image.
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Motor Impairment Continued/
Find out what its like to be motor impaired by
trying out this simulation providing you rest
your mouse on a square within the time allotted
you will see it change to another image.
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Motor Impairment Continued/
You scored 0 points out of 5
Have one more try to see if you can activate an
animation click on the active area of the red
bar
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Motor Impairment Continued/
You were unsuccessful! Your score was 0 out of 6
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Motor Impairment Continued/
Well done! You have scored 1 out of 6 if you
reached this page using the hot spot area of
the single line bar
Perhaps you will have experienced some of the
frustration that a motor impaired user feels when
Web pages have not been made accessible.
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Sight Impairment

• There are very few people who are completely
  blind. Even those who are registered blind often
  have some degree of sight. However, all web
  content should be able to be read by a screen
  reader which reads the elements of the screen out
  loud.
• ALWAYS provide alternate text for images
• Ensure column headings in tables have been added,
  where appropriate, and tables have been designed
  to be read by a screen reader in a logical order
• Key-in full web addresses (URLs)
• Provide alternative tests to those that rely on
  image recognition .

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Hearing Impairment

• There is a world of difference between someone
  who has become deaf as an adult and someone who
  was born deaf.
• Provide a full transcript of ALL narrations
• Provide alternative tests to those that rely on
  sound differentation.

Continued/
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Hearing Impairment Continued/

• People who are born deaf often have a much
  reduced vocabulary.
• Making your course accessible for dyslexic
  students will also help those born deaf.

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Dyslexia

• 10 of your students will have some degree of
  dyslexia
• Always place the salient points first
• Avoid unnecessary wording
• Bite-sized chunks of learning aid all students
  when reading from a screen
• Reading from a screen will slow a reader down by
  approximately 10 of their normal reading rate
  when reading from hard copy.

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Choosing Fonts

• Times New Roman is not thought to be easy to read
  and is often used in formal documentation
• Arial is the preferred font for hard copy for
  light reading
• Verdana is often chosen for web pages
• Trebuchet MS is considered an easy to read font
  for dyslexic students because of its even
  characteristics.
• Note All these fonts are in the same number of
  points (32)

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Text Composition(particularly with Dyslexic
students in mind)

• Short sentences (bullet points)
• Efficient use of words to impart knowledge
• Vital information first
• Reduce scrolling to a minimum.

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Will my Web pages look less attractive?

• The short answer is No, you can still apply
  good design to web pages which are also
  accessible
• Most measures taken to make Web pages more
  accessible will help ALL users
• Its similar to using plain English techniques
  everyone benefits!

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Will I have to go on a special course?

• You can do your own research on the Web and find
  out how you can make your Web pages more
  accessible
• Learning Technologies Support Services include
  accessibility issues in all their courses
• Getting Started with WebCT online course also
  covers aspects of making your course more
  accessible
• There are special techniques which you need to be
  aware of
• Workshops on this topic can be arranged for small
  groups and other members of staff expressing an
  interest in learning these techniques.

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Useful Web Sites

• For information on making electronic material
  accessible www.techdis.ac.uk

• SENDA compliance in HE www.plymouth.ac.uk/disabili
  ty

• World Wide Web guidelines prepared by the Web
  Accessibility Initiative can be found at
  http//www.w3.org/WAI/

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Continuing support for your LT needs

• Penny Everett Julie Voce
• Learning Technologies Support Service
• www.ucl.ac.uk/learningtechnology/
• email ltss_at_ucl.ac.uk
• t. 020 7679 (3)3878 / (3)3559