Accessibility Best Practices for Online Teaching

As more instruction takes place in online environments, it is important to consider the access needs of students with disabilities. 

Accessibility and Usability of Blackboard

The University of Maryland is currently running Blackboard version 8.6 in which certain tools have proven to be inaccessible or difficult to negotiate by students using screen reader technology.  We are currently in the process of trying to catalog the issues so that faculty and students will be better advised about which features in ELMS can be relied upon to provide equal access to all students.  Division of IT Learning Technologies instructional designers are available to help faculty strategize alternatives to some of these tools.

http://access.blackboard.com [1]  (documents Blackboard version 9.1)

Textual Content (e.g., documents, spreadsheets, PowerPoint slides)

Making a Microsoft Word document accessible

The following Web sites provide instructions for making documents created in Word versions 2003-2010 more accessible for screen readers or to adapt to saving as accessible PDF or HTML files.  (Note:  there is no way to add alternative text attribution to images in Word 2004 or 2008 for the Mac.)

http://webaim.org/techniques/word/ [2]
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/frontpage-help/what-is-accessibility-RZ006380094.aspx?section=2 [3]

Making PDF documents accessible

PDF files can be created from text that already exists in documents created with such applications as Microsoft Word or PowerPoint, Open Office Writer or Adobe tools such as InDesign.    The instructions provided at the Web sites below discuss steps for converting Windows versions of Microsoft Office documents to PDF and for converting to PDF in Adobe Acrobat Professional.

http://webaim.org/techniques/acrobat/ [4]
http://wac.osu.edu/pdf/scan/pdffromscan-textonly.html [5]

Digital Media Content (e.g., recordings, video)

Creating Video and Multimedia Products That Are Accessible to People with Sensory Impairments (pdf)
http://www.washington.edu/doit/Brochures/Technology/vid_sensory.html [6]

National Center for Accessible Media (Digital Media Guidelines)
http://ncam.wgbh.org/invent_build/web_multimedia/accessible-digital-media-guide [7]

World Wide Access: Accessible Web Design
http://www.washington.edu/doit/Video/Search/index.php?vid=35 [8]

Other Resources

University of Maryland Disability Support Services: http://www.counseling.umd.edu/DSS/ [9]

National Center on Accessible Instructional Materials: http://aim.cast.org/learn/accessiblemedia/text [10]