Overview

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Accessibility in Online Courses

OverviewAccessible courses, designed with accessibility and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in mind, are beneficial to all students, not just those with a disability. Designing and building your course right the first time, saves time in having to rebuild it later on.

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Why Make Content Accessible?• Accessible courses benefit all students.

Accessible courses, designed with accessibility and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in mind, are beneficial to all students, not just those with a disability.

Designing courses using the design models shown on page 4 provides

• Good course design saves time. Designing and building your course right the first time,

saves time in having to rebuild it later on.• It's the law.

Online content is required to meet the standards of Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act.

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Five Steps to Accessible CoursesFollow these five steps to make your online course accessible. Click a tab on the side to review the five steps to making your online course accessible.

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Speak VisuallySpeak Visually

Instead of pointing to parts of the body and saying “here, here, here” consider something like…in the top right quadrant at one o’clock.

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Use Plain LanguagePlain Language

Context: Do learners have the background knowledge to understand what is being said? Concrete: Is the language clear? Are examples relevant? Can learners picture in their minds what is being said? Simplicity : Are important ideas in logical order? Design: Is the material easy to look at with enough white space?Readability: Does the level of the material match the intended audience?

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Keep Documents Simple

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• Headings Nested Properly• Lists Used Correctly• Simple Tables• Chunked Content• Adequate Color Contrast• Do Not Use Color Alone

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Select Multi-Sensory Materials

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• Audio• Captions and Transcripts• Alternative Text / Long Descriptions

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Request Accessible Content

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BUYER - BE AWARE!

Ask for a VPAT – the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template…

We are required by law to procure only accessible content, but the publisher is not obligated to provide accessible content…

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POURThe next four slides describe the four principles of accessibility – POUR.

P – PerceivableO – OperableU – UnderstandableR – Robust

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Perceivable

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Operable

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Understandable

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Robust

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Questions