Accessible Digital Content

Course design should factor in accessibility from the beginning and then be checked each time we prepare and present new content. Doing so at the start of your course design saves time and helps ensure all students can access the content, assignments, and resources from day one.
When some design considerations are not addressed, here are some of the challenges students encounter when trying to learn:

• Students with a hearing impairment miss the video content when closed captions are not available.
• Students who are color blind cannot see the correct answers in green and the wrong answers in red on the study guide.
• Students using screen reader software due to visual impairments will not be able to read documents with inconsistent formatting (i.e. font size, style, and color scheme) or if they are not able to highlight the text.

Accessible course design takes continuous time and attention, so this week we will look at just a few tips and resources to start or continue on the right track.

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Accessibility Tips

• Openly communicating with all students about their access requirements.
• Always thinking from the student's perspective, because everyone has different access needs.
• Make sure to have close captioning available for third-party video resources.
• Create your videos with YouTube closed captioning and check the captioning for accuracy.
• Use an accessible format such as consistent font size and style, a high color contrast scheme, along with the ability to highlight text.
• San serif fonts (such as Arial used in Tech Tuesday posts) are typically better for learners with processing differences. 
• Breaking text into columns is easier to process.

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Resources
There are many resources available, such as these highly informational websites and videos:


• Google: Google Docs Accessibility
• Microsoft: Creating Accessible PowerPoint Presentations
• AHEAD - Association of Higher Education and Disability
• American Council on Disabilities

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Office of Civil Rights Digital Accessibility

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights presents a variety of topics on digital access in education, including how people with disabilities use technology, applicable Federal regulations, and identifying and remediating barriers to access in the eighteen 3-5 minute video series. Here is introduction video of the series:

For questions or comments regarding the video series, please contact the Office for Civil Rights.

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Please Share
Tell us the ways you have made your course more accessible or where you are still working on designing an accessible course for all students. We would like to share your ideas and experience in an upcoming Tech Tuesday, and our CTLA team can help with accessibility and universal design for learning (UDL). Send your strategies, experiences, or questions to us at [email protected] and [email protected].
Your CTLA Faculty Liaisons, Jen & Vanessa