Inside the Online Accessibility Lab

by Tim Howard, Digital Media Coordinator

As more students seek out a college education and the applications of technology continue to improve, the importance of online accessibility has never been greater. As defined in certain lawsuits, "Accessible means a person with a disability is afforded the opportunity to acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same services as a person without a disability in an equally effective and equally integrated manner, with substantial ease of use" (South Carolina Technical College). Texas Tech University eLearning & Academic Partnerships has taken many steps over the years to ensure that our online content and coursework materials are accessible to all students no matter the disability.

In addition to many accessibility trainings, a resource that is offered to TTU instructors is the Online Accessibility Lab (OAL). The OAL assists instructors with providing accessible instructional materials in their classes, offering help with captioning, assistance in creating accessible content and even providing accessibility evaluations.

Dr. Jackie Luft is the Accessibility Specialist at TTU eLearning where she works with the Instructional Design Team to ensure all of the courses offered are ADA compliant. She and the new Online Accessibility Lab Coordinator, Kirsten Morris, lead the OAL and several student employees.

Kirsten Morris took time to speak to us about the OAL.

"We have student assistants in the lab that help us with accessible instructional content and captioning videos," said Morris. "We also have Luis Anaya who is proficient at utilizing screen readers. He will look over online courses and let instructors know if there is any content within the course that he has trouble accessing. Having Luis on our team has led to an increase in the number of course evaluations that we have been able to perform for instructors at TTU. He is able to give very good feedback!"

Dr. Jackie Luft praised her team at the OAL along with the work that they have done.

"I am in my third year of serving as the Accessibility Specialist here at eLearning and it is still rewarding to see people working in the lab because they honestly want to help make an education accessible to students that might not have been able to study otherwise. We also love getting positive feedback about the many resources that we make available. It's great when instructors are able to improve the accessibility of their courses by using information that they find on our website!"

During the interview, Kirsten also discussed one of her favorite moments from working with the OAL so far.

"The first week that I started, an accessibility lab client came to the Online Accessibility bootcamp and had spent a lot of time trying to make her website accessible," said Morris. "After trying on her own, she sent in a request asking us to evaluate the accessibility of her course. She used our feedback to go back and make improvements then came in to watch Luis and another student screen her website. The screen reading software was able to communicate what was on the page to Luis and the student so that they could understand it. The client felt very thrilled and felt rewarded for the work she had done to her website. We got great feedback that our services were working!"

Lastly, Dr. Luft also gave some of her hopes for the future of the OAL.

"We will continue to expand the information and services that we provide to instructors who teach online and hybrid courses. Some of the services we are looking at are fixing some of the course issues here in the lab."

TTU eLearning & Academic Partnerships appreciates Dr. Luft and our accessibility team for all of their work. We strive to provide a quality online education not only anywhere, but also to anyone.

Kirsten Morris and Dr. Luft

 

Luis Anaya and Kirsten Morris

 

Cole Maryak and Alexandra Krenek
OAL Student Assistants