For Faculty

Online Accessibility Lab

by Jackie Luft, Ed.D

The world of accessibility can be overwhelming but at WorldWide eLearning, we have help for you with our Online Accessibility Lab (OAL). Not only do we offer trainings and consultations, we can also help with three common issues:

1. Creating accessible videos
2. Evaluating your course and instructional content for accessibility
3. Assisting in converting non-accessible instructional material to accessible material.

In a recent study conducted by Kaltura entitled The State of Video in Education, 86% of respondents stated that their school/organization uses videos in the classroom. With this number increasing every year and more and more emphasis on flipped classrooms, it is important to ensure our videos include not only synchronized 99% accurate captions but also audio descriptions. The OAL can help you create captions by utilizing third party vendors for a fee, in-house captioning and self-captioning software. If you want help with captions, simply fill out the Captioning Request Form.

Videos are just a small part of the instructional material instructors use online. Maybe your course uses an online program and you are not sure if the content is accessible. Or maybe you just want to make sure everything in your Blackboard course is accessible. The OAL will evaluate your course and send you a report stating any issues, as well as providing assistance with fixing any issues. To get an evaluation of any instructional material or your online course, simply complete the Accessibility Evaluation Request Form.

Finally, creating accessible documents and converting current documents to an accessible format are also extremely important. Sometimes PDFs that you have used for years are not saved in a way that allows a screen reader to read the text. The OAL can help you convert these PDFs. There are situations where the PDFs cannot be converted, and then the library has wonderful resources to find accessible copies of your content. If you find yourself with a PDF that you cannot highlight or copy and paste text, please let the OAL know by emailing TTU Worldwide eLearning OAL.

Creating accessible content is a process and the OAL is there to support you with any instructional material you use online. Please contact us for any assistance.

REFERENCE

Kalture, Inc. (2016) The State of Video in Education – A Kalture Report.