How can you create online coursecontent that is more accessible to students, even (or especially) to those withpermanent or temporary physical or sensory challenges?
This article offers fivetechniques that will start you down the path toward creating more accessibleonline course content and help you create content that is more accessible tolearners.
What kinds of challenges are we talking about?
Rodney, a 15-year-old high schoolstudent, decided to take an enrichment course online to learn more aboutparliamentary government, because he hopes to major in international affairs incollege. He signed up for an online course through his local community collegeand was excited to dive into the material. Rodney was unhappy to discover thatall the lecture material for the course was in the form of podcasts—he ispartially deaf and had difficulty understanding the audio. He contacted theteaching assistant, but was notified that there were no transcripts available.After receiving a poor score on the first quiz despite a strong understandingof the reading material, he chose to drop the course.
Selena, a 35-year-old nurse, wason short-term disability due to a wrist injury. She wanted to keep her skillssharp while she was away from work, so she enrolled in an online professionaldevelopment course that would allow her to hone her skills in caring for older adults.The assessment material for the course required complex use of a computer mousefor drag-and-drop quiz activities. Selena was unable to complete the activitieswithout causing further wrist injury, and was unsuccessful in completing thecourse.
Barriers
Selena and Rodney eachexperienced a barrier—a stopping point that made their online course sodifficult to use that they were unable or unwilling to continue. Stories likethis are common; perhaps you can even think of a time that you had difficultyin accessing online information that you needed.
Online courses open up a wealthof possibilities for many learners, because they add an element of flexibilityto the learning experience not always achieved with traditional classroomcourses. Ensuring course accessibility takes advantage of this flexibility andmaximizes the potential of the learning experience.
Accessibility
Identifying and eliminatingbarriers is what accessibility is all about. Accessibility of content is notonly a best practice in developing online courses, it has become a legalrequirement in many situations. You may have heard of the Americans withDisabilities Act (ADA), Sections 508 or 504 in the US, or the Accessibility forOntarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) in Canada, or other legislation thatapplies to education or web accessibility. All these mandate a certain level ofaccessibility in online content for various organizations. These requirementsmay apply to your work, so it is important to be aware of them.
By thinking a little differentlywhen you’re developing and designing an online course, you can help to avoidcreating unnecessary barriers for your learners and help improve their success.
1. Ensure text is truly text
Course designers are sometimestempted to use images, Flash, or video to present reading material or headingsor to add other visual effects to text. While this may be very visuallyengaging, it can create a major barrier for learners with vision difficulties,cognitive disabilities, or those on mobile devices, as these elements don’tresize well.
Present your text as true text,not as images of text (for example, GIF or JPG files). Text can be styled with cascadingstyle sheets (CSS) to be more visually engaging, but most importantly, use of truetext allows for a variety of access methods, including various browsers andmobile devices. Assistive technologies such as screen readers and magnificationsoftware can bring true text to many different learners in an easily accessibleway.
2. Make sure content is in an easily understandable reading order
Sometimes, when laying outcontent visually, a course designer neglects to ensure that the content ispresented in order in the code. CSS float techniques can allow for highlyengaging visual presentation, but the content should remain in a logical orderunderneath.
Use HTML headings to organizeyour content, and make sure those headings stay in order in your document. Thishelps learners to understand the order and will allow for those using screenreaders, custom CSSs, or other assistive technologies to access the content inthe most logical way.
3. Use HTML where possible
If your course materials are inword-processor documents, or in PDFs or PowerPoint presentations, it can betempting to simply upload these to your online course and call your coursecompleted.
HTML is the language of the web,and thus is accessible with many different browsers, software packages, anddevices. Along with ensuring your text is true text, using HTML to present yourcontent (rather than PDF, Word, PowerPoint, etc.) allows for the broadestaccess and most use of assistive technologies. Learners can customize theirexperience more to get the most out of HTML material, whereas a course made ofPDFs or Word documents may be more difficult to access and use.
4. Ensure visual and audio elements have captions and transcripts
Video and audio materials can bea highly engaging way to present course material, and with easy access todigital cameras and recording devices, it can be tempting to quickly recordvideo or audio of lecture material to use in your online courses. However, videoor audio without captions or transcripts can exclude many potential learners. Captionsand transcripts for this material not only allows more users to easily accessthe content, but can also improve retention of the material, thus improving theoverall online learning experience. This step is critical to developing courseswhere required material is presented via multimedia.
5. Do user testing and solicit feedback
This is the most important step you can take toward making your onlinecourses more accessible.
By doing simple user testing withyour content and soliciting feedback you can identify less visible barriers toaccess and address them. You can start small. Convening small focus groups andcollecting feedback from current students is a great first step; it’s amazingwhat you can learn by asking learners how online content could be improved.
Keep the learners in mind
It is most important thatlearners can access the material, so understanding the learners and thinkingabout potential barriers is key. Making this your focus will change yourthought processes and allow you to avoid potential accessibility issues fromthe start, saving time and improving the quality of your work. Through thesefive steps, you can move further toward delivering the most inclusive onlinecourse possible, improving outcomes and experiences for learners.
You may also find that you wantto implement a more in-depth accessibility practice in your course development.The following resources and conferences can help you learn more aboutaccessibility and move much more quickly toward developing those standards andpractices.
Resources for further information
Web Accessibility Initiative(WAI): https://www.w3.org/WAI/
WebAIM—Web Accessibility in Mind:https://webaim.org/
Simply Accessible: simplyaccessible.com
Conferences
Accessing Higher Ground Conference:https://accessinghigherground.org/
The AccessibilityConference: https://www.accessconf.ca/about.aspx
