AV俱乐部

There are some instructional design choices that will make your online course site more accessible to your students. Many of these choices are supported by the tools and technologies聽available at AV俱乐部.

Fonts聽and Colours

The fonts and colours you use in your course content can affect its accessibility. For example, screen聽readability聽is improved by using a聽sans-serif聽font (i.e., one without a small decorative line or taper at the end of聽the聽stroke).听The default font in Brightspace is sans-serif.

Colour can also affect readability.听Black text on a white background is preferable to white text on a black background.听High聽colour聽contrast (black on white) is preferable to low contrast (other colours on white).

Colour contrast and other features can be checked in Brightspace by using the聽Accessibility Checker聽feature on any of the聽text input boxes,聽such聽as those聽in Announcements, Content,聽Discussions, etc.

Text Materials

When providing readings or other texts to students, ensure that it is聽actually text聽(i.e., machine-encoded text) versus an image that looks like text.听Sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference, especially with PDFs. To check, try to highlight the text with your cursor. If you can select it, it鈥檚 probably text.

Text can be read by a screen reader and enlarged with a聽screen magnifier.听Screen-reader friendly text materials聽can be read by聽ReadSpeaker聽in Brightspace, Immersive Reader in Microsoft Word, and other forms of assistive technology.听Text can also be searched, whereas a scanned image of text cannot.

Captions聽for Rich Media

For audio or video聽content, providing captions is required to ensure students聽can聽access聽the materials.听Caption files can also be converted to transcripts, which may also support students who have聽note-taking as an accommodation.听

Panopto,聽AV俱乐部鈥檚 audio and video creation and hosting platform,聽offers automatic captioning.听If the automatic captioning is not meeting your needs,聽Academic聽Technology Services (ATS) offers聽human captioning support聽to edit and correct automatic captions.

Images

When you use images in your course content online, include a text alternative (called alt-text) that describes the picture in detail. This is especially important when an image is used to convey information or has meaning. When inserting an image into Brightspace, it will prompt you to include alt-text, if the image is not purely decorative.听

Keep your description short but also specific. And because it鈥檚 a description of an image, you can leave out聽words like 鈥減hotograph of鈥� or 鈥減icture of.鈥澛燜or the image below, alt-text could聽be:聽an avocado split into two halves.