Accessibility Toolkit for Online/Hybrid Courses

A responsive teaching model includes designing courses in a thoughtful and inclusive way. This creates an educational environment–no matter the delivery method–where all students have an opportunity to learn and demonstrate their mastery of course content.  Planning is key to accessible courses, but equally important is the ability to be flexible. Unexpected modifications may be needed, especially in this time of significant impacts to student learning.

Please also refer to our excellent colleague resources at Macdigital and Responsive Teaching and Learning sites

Preparing for Courses

Planning for accessible courses is similar to planning for hybrid models and aligns well with Universal Design for Learning (UDL) approaches:

• Consider peer/faculty connection as a learning goal.  This year is unlike any other, so consider ways to connect students to each other or campus connections as part of your learning goals.
• Consider options for learning by presenting content in multiple ways (e.g., in a combination of text, video, audio, and/or image format).
• Determine what your learning outcomes are.  What is essential to your course that all students must have by the end of the course?
• Make instructional outcomes, deadlines and timelines clear, BUT plan for increased flexibility.
• Provide options for communicating and collaborating that are accessible to individuals with a variety of disabilities (e.g. video, gchat, discussion boards/platforms, email, and even phone or messaging).
• Provide options for demonstrating learning (e.g., different types of assessments, portfolios, presentations, single-topic discussions).
• Offer outlines and scaffolding tools to help students with structure. Give students an idea of how long a project generally may take.
• Provide adequate opportunities for feedback, practice and even correction (re-writing papers, re-taking quizzes, etc)
• Allow adequate time for activities, projects, and tests,  Give details of project assignments in the syllabus so that students can start working on them early.

Syllabus Design

Before providing the syllabus to your course, make a statement!  Tell students you are invested in inclusion, name ways you have made the course designed for access and invite them to discuss with you their needs.

We also have Syllabus Statement Information for more specific language.

An excellent video by the University of Minnesota AccessibilityU program.

Other Information on Inclusive Syllabus Statements

• EnACT Program at Sonoma
• Accessible Syllabus

Inclusive Lectures

Lectures are essential to online learning, but their delivery method may require some modification for accessibility. Here are some ideas:

• Provide lecture outlines/Powerpoints ahead of time to allow students course structure.
• Cut “talking” time down to focus on a few key points and take breaks between the points.
• Record synchronous courses for viewing later:
  • Record and post to voicethread (captions can be added in voicethread).
  • Post to youtube:  Youtube Creator Academy
    • Includes auto captions, but can’t be accessed by students in all countries.
• Pacing and Environment
  • Pace delivery–include pauses for note-taking and processing
  • Make sure recorded videos or Zoom meetings are well lighted, especially if you are recording.
  • Consider a clear mask for face to face lectures.
  • Provide short intermissions for review of material/personal reactions/questions.
  • Consider chat/discussion boards/non-synchronous responses for course participation
  • Trying a lecture outside?  Be sure to inform your class ahead of time about environmental impacts and offer alternatives.
• Engagement:
  • Consider new ways of student engagement:  Keeping students engaged in hybrid learning

Accessible Documents

Some basic ideas about accessible texts:

Great step by steps from University of Washington on creating accessible MS Word documents and PDF’s, especially if used in place of texts.

Two major points:

Start with a word document and check for accessibility with the accessibility checker which can help fix errors.

Need a PDF? Convert a word document to a pdf, then make sure is accessible.

• Converting Word Documents
• Converting Accessible PDF Documents in Acrobat

Convert a document:

Macalester’s Document Converter is free for you!

1. Download your document
2. Pick your format (most of the time it’s accessibility conversion)
3. Specify conversion as ‘tagged PDF’.
4. You’ll be emailed a copy of the document, usually in a few hours.

Prefer videos for information? The tutorials provided below will take you through the process of implementing these suggestions.  Ask Disability Services or the Digital Resource Center for support!

More Resources: Accessible MS Word Documents

• Explore Access: Creating Accessible MS Word Documents
• NCDAE Cheat Sheet: MS Word
• WebAIM: Microsoft Word – Creating Accessible Documents

Videos and Captioning

Why Caption?

Captioning of video or audio material is required for making course content accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing (faculty will be notified by Disability Services) or if you are posting a video in public access such as on a website or shown to the campus community. Additionally, captions are useful to a wide variety of viewers such as speakers of other languages, individuals with learning differences, and people viewing in noisy environments.  Almost 85% of individuals watching videos use captions at some point during viewing.

These are ideas for captioning courses, recorded meetings or programs and a non-exhaustive list that does change, so please check back!

Pre-Produced Videos for Courses

• Look for videos with captions already provided (you will know if a CC is located in the lower right-hand corner).  Not all video content on through PBS, Amazon, Netflix is captioned.
• If using youtube or Vimeo or other video content, check to ensure captions are accurate!
• If you need assistance with captioning pre-produced videos for courses, please contact Disability Services or Brad Belbas.

Captions for self-created videos

Option 1: Outsource

• Companies include 3Play Media, Rev.com,  Amara
• General cost for outsourced videos is anywhere from $1 – $4 minute depending on company and turnaround time.
• Additional options for captions are being determined..stay tuned!

Option 2: Create your own Voicethread and add/correct captions:

Voicethread is an excellent tool  where you can share multi-media content with students in a course and/or post to Moodle.   Voicethread has great capacity as a class tool overall and can be shared in different countries!

• Teaching with Voicethread
• Adding captions to Voicethread

Option 3:  Otter. ai or another transcription service into video platforms: 

• Otter.ai has a free version that is both a recording and transcription platform. Users can upload a video, get a transcription, edit it and upload the transcript into another platform. Otter. ai can also be used as a note-taking tool!
• The transcripts are easy to edit and show up on videos nicely.

Option 4: Youtube auto-captions

• If you upload your video to YouTube and set a language, within a day it should have automatic captions added.  It is limited in that it requires more editing, captions are smaller and it is not available in all countries. 
• These auto-generated captions require editing for accuracy, and to incorporate the important standards listed above.
• Learn how to edit YouTube’s automatic captions. 
• YouTube also allows you to type a transcript as you watch the video and will conveniently pause the video as you type.
• When you have successfully added and published a caption file with any of the methods above, be sure to unpublish the automatic captions from YouTube!
• If you do not want your video to live on YouTube, we still recommend using it as an alternative to create and/or sync your captions. Once this is done, you can download a caption file from YouTube (that will now include timings!) to use elsewhere.

If you need help with captioning for your courses, please contact us: [email protected] or Brad Belbas, our Technology Liaison ([email protected])  for support!

Attendance and Limited Assignment Extensions

Limited flexibility with attendance and extensions of time on assignments are increasingly common accommodations.  Specifics on managing this accommodation are coming, but it is important for faculty to determine the following and discuss with students early in the course:

• What are reasonable time extensions for assignments? What assignments can deadlines not be extended?
• What extensions are already built into the course for all students as part of a universal design approach? If extensions of time or flexibility are built into your course, please be sure to share with the student how this is included. Be ready to consider cases where a student with a disability may need even more flexibility. 
• How does the instructor need to be notified (before the deadline or in some cases, after) of extension needs?
• What are the parameters for attendance flexibility and what are the limitations?  Can students make up missed classes via asynchronous methods or other assignments?
• Consider making an agreement early in the semester and then reviewing mid-module.

Accessible Course Evaluations/Exams

Additional time for testing is one of the widest used disability-related accommodations at Macalester: it supports a wide-range of disability types and needs.  Proactively adding additional time to quizzes/tests/exams can reduce time and effort of arranging additional time accommodations for both faculty and students.

Best practices for accessible in-course assessment:

• Consider evaluation alternatives to long exams, especially if they are provided on Zoom/computer.
• Please read Faculty Notification Letters and discuss with the student how exams will be managed, especially in Fall 2020.
• Determine where additional time can be proactively added to the quizzes, tests, and/or exams in the course.
• Determine the appropriate length of time for the assessment(s).
• Add additional time as indicated by an accommodation, or even longer where appropriate, to the quiz/test/exam.
• Want to add time that includes everyone, including with those with accommodations? Make a statement about how you will be providing exams.  Some suggested language:

The quizzes/tests/exams in this course have been designed using Universal Design for Learning (UDL) guidelines and (give the percentage) additional time has been added to each quiz/test/exam in support of all students.

Even with these considerations, there may be cases where students require specific testing requirements that aren’t met by Universal Design implementation.

Faculty or students may also decide tests are best proctored via the MAX Center remotely or in single, physically distanced spaces on campus (after the “quiet period”.

Please follow the Testing Accommodations with the MAX Center instructions in these cases.