“Ensuring Accessibility and Equity in Learning in Online College Courses” was the title of the 2021 Lilly Online Conference session I watched tonight. The presenters were Courtneay Kelly, Mina Chun, and Deanna Cash from the University of Lynchburg. Chun talked about the percent of enrollment and how it has declined. The percentage of students who identified as Hispanic or Latinx increased among others. Further, Chun showed data of Pell Grant recipients and undergraduate students with disability increasing. Citing NCES 2019 data, Chun explained that the percent of students enrolled in distance education courses increased even before the pandemic. To create more accessible courses, Chun suggested using both proactive and reactive approaches. Proactive approaches include designing courses ensuring W3C/WAI accessibility standards. Cash spoke about ways of addressing accessibility through the guidelines for web accessibility standards. Cash reviewed the history of the W3C standards and explained the POUR Model: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. To make materials more perceivable, some examples Cash cited were to include alternative text, voice-to-text, and time-based media alternatives (captions, for example). I didn’t know that Google Meet has a Transcript extension that allows you to edit captions! Cash suggested labeling links with descriptive text and shared resources from WebAim. Cash did a quick demonstration of a color contrast checker, and I was struck by how what seemed like a high contrast pair of colors was dependent on the size of the font used and failed the check.
For operable, the system has to be keyboard accessible, provide enough time for users, allow seizure protection options, and be navigable. Cash used the DO CLEAR UP acronym to emphasize important considerations for thinking about accessibility: detail, organized, consistency, label, easy, appearance, refine, update, and perspective-taking (from the perspective of the student). Using an example GoogleClassroom, Cash explained the DO CLEAR UP considerations.
For understandable, Cash spoke about making materials readable, predictable, and helpful to users so that they avoid and correct mistakes. The content should be robust. For this, considering visual, sound, and navigation issues and applying UDL principles are critical.
Kelly introduced the Universal Design for Learning framework. The framework explained Kelly, encourages consideration of the ways of increasing accessibility of the content through engagement, representation, and action and representation. Kelly stressed that UDL is a proactive approach that leads to much less need for reactive revamping of courses. Suggestions shared for improving accessibility in online courses included a welcoming access statement, simple & consistent navigation, carefully chosen tools, modeling good discussion board etiquette, using color with care, using readable text, providing accessible document formats, describing graphics and visual elements, captioning videos/transcribing audio clips, and rethinking design of presentations. Arial and Helvetica are the most readable fonts based on research, according to Kelly, and it is important to avoid italicizing large chunks of text. The last point that Kelly spoke about was clear expectations. Several useful examples were shared in this presentation, and it is always reaffirming to agree with the suggestions shared!
