Designing an Accessible Course

1. Course Structure and Content Clarity

   • Logical Structure: Organize course sections, modules, and assignments clearly so that navigation on the course page is easy. Use descriptive titles for headings and activities.
   • Readable Text: Avoid long blocks of text and excessive formatting (e.g., all caps, underlining, or italics).

2. Technical Accessibility of Text

   • Headings: Use formatted heading styles (e.g., H1, H2, H3) to create structure. These help screen readers and other assistive technologies interpret content correctly. Do not skip heading levels (e.g., jumping from H1 to H3), and avoid manually creating headings by changing font size or bolding text.
   • Links: Use descriptive link text instead of just URLs. Avoid vague phrases like “click here.” The purpose of the link should be clear from the link text alone.

3. Image Accessibility

   • Alt Text: Add alternative text to images that describes the content and purpose of the image. If the image is decorative, mark it as such. To add alt text in the MyCourses platform:
     • Click the “Add Image” icon.
     • Select the image file in the file browser window.
     • Add alternative text in the field “Describe this image to someone who cannot see it,” or mark the image as decorative. Save changes.

4. Video and Audio Content

   • Captions: Add captions to all videos. They support deaf and hard-of-hearing students, as well as others. Panopto automatically generates captions. You can edit the captions afterwards. Read more about editing captions in Panopto videos. Provide a text-based alternative description of the video content if captions are not available.

5. Colors and Contrast

   • Contrast: Use color combinations with sufficient contrast, such as black text on a white background.
   • Check Contrast: You can check color contrast using the WebAIM Contrast Checker.
   • Color as Information: Do not rely solely on color to convey information. Use shapes, patterns, or headings to improve readability.

6. Accessible Documents

   • Ensure that all Word, PowerPoint, and PDF files are accessible before publishing.

Accessibility tool Brickfield Accessibility 

Accessibility Toolkit is a service that incorporates the Brickfield Accessibility. Starter Toolkit to help teachers create accessible course content. 

Activate accessibility toolkit in MyCourses workspace

1. Go to your course workspace and turn Edit mode on
2. Open Block drawer from upper right corner  → click Add a bloc
3. Select Accessibility review
4. Now you should see the following Block (Image Accessibility review) on right side of the page.
    

Accessibility analysis for MyCourses workspace

Click the Submit for analysis button and you get notification: This course has been scheduled for analysis.

Note! You do not need to stay on the page to wait for the results. After a while, refresh the browser, if you stay on the page. Results will be displayed for you every time you get back to the course page. Students are not able to see the results. Once the review is done, you can update your course structure and content according to the accessibility review results. The Accessibility review block will be automatically updated. You don't have to refresh or remove the block.

Reading results

When review is done the Block will show results. To see a detailed error list, click the magnifyer icon or dowload the results as a pdf-file. To see errors directly on the course page, toggle the eye icon.

Error detailed view

Show a detailed view of the current errors from the workspace's top menu → More → Accessibility toolkit. The detailed view provides information about the error and a link to the activity for error correction. It also offers a summary report of the findings.

Read more: Accessibility toolkit in Moodle

Readspeaker for reading websites

ReadSpeaker for Moodle (youtube.com, duration 4:13 min)

ReadSpeaker is a service that has multiple products to help users read online content. WebReader is a tool to help user when reading text from screen. DocReader is tool for reading documents.

ReadSpeaker tools are service based so you can find WebReader or DocReader in some Aalto services but not all of them. This page is about ReadSpeaker services in MyCourses service.

How to activate ReadsSpeaker, WebReader and DocReader MyCourses course space?

ReadSpeaker is not activated by default in your course page. Teacher needs to activate it for students in course spaces. When activated, it will activate both Webreader and DocReader. Aalto licence includes three languages: English, Finnish and Swedish. Teacher can select one as a default language for course but user can change reading language when using system. If language is not selected default will be English. User can change reader language when using WebReader of DocReader.

Activate player on course space

1. Go to course space and turn editing on.
2. Open right side menu and select Add a block.
3. From pop up menu select ReadSpeaker webReader.
4. Now you can see ReadSpeaker player on the right side of the page.
5. ReadSpeaker is now active on you page.

Configure ReacSpeaker

1. open configuration from three dots and select Configurate listen to this page using ReadSpeaker block
2. Set the language EN, FI, SV
3. Set the Dosplay on page types to Any type this means than block will be shown on any page on course.
4. Save changes.

More about: 

• ReadSpeaker
• webReader
• DocReader

Using ReadSpeaker for Content Reading

There are few different ways you can use reader when course space: 

1. If you just click play button reader tries to read page content. It does not read everything on page but it tries to find page content text.
2. You can select text on page or if activate user can hover on page element to select readable content. After selection you will see menu where you can listen selected text. There is also Dictionary and Translation available (uses google translation)
3. If teacher upload a text file (.odp .ods. odt .xls .xlxs .pps .ppt .pptx .doc .docx .rtf .epub .pdf) to MyCourses as a resource ReadSpeaker provides online service ReadSpeaker docReader where user can use multiple tool to read the file content. User can open document in online service by clicking ReadSpeaker icon (see image below) instead of document name. Icon will be added automatically to resource activities when ReadSpeaker block is added to course space.

Tarkistuslista oppimateriaalin ja digitaalisen sisällön saavutettavuudesta

Tämä sivusto tarjoaa sinulle kattavan tarkistuslistan, jonka avulla voit varmistaa, että oppimateriaalisi ovat saavutettavia kaikille opiskelijoille.

Siirry tarkistuslistaan