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Accessibility tips for online lectures (START AT RED, THEN READ CLOCKWISE)…
Accessibility tips for online lectures (START AT RED, THEN READ CLOCKWISE)
Contact students individually (BCC mass email from you, or from the office)
Ask them if they use any Assistive Technology, through a DSA award or otherwise. Ask if there are any adjustments that will help them use this technology when accessing your lectures.
Remember students will not always disclose this information, so you should follow basic steps to increase accessibility whether or not anyone does. Here is a guide to the kinds of technology they may mention:
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Turn live captioning on, record the video, and create a transcript
Live captioning will not automatically be added to the recording, but you can download a transcript of the meet once the recording has finished and it has been saved. Distribute this with the lecture recording and slides.
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SLIDESHOWS
Templates
Use preset templates. This makes it easier for Assistive Tech such as screen readers to follow the text. It also allows students to adjust to the presentation. Avoid adding your own text boxes where possible, as this can confuse the order for screen reading software.
Text
Avoid large blocks of text where possible and starting sentences at the end of a line. Where large blocks are unavoidable, use line breaks to split it up where it makes sense. Make the text 'left-aligned' and with at least 1.5pt spacing.
Avoid underline and italic as they can cause text to run together and blur. Use bold to emphasis points.
Fonts
There are specific fonts which have been designed for maximum readability such as Dyslexie. These cost a small subscription fee if the university will back it. If not, ensure that you use a sans serif font such as Arial or Verdana.
The minimum text size for a Powerpoint should be 24pt. Try not to wildly vary font sizes, but this will not happen if you're using the preset templates as advised.
Colour
Avoid white backgrounds, they can be problematic for all sorts of people. Aim for contrast. If you don't find it too daunting, you can use an online colour checker. You can also refer to this helpful guide that UoS have made. You can test colour combinations by clicking the 'add a colour' button. There are more extensive guidelines on accessible colour contrasts that you can find online should you be interested in the reasoning behind it.
Media
If you add images, try to describe them at least briefly in the lecture to support those who may not be able to see them clearly. Add alt-text to the image so that it can be accessed by screen reading software. Alt-text is a description of the image that you type in yourself. Guide
If you include videos check if they will be picked up by the captioning function. If not, can you turn captioning on the video itself? Sometimes videos have been subtitled by the creators on Youtube, but if not you can try Youtube's own closed captioning function. Press the options cog icon, and then choose 'CC'. Be aware that it is not very accurate, but it's better than nothing.
Check Accessibility
Your best test of accessibility would be for someone who uses assistive tech to look through it and test equipment. However you can also use Powerpoint's in-built Accessibility Checker, which will quickly highlight areas for improvement. Guide
NOTES
If you have your own typed notes they can be really helpful for students to either follow along with the recording, or if they find it easier to follow written text rather than presentation/conversation audio. Make sure these follow the text guidelines given (14pt size is acceptable for documents).
If you're feeling like an absolute superstar then add a mind-map version of the lecture notes. You can do this really easily (once you get the hang of it) on free browser software like Coggle. They have an instructional video on the front page. This is what it looks like!