Many students may be eligible for accommodations but do not seek them out due to a variety of reasons (stigma, lack of documentation, or lack of unawareness of the student resources). You may not be able to tell who those students are because the most prevalent forms of disability on college campuses are hidden/invisible disabilities (learning disabilities, anxiety, chronic pain, traumatic brain injury, etc.)
There are also faculty and staff with disabilities, as well as parents and caretakers. Our colleges serve not only our students but our community. They provide jobs, resources, events, and opportunities for continued growth and education. Disability touches every population and is very likely to touch each of us at some point in our lives.
Accessibility does not just benefit people with disabilities. Think of it this way: Elevators allow people unable to use the stairs to reach the different floors in a multi-story building. But does that mean you must be impaired to use the elevator? If someone is carrying a lot of items, or they are running late to a meeting on the 25th floor, then the elevator benefits them as well.
Accessible content works the same way. For example, a captioned video is not only helpful to someone who is deaf or hard of hearing, but it can help a person trying to watch the video in a noisy public space, or help someone for whom English is not their native language. Designing buildings, or digital content, in such a way as to maximize use for the most people possible, is known as Universal Design.
For more information about accessibility at UNCW, please contact the Disability Resource Center.
To learn more about creating accessible course content, please check out DRC's accessibility guides.
For normal text, there should be a minimum of 4.5:1 contrast ratio between text foreground and background colors. For large text (18pt or larger) or bold text, the minimum contrast ratio requirement is 3:1.
When creating content, it's important that you avoid using images of text. Images of text cannot be (easily) modified or read by assistive technologies like text to speech or screen readers.
If you have text housed within an image (like a screenshot or a banner with text that's converted to a jpg or png file), then the text is essentially unreadable by assistive technology.
Real text is searchable. This allows users to use search functions like Ctrl + F to locate specific terms and find what they need quickly.
Additionally, searchable text means that search engines can scan the document/page and determine if the content is relevant to the terms the user typed in. This can help ensure your document/page is easier to find for those using search terms to find it.
Real text can be modified by assistive technology. This is important for users who may need to increase the size of the font or contrast in order to see better.
This can also help students who are dyslexic and may want to change the font type to one that's easier for them to read.
People often fear making documents editable without realizing that allowing people to make modifications may help ensure that they receive the valuable information contained within the document.
How do you know if you're working with real text? To check if the text is "real" or not, try to select the text with your cursor. If you're unable to highlight/select it then it is not real text, and therefore not accessible for all users.
Headings are the labels given to each section title of your document. They give your document structure by organizing the content into sections.
Often, people use a bold or larger font to indicate section titles (which allows sighted users to scan the document for the section they need).
Assistive technology, however, does not allow the user to navigate based on whether the text is bold or larger.
By using headings, a person using assistive tech can jump from section to section rather than read through all of the text to find what they need.
Without headings, a document/web page is essentially one long stream of text that forces students using assistive tech to navigate through from the start, rather than jump to what they need (imagine if you could only navigate a web page by using the right and left arrow keys - no scroll bar, no up and down arrows).
Heading 1 is usually the document title or main content heading. It is the most important heading, and typically, there should be just one.
Making text bolder and larger is not the same as creating headings. If possible, please use the heading tool provided by an application to create headings
WebAIM's Creating Accessible Documents: Microsoft Word
Numbered lists (also called “ordered”) and bulleted lists (also called “unordered”) are important elements of an accessible document because they help users of assistive technology to navigate and understand the items on the list.
For example, a screen reader can identify a list and tell someone how many items are on the list by vocalizing the information, for example, “List of five items. Bullet 3.”
Hyperlinks connect a hypertext file or document to another location or file. Linked information is typically presented in the form of text, websites, files, or video content. Hyperlinks play a very important role in course accessibility.
Accessible hyperlinks are easy to create. There are a few simple concepts to keep in mind as you create these links in the resources you provide to students:
Create Accessible Links in Word (Video, 2:09)
Meaningful images should have alternative text (alt-text). This is information about the image that is used by assistive technologies like screen readers and will also become visible if an image cannot load.
Information presented in tabular format requires special attention to ensure the content is accessible. The structure and formatting of tables are often visually implied.
Ideally, tables are used for tabular data and not for presentation.
To support UNCW's commitment to inclusiveness, Ally was integrated within UNCW's LMS (Canvas). Ally assists instructors with the creation of accessible course content in Canvas without changing how anything works in your Canvas course.
Ally is a software solution that sits in Canvas and provides real-time analyses of the accessibility of all course content.
It clearly identifies which items could be improved and helps faculty to remediate course content. Ally updates in real-time, so faculty can see the progress they are making instantaneously when creating courses that are universally accessible for all students.
Ally can help faculty proactively address accessibility issues rather than having to respond to individual concerns reactively.
In addition, Ally allows students to access multiple formats of course materials to meet their needs, without putting the additional workload on faculty or changing how anything looks in Canvas.
To learn more about Ally or departmental trainings, please email us.
Ensuring an accessible and pleasant experience for all users, regardless of disability, is a key element of Canvas software. The Canvas platform was built using the most modern HTML and CSS technologies and is committed to W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative and Section 508 guidelines.
Here are some accessible features within Canvas:
Videos are becoming more and more common as we move material and lectures/presentations online. As the instructor of the course, you must ensure that instructional videos are accessible. This guarantees that the largest audience possible can benefit from your video.
Captions do not only benefit deaf or hard-of-hearing viewers, but they also benefit users in loud environments, users in quiet libraries, and students learning new languages. Captioning is not just about meeting the UNCW ADA policy.
It is all about making your content inclusive, which will enhance learning and allow for a more significant number of students with diverse learning needs to access a variety of media content.
As part of UNCW's commitment to providing accessible course material, UNCW Distance Education and eLearning offers FREE closed captioning and transcription services for video and audio files in English and many other languages for instructional purposes.
Distance Education and eLearning will return your captioned media within two weeks of the request. Our closed captions and transcripts are created manually by our third-party vendor.
If you have additional questions about our CC services, please email us.
Closed captions are timed-text is shown on screen as the video plays (attached to your video). For captions, your video will need to be stored in Echo360.
A transcript is your audio converted into an editable text document. Our office provides you with the Word document file and you would be responsible for storing it.
Our office recommends captions for instructional videos. Captions allow students to stay within one platform. Overall, whether it is captions or a transcript, you want to make sure to have an alternative option for your videos, just in case your students need it.
If you are not sure which option would work best for your videos, you can always reach out via email at elearning@uncw.edu for assistance.
VoiceThreads are automatically captioned by VoiceThread when created in Canvas. To learn more, please email us.
Zoom meetings recorded by the Zoom Cloud are automatically machine-transcribed. While Zoom can record meetings, Zoom storage is limited by UNCW, and recordings stored in Zoom will be deleted at the end of each term.
Please use your Echo360 account to store and share all recordings, where storage is unlimited and will not be deleted.
Zoom and Echo360 are integrated at UNCW. This means any time you record a Zoom meeting to the cloud, it will automatically be saved in your Echo360 library.
If your recording requires captioning to fulfill a student or employee accommodation request, Zoom Cloud's machine-generated transcripts are not sufficient, and you will need to submit a captioning request ticket to DEeL. Please email us for guidance.
YouTube automatically captions videos that are stored on their video streaming platform. Since YouTube captions are computer-generated, your captions will not be 100% accurate, but you are able to edit the captions if you are the owner of the video. If you find a video on YouTube that does not have captions, our office can provide you with a written transcript. If you need any assistance with YouTube, please contact YouTube Support.
The turnaround time is up to 2 weeks per CC request because it depends on how long the videos are, how long it takes our third party to caption them manually, and how long it takes for us to handle all the CC requests we have in the queue once we get your captions back.
Overall, we do our best to provide a quick turnaround time, especially if a student needs it, which is usually 2 to 3 days, but we say two weeks to provide DEeL some time to manage all the CC requests. This is why it is essential to make sure you submit your videos for captions as soon as possible.
We understand how busy things can get during the semester and the importance of accessible content for your students. So, once you create your video, send us a CC request as soon as you can. No matter what, DEeL is here to help!
To submit a CC request to DEeL, you can locate our form within the Help tab in Canvas or on TAC's website. We will just need:
PDFs tend to cause a lot of anxiety when it comes to accessibility. The main reason is that PDFs are often created in order to prevent editing, thereby making them more difficult to fix if someone does not own the source document.
Additionally, if a PDF is a scanned document, then it is an image of text and someone using assistive technology like a screen reader will be unable to access the text. So, the first rule of thumb when it comes to accessible PDFs is to avoid scanned documents.
Another issue that many people run into with PDFs is that they do not have the appropriate software to edit the PDF.
Many people have Adobe Acrobat Reader, which allows them to view PDFs. In order to edit a PDF, you will need Adobe Acrobat Pro. To install Adobe Acrobat Pro on your device or for technical assistance, please contact TAC.
Please check out our quick, accessible PDF checklist down below to help you get started.
If you are unable to make your PDF files accessible, please contact Randall Library. They can provide you with alternative options for articles and ebooks.
If you have any questions on how to make your PDFs accessible within your online course, email us or schedule an appointment with DEeL using our booking tool.
Learn the 4 Why's of PDF's from Randall Library and the importance of linking your resources.