Group items tagged

This is a question we need to start asking up-front. When a textbook vendor calls, ask about accessible materials. When you see a documentary, ask if it's closed-captioned. When we think about new technologies, ask about screen readers and other accessibility tools. Better still, ask vendors (and colleagues) what accommodations they'd make to get all students an equivalent educational experience.

A group of disabilities studies scholars have released a template letter designed to convince publishers to make more books available in accessible formats. It's a good reminder that everything is negotiable, but you have to ask. (Similar to author's addenda in the open access movement, if enough people start requesting these riders, publishers will see a new reason to change their standard practices.)

I appreciate the way this podcast episode structures accessibility tips to talk about which steps toward universal design are easiest to achieve, or have the most bang for the buck.

The author's review of the readership statistics for his own papers has some implications for both open access and information literacy instruction.

An overview of Google's resources and recommendations for accessibility in their most commonly used services.

The way you state policies and practices on a syllabus communicates quite a bit about the classroom environment you're trying to shape. In this column, Mark Sample talks about revising his accessibility statement to best communicate his goals of academic success and inclusion.

Interested in tools that make course content more accessible to students with visual and cognitive challenges? Two free Microsoft products features their Immersive Reader tool, which reads aloud text for users.

A new resource from Tulane University gives design tips for making syllabi more accessible and engaging. "Countless instructors complain that students don't read the syllabus. We believe students would use the document more effectively if it were designed more accessibly."

The Open Access movement encompasses a number of initiatives that encourage more affordable course materials for students, shared resources among teachers, and collaboration among scholars. Here are some simple ways of contributing to Open Access in your research and teaching practices.

Inside Higher Ed has compiled a free booklet of articles on digital accessibility in higher education.

We don't offer "online" courses at Kenyon, but these tips do apply to our course websites and Moodle pages. It's worth the time to think how a student with a disability would experience your resources and assignments.

A detailed exploration of the role of the accessibility statement on a syllabus, and the impact that its language and placement may have on all the students in the class.

Fascinating discussion of the semantics of "trigger warnings" through the lens of universal design for accessibility. It seems to imply a question about when (if ever) surprising students with course content is a useful strategy. Thanks to Jeanne Griggs for the link.

What are some basic steps you can take to make sure your course material is equally accessible to all students? Michigan State University provides a good basic checklist.

Special issue of the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education focusing on trans* issues in higher education settings. Includes some good articles about access to education and success in college for trans* students.

A number of good tips for making sure your documents are useful for people with vision impairment, color blindness, and people who use screen readers. Some require technical know-how, but anyone could go mouseless or change the default font size and ask whether their page still works right.

This is a pretty good online course for introducing academics to relevant issues in copyright law. The lectures are given by experts in the field, and are appropriately accessible and detailed. It's now available "on demand"; I'm curious to see how people experience that differently than the earlier synchronous (multi-week) iteration.

I'm actually a big fan of pop quizzes - I think they motivate students to keep up, and provide useful diagnostic information to the teacher. However, in-class quizzes chew up valuable face-to-face time, require manual grading (which slows their utility), and as this article points out, are deeply unfair to students with some disabilities. This article suggests other ways to hold a "pop quiz" which are equally accessible to all students (and potentially provide information faster to the faculty member). Hat tip to Erin Salva for the link.

This article does not address the reasons why faculty restrict access to technology in the classroom, such as distraction or the confusion of dictation for note taking, but it does present an interesting model for how technology could be used better to create a backchannel for a course through student collaboration.

Another study showing the relationship between sleep and memory. "The post-sleep boost in memory accessibility may indicate that some memories are sharpened overnight." (It might be worth reminding your students that a good study strategy includes a complete night's sleep!)