There are three key steps that an instructor should consider in the course design process to ensure accessibility:
Taking inventory on course materials and content
Building knowledge about making content accessible and usable by all students
Budgeting time to make accessibility corrections as needed.
Every place of business -- a flower store, a restaurant, a bowling alley -- has to take inventory on a regular basis. Distance educators also have an "inventory" of education materials provided to their students, the same way that businesses make their inventories available to their customers. Taking stock of the "inventory" of a course allows the educator to get a handle on what steps need to be taken to make the materials available to as many "customers" as possible.
The first part of the "inventory" is the primary delivery process. How will the "meat" of the course be presented to students? Content management systems (CMS) allow educators to present material in a variety of different ways -- all of which have an impact on accessibility.
For example, if most of the course content involves PowerPoint slides (see Module 3: PowerPoint Accessibility), a fair amount of effort may be needed to make those slides accessible to all students. PowerPoint poses several unique accessibility challenges -- especially for slides that have graphs or charts -- that would need to be addressed. If most of the course content is delivered through online video lectures (see Module 4: Video Accessibility), this poses another set of accessibility challenges involving a different subset of students with disabilities.
Once the course's primary delivery method is identified, the next step is to identify what other documents will be used to enhance course content. For example, a history course might feature an animated, interactive map. A physics course might provide students with a Flash simulation of a scientific experiment (see Module 5: Flash Accessibility). A math course might include PDF documents with charts and graphs (see Module 8: PDF Accessibility). Each of these elements of an online course poses different barriers to students with disabilities that need to be addressed.
Additionally, instructors may choose to augment courses with modules or learning objects from other sources. For example, instructors may choose to take advantage of the items in MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching). The MERLOT collection contains a number of modules developed by distance education instructors. Many of these modules have not been evaluated for accessibility. Taking the time to identify potential problems with outside modules is another important step in planning for accessibility.
After taking an inventory, a typical course might look something like this:
15 HTML pages
5 PowerPoint presentations (average 15 slides apiece)
3 Microsoft Word documents
One large map in a PDF file
Given this "inventory", making this course completely accessible would not be difficult. However, the instructor of this hypothetical course would need to know exactly what barriers that a student with a disability might face in accessing this material, and how to best go about delivering this material in an accessible or usable format.
The Access E-Learning tutorial is designed to help busy instructors find the material they need fast. The Access E-Learning tutorial is designed in a modular format so that instructors can get the material they need (on HTML accessibility, for example) without having to read through the entire content. Access E-Learning also offers a variety of technical assistance material with quick answers to common questions. Additionally, the "Resources" section of each module has links to other documents and resources that are available to help instructors make online materials accessible for all students.
Although a huge amount of resources are readily available to help instructors build their knowledge about accessibility, building this knowledge still takes a great deal of time and commitment -- especially for instructors who are new to accessibility or new to distance education. Instructors with a limited technology background -- for example, instructors who don't know basic HTML design -- will need to budget more time and energy than others in learning the basics of accessibility.
One good way to build knowledge outside of online resources is to consult with students with disabilities on campus. Often, instructors are not aware of the assistive technology commonly used by students with disabilities to access distance learning and other online educational resources. Taking the time to check out the technology that students are using helps to reinforce the difficulty that these students may face and highlights the need for accessible learning material.
The next step is to determine what amount of time will be needed to make the material in the "inventory" accessible. Making an HTML slide, or a PowerPoint slide, or a Microsoft Word document accessible generally will not require a substantial outlay of funding, but will require a measurable amount of time and effort. Each module within Access E-Learning spells out the average amount of time that a given project will take, for many projects common to building distance-learning programs.
However, there are ways that instructors can save time on accessibility. In the sample course described above, the most important thing an instructor could do would be to build a template for all the HTML files in the course. Once the template is completed, the instructor can check the template for accessibility, using evaluation tools and other techniques. Once the template is made accessible, the next step would be to create the individual HTML files. Correcting an accessibility mistake on the template would be much easier than correcting the same mistake on fifteen separate HTML pages.
Having the knowledge of how to build accessible courses will also help minimize the amount of time spent on accessibility in the long run. Like many other things, an individual instructor's ability to provide accessible course materials, documents, and modules will improve over time with practice. Once designing accessible materials becomes "second nature," the time needed to make a course accessible may drop significantly.
Creating any online distance learning course takes a significant amount of time to complete. Budgeting sufficient time to handle accessibility issues should be considered as part of the overall time commitment. Putting accessibility last in planning for an online course, or leaving accessibility issues until the end of the course -- or leaving them out altogether -- will likely cost a great deal more effort in the long run. Taking these "first steps" will result in courses that are not only accessible for students with disabilities, but are more useful and usable for all students.
The next page will present information on reviewing and evaluating course materials for accessibility.
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