Producing usable and accessible eLearning content
In order to comply with the Disability and Equality Act (2010) all eLearning materials need to be accessible to disabled students. eLearning should be a more accessible way of learning for everyone but unless thought is given to how disabled students access their resources some may be denied essential information for their studies. Students with severe visual impairments may not be able to see images or video, deaf students will not be able to hear audio files or video soundtracks, students with Dyslexia will struggle with text heavy materials and with inconsistent formatting. In many cases improving the accessibility and usability of eLearning materials for disabled students will improve the online experience for everyone.
The University of Aberdeen recently upgraded their Virtual Learning Environment to Blackboard Learn 9.1, which is referred to as ‘MyAberdeen’. Although the Blackboard Learn 9.1 environment has won awards for its accessibility, it can only be as accessible as the content which is uploaded into it. In order to help staff produce eLearning content which both complies with the Disability and Equality Act (2010) and is accessible to everyone an accessibility checklist for producing eLearning content has been produced.
A series of MyAberdeen Accessibility QuickGuides have also been produced in order to help staff create accessible and usable MyAberdeen courses. These guides are currently 'draft' documents, if you would like to make comments, suggestions, amendments or corrections please contact Peter at p.jeffels@abdn.ac.uk