Accessibility

What is web accessibility?

The web is designed for all people irrespective of their hardware, software, location, language or ability. Under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992, Australian Government agencies are required to ensure information and services are provided in a non-discriminatory accessible manner. All information published by Federal government organisations should be compliant to the Level AA Web content accessibility guidelines standard which provides a wide range of recommendations for making web content more accessible to users with disabilities.

How do our eLearning systems and tools improve accessibility?

The Course Site Design guidelines promote a consistent menu, structure and format which helps users navigate, find content, and determine where they are.
Blackboard SaaS includes a range of accessibility features such as keyboard navigation, support for screen readers, quick links for faster navigation and a content editor for math formulas.
The Blackboard text editor includes an accessibility checker button which provides formatting suggestions such as heading size, alt text and text formatting.
The Echo360 and YouTube media players all include keyboard shortcuts (e.g. volume, pause, start) and when embedded in Blackboard, these players do not have auto-play enabled by default.
Automatic captions and transcripts are available for videos uploaded to Echo360 which can be edited and downloaded. For more information, refer to the Edit and download an Echo360 video transcript guide.
Zoom meetings that are recorded to the cloud generate automatic audio transcriptions which can be downloaded and edited. For more information, refer to the Add a Zoom Recording to Learn.UQ guide.
Live auto-transcription can be turned on in your Zoom account settings and then enabled during a Zoom meeting. For more information, refer to the Live auto-transcripts in a Zoom meeting guide.
Inspera Assessment has a range of accessibility features including text-to-speech, a screen reader, keyboard navigation, braille keyboards, and zooming support which can be customised for particular users. For more information, refer to Inspera's accessibility statement.

Adobe and Microsoft

Microsoft has produced resources to assist with making Word, Excel, Powepoint, OneNote, Outlook, Sharepoint, Sway and Visio accessible to people with disabilities.

Improve accessibility with the Accessibility Checker by Microsoft
Everything you need to know to write effective alt text by Microsoft

Adobe has produced a resource to assist with making PDF files accessible to all users using Acrobat Pro.

Create and verify PDF accessibility with Acrobat Pro by Adobe

Universal Design

University of Queensland

The University of Queensland has a range of resources available to assist staff in making web content more accessible. To view the support options available or to report an issue, refer to the Web accessibility support and issue reporting webpage.

Inclusive practice by ITaLI
Accessibility and study hacks by UQ Library
Digital Practices Lab by UQ Library
Web accessibility by ITS
Design System by ITS
Create accessible content by UQ Library

Australian Disability Clearinghouse on Education and Training

The following resources are also accessible via the Creating Accessible Documents webpage which contains a range of other information on inclusive teaching which may be of use to academic staff.

Accessibility and images (YouTube, 5m 55s)
Microsoft Office Accessibility Checker (YouTube, 5m 4s)
Converting from Word to PDF (YouTube, 5m 15s)
The Importance of correct document structure (YouTube, 3m 17s)
Hierarchical Headings (YouTube, 5m 11s)
Creating and modifying styles (YouTube, 8m 9s)
Using tables in MS Word (YouTube, 6m 19s)
Making maths digital and accessible with EquatIO (YouTube, 57m 2s)

Note: UQ does not have a license for EquatIO, however a demo version is available to try for free.