Accessibility in eConestoga

Making your online content broadly accessible to all students can be a large task, but there are a number of small things you can do which will nonetheless yield large benefits for your students.

Avoid Tables

When posting Word and PDF documents for your students, avoid the use of tables wherever possible, especially if the tables are simply there to visually break up blocks of text. Tables are fine if they legitimately present rows and columns of data, but it’s always worth stopping to consider whether a non-tabled content layout might be possible, as this will be much easier for visually-impaired users to access with screen reader software.

Captioning Images

Whenever you embed an image into your course's content, communications, or assessments, eConestoga will prompt you to provide a caption for the image. Many users struggle to determine an appropriate caption for their images. For the purposes of captioning, it's helpful to classify images into three main categories:

1. Example images provide a visual illustration of something being discussed in the accompanying text. Ideally, the accompanying text should contain all of the explanation that the image requires-- either by directly referencing it (e.g., "In this image, you'll notice that..."), or by fully discussing the subject at hand and providing the image only as a reinforcement (e.g., a breakdown of different medical instruments with an image of each one beside its description). As long as your accompanying text provides the same information as the image, it is safe to check the "Image is Decorative" box when prompts you to add a caption.

However, the accompanying text does not always fully cover what the image is conveying. If you've inserted an image that contains important information that isn't present in the page's text, you should either edit the text to add this missing context, or type in a caption that explains the missing information to a student who can't see the image.

2. Diagram images are visualizations of data, taking a wide range of forms-- flowcharts, infographics, labeled illustrations, and so on. Diagrams typically involve text and visual information woven together, and tend to be the most challenging for instructors to caption. However, most instructors already have practice captioning these types of images, because the captions required for a diagram are essentially just the explanation you would provide verbally if the image were presented on a PowerPoint slide in class. Explain not only the labeled shapes in the diagram, but their relationships to each other, and the meaning that is derived out of those relationships. Some examples:
• If a diagram describes a linear process, the caption should talk the student through that process from start to finish, in whatever level of detail is covered in the image.
• If a diagram describes a process with multiple paths, such as a flowchart, focus on the "decision points" on the process and the outcomes of each decision point.
• If a diagram is intended to label components-- e.g., an image of the parts of the digestive tract-- the caption should name each component and describe its appearance and function. (Remember that purely visual descriptions aren't very meaningful to the types of users who typically read image captions.)
3. Decorative images are inserted purely for colour and to break up an otherwise flat page of text. If an image you've added is purely decorative, you should check the "Image is Decorative" box when eConestoga prompts you to add a caption.

Locating Captioned Videos

If you wish to post a YouTube video within your eConestoga course, click the “CC” button below the video and check that it contains a caption track not labeled “English – Auto”. Automatic captions are often highly inaccurate, so ensure that manual captions (labeled simply “English”) have been created for any video you wish to share with your class.

You can specifically search for YouTube videos that have manual captions by adding “ ,CC” (space, comma, CC) to the end of any search on that site—e.g., “Accounting Videos ,CC”.

Question Types

When building online quizzes, certain question types can be challenging for visually-impaired students who navigate using a screen reader.

• Multiple Choice and True/False questions are typically okay, but they are much easier for a screen reader user to navigate if you present the answer options in a drop-down box instead of using the default option of radio buttons.
• "Labeling" questions, where an image is presented and students are asked to name things they see in the image, are a common assessment in Trades and Health courses, as learning the correct technical names for things by sight is an important skill for these and many other fields. However, these questions are challenging for a low-vision student to complete, and essentially impossible for a blind student. If your quizzes involve these types of questions, it's helpful to formulate an alternate question for students with visual disabilities to complete instead-- for example, one that tests definitions or concepts in place of visual recognition.
• Matching questions are quite difficult for Screen Reader users to navigate. Consider breaking one Matching question up into a larger number of Multiple Choice questions (again with drop-down answers instead of radio buttons), with the list of possible answers repeated in each question.
  
  Tip: You can avoid having to re-type the answer options by opening the first multiple-choice question you’ve set up and clicking “Save and Copy” at the bottom.

Accessibility Accommodations

Students registered with Accessibility Services may require modifications to your quizzes to allow the students to complete them. Depending on the instructions you've received on the student's accommodation form, you may need to modify one or more of the following:

• Timing Accommodations - Some of your students may need additional writing time to complete your online quizzes, while others may need to access your quiz at a different date and time in order to write in the Accessibility Testing Center. You can set both of these options up using the Special Access feature in eConestoga quizzes.
• Structural Changes - Some students' accessibility accommodations may require that they have a different number of Questions Per Page than you have configured for other students, and/or the ability to move backward through pages. The Special Access system does not permit this, so in this scenario you would need to create a duplicate quiz, and then configure the duplicate quiz with any different options that the student requires (up to and including modifying the questions on the quiz, if you wish).
• Accessibility Software - Some of your students may require special software to help them write eConestoga quizzes, such as a screen reader or magnification software. Most software of this type will be blocked by Respondus LockDown Browser. If you use Respondus for your quizzes, you can use Special Access to exempt specific students from Respondus. If you do, the selected students will not be prompted to launch Respondus, and will instead write in a normal browser window.
• Note that if this exemption is made for a student, the student will not be subject to the added security measures provided by Respondus, so they will be able to browse the Internet, access files on their computer, copy and paste, and take screenshots. Unfortunately, there is no way to allow accessibility software without losing Respondus' protections for the exempted students.

If you are unsure about what exact Quiz modifications are appropriate to meet a particular accommodation request, please reach out to eConestoga@conestogac.on.ca for assistance.

Many students who are registered with Accessibility Services are supported by staff members who will need to access your eConestoga course materials-- examples include Computerized Note Takers, Sign Language Interpreters, and Educational Assistants. The Online Learning Centre works with Accessibility Services to enroll the majority of these staff members in the necessary courses at the start of each semester, but if you are informed of the need for Accessibility staff to access your course later on in the semester, you can enroll them in your course yourself.

Instructions for enrolling another user in your course can be found in the guide to Enrollment and User Roles. When enrolling Accessibility staff in your course, you will select the “AccessibilityService” role, which allows them to view content but not to interact with dropboxes or quizzes.

This level of access is sufficient for the majority of Accessibility accommodations, but some students may require a staff member to preview your online quizzes beforehand in order to convert them to an accessible format. To meet this need, a higher-level role called “AccessibilityTesting” exists in eConestoga; however, Instructors cannot assign this role to staff members on their own. Instead, Accessibility Services will contact the Online Learning Centre directly if this higher access level is needed.