When creating course material, you will probably think of making it accessible for a broad audience. You will consider the language, your audience and level you are developing for. But are you aware of how to make your material as digital accessible as possible?

How digital accessible is your course?

Creating material (coursebooks, powerpoint-presentations, videos, PDFs, etc) is something we do on a daily basis. To enhance accessibility of documents – not only for vision impaired students, but actually for everyone – try to make sure your material complies with the WCAG2 Accessibility standard for web content accessibility guidelines. We introduce you to some easy to adopt directives.

These guidelines will be added and updated on a regular basis. Because awareness of digital accessibility is currently on people’s agenda and especially on the systems-side there will be adaptations coming up. So some tips will soon be outdated. If you know of better options or are willing to share your tips and tricks: please do!

• Tips for creating accessible documents
• Tips for creating accessible powerpoint presentations
• Tips for enhancing you videos (subtitles)
• Tools you and your students can use

Do you want to learn more or share experiences?

Within UM you can turn to:

• UM website about Accessibility
• UM Disability Support
• UM intranet pages (login required) with information and tips on assisting and supporting students with a disability, concerning both social and practical/educational interaction.
• Library services for disabled users
• Watch the recording of the webinar on digital accessibility in Canvas (April 2021)
• Check out the UnliMited Network page.

Read more:

• The website of the Expert Centre on Inclusive Education (ECIO): note that the Dutch equivalent offers more.
• The Dutch ministerial website: overview of requirements and guidelines you can use when creating material or websites.
• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which are created and updated on a regular basis by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
• When creating and offering digital material, a good starting point is universal design for learning. Where possible strive to include this in your online content.
• Or get informed by posts in the national SURF community [in Dutch]:
  • Belang digitale toegankelijkheid voor HO
  • Verantwoordelijkheden omtrent digitale toegankelijkheid HO instellingen

Author: UM Library

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License.

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