Blackboard Course Accessibility Checklist

• Check *WorldCAT if an electronic copy is available — Not required.

• Check the *Designing Your Syllabus website for example statements.

• At least two of the following: Word, PDF, and/or inside Bb course shell.

• If printable document, then write out full URL; If inside Bb course shell, then add descriptive text instead of full URL.

• Use simple tables — 1 column for row headers, 1 row for column headers, no merged cells, no empty cells.
• Example of table headers:

• If printable document, then write out full URL; If inside Bb course shell, then add descriptive text instead of full URL.

• Can you use the TAB key on the keyboard to move to each of the links and then press ENTER to open them?

• Remove unused links on main course menu in Bb and hide all unused tools in Tool area.

• • Use *Colour Contrast Analyser to check color contrast ratio. Focus on Luminosity Tab in Colour Contrast Analyser.

• Consistent Navigation – Structure of the content is consistent from one module to the next.
• Tab Order – When using TAB Key on keyboard, focus moves Left to Right, Top-to-Bottom.
• Appropriate language – Consistent with level of course (lack of slang, text-ese, etc.).

• Can you use the TAB key on the keyboard to move to each of the controls (e.g., search fields, checkboxes, buttons, links, etc.) and then press ENTER to open them?

• In Bb text area, when adding headings and sub-headings, use Heading and Sub Heading tags under Paragraph dropdown menu on Toolbar.

• Yes – Due to the challenges that screen-reader users encounter navigating different types of questions (e.g., short answer, multiple choice, T/F, etc.), it is recommended that faculty members chunk the same types of questions together.
• No — (Are you using Respondus Monitor or Lockdown Browser?) – if Yes, then post *Respondus accessibility information in your course.

• Consistent – Question types are chunked
• Tab Order – When using TAB Key on keyboard, focus moves Left to Right, Top-to-Bottom

• If yes, please provide the *Bb Collaborate Accessibility Guide for Moderators link to the instructor. Ask the instructor to post the *Bb Accessibility Guide for Participants link in their course for students.

• If yes, please provide the *Bb Collaborate Accessibility Guide for Moderators link to the instructor. Ask the instructor to post the *Bb Accessibility Guide for Participants link in their course for students.

• If yes, suggest instructor use accessible alternative like Skype, Google Hangouts, or Bb Collaborate.

• Supplemental applications like Pearson MyLabs and McGraw-Hill Connect pose accessibility challenges for students with visual and/or hearing impairments (i.e., not keyboard accessible, videos not captioned, etc.). Faculty members who require use of these materials without providing alternative means for accessing these instructional resources, leave the university open to legal challenges.

• If yes, the instructor should submit the website through an ATI Request for Services to be tested for accessibility.

• If yes, the instructor should link to any accessibility-related resources for these tools, for example:
  • VoiceThread Accessibility
  • Google Docs Accessibility
• The ATI Office can provide assistance to any faculty and/or students that require support with learning to use or access these resources.

• Avoid generic phrases like “Click here”.  Instead, use phrases that let users know about the content of the linked page prior to selecting it, like ‘ATI website’.
• If printable document, then write out full URL; If inside Bb course shell, then add descriptive text instead of full URL

• Can you use the TAB key on the keyboard to move to each of the links and then press ENTER to open them?

• Color-contrast ratio of 4.5:1 or higher.
• Use *Colour Contrast Analyser to check color contrast ratio. Focus on Luminosity Tab in Colour Contrast Analyser.

• Using Styles (heading elements) provides a Table of Contents for screen-reader users.
• Without Styles, students are not able to navigate from one section of the document to another. They must navigate one-word/one sentence at a time or search for specific strings of text to try to figure out the document’s content.

• Impacts ability of students with low vision to read document text.

• Screen-reading applications are not able to identify what is in an image. The purpose of alt-text is to provide a brief explanation or description of the image for the screen-reading application.

• Without using the table function in Word, the screen-reading application is unable to relate the data in the “table” to the column and row headings. This can be confusing for students with visual and/or cognitive/learning challenges.

• Correct table header layout:
• Incorrect table header layout:

• Example of a table with merged cells:

• Just copying the header row does not accomplish this. You must do the following:
  • Mac OSX
    • Highlight the header row.
    • Click the Table Layout tab.
    • Click Repeat Headers.
  • PC (Windows)
    • Highlight the header row.
    • Click Table Tools.
    • Click the Layout tab.
    • Click Repeat Header Rows.

• Without a caption, a screen-reader user will encounter the table data first without any summary information as to what is in the table.
• How to add a caption (Mac OSX/PC):
  • Right-click on the table.
  • Click Insert Caption.
  • Enter caption text.
  • Choose a Label.
  • Choose a Position (choose Above Selected Item).
  • Click OK.

• Avoid generic phrases like “Click here”. Instead, use phrases that let users know about the content of the linked page prior to selecting it, like ‘ATI website’.
• If printable document, then write out full URL; If inside Bb course shell, then add descriptive text instead of full URL

• Can you use the TAB key on the keyboard to move to each of the links and then press ENTER to open them?

• • Color-contrast ratio of 4.5:1 or higher.
  • Use *Colour Contrast Analyser to check color contrast ratio. Focus on Luminosity Tab in Colour Contrast Analyser.

• PPT’s default view is Normal View. Click on Outline View. Make sure that all of the Slide text shows in the outline. If it does not, then the screen-reader user cannot read that text.

• Screen-reading applications access the slide title first when reading through PPT slides. Slide titles with the same name can be confusing as a student may think that they are still on the same slide.

• Use the built-in slide templates provided in MS PPT. If you create your own text boxes, screen-reading applications will be unable to read text from text-boxes or text embedded in images.

• Using the Bulleted List & Numbered List tools that are built into MS PPT ensures that a screen-reading application properly identifies those elements.

• SmartArt graphics are inaccessible to screen-reading applications. Faculty member should provide an alternative method for students to access this information (e.g., write out an explanation in the Notes section of slide).

• Impacts ability of students with low vision to read document text.

• If several smaller images are used in a slide to make up one larger image, it is recommended that all images be grouped together as an object.
• To do this:
  • • Select all of the smaller images, including lines, arrows, etc. (Mac – Hold down Cmd key and click on each of the items making up larger image, PC – Hold down Ctrl key and click on each item).
    • Right-click on selected items (Mac – Press Ctrl + Click).
    • Select Grouping.
    • Click Group.

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• Screen-reading applications will attempt to read each individual image. If the images were grouped together, then the instructor would only have to describe the one larger image as opposed to each individual image

• Screen-reading applications are not able to identify what is in an image. The purpose of alt-text is to provide a brief explanation or description of the image for the screen-reading application.

• Without using the table function in Word, the screen-reading application is unable to relate the data in the “table” to the column and row headings. This can be confusing for students with visual and/or cognitive/learning challenges.

• Correct table header layout:
• Incorrect table header layout:

• Example of a table with merged cells:

• Just copying the header row does not accomplish this. You must do the following:
  • Mac OSX
    • Highlight the header row.
    • Click the Table Layout tab.
    • Click Repeat Headers.
  • PC (Windows)
    • Highlight the header row.
    • Click Table Tools.
    • Click the Layout tab.
    • Click Repeat Header Rows.

• Without a caption, a screen-reader user will encounter the table data first without any summary information as to what is in the table.
• How to add a caption (Mac OSX/PC):
  • Right-click on the table.
  • Click Insert Caption.
  • Enter caption text.
  • Choose a Label.
  • Choose a Position (choose Above Selected Item).
  • Click OK.

• To check this:
  • Mac OSX
    • Click anywhere in the table.
    • Click the Table Layout tab.
    • Click Properties.
    • Click the Row tab.
    • Make sure that the checkbox ‘Allow row to break across pages’ is unchecked.
  • PC (Windows)
    • Click anywhere in the table.
    • Click Table Tools.
    • Click the Layout tab.
    • Click Properties.
    • Click the Row tab.
    • Make sure that the checkbox ‘Allow row to break across pages’ is unchecked.

• As long as the instructor can select the text in the document using the mouse cursor, then it is readable (not fully accessible) to text-to-speech and screen-reading applications.
• For instructor-created content, it is recommended that the documents are first created in Word, checked for accessibility, and then converted into a PDF format.
• Submit a Request for Services form to ATI for an accessible PDF.

• PDF documents with handwritten notes, underlines, comments, and edits are not easily converted into readable PDF documents. Cleaning up these files requires additional manual work by an accessibility expert.

• If printable document, then write out full URL; If inside Bb course shell, then add descriptive text instead of full URL

• Can you use the TAB key on the keyboard to move to each of the links and then press ENTER to open them?

• For additional information on ATI’s captioning and transcription services, visit ATI’s Accessible Media webpage.

• The Auto-captions feature from YouTube is often not very accurate. *YouTube’s Auto-captions Failed Attempts

• Instructor should provide a matching text transcript.

• Instructor should provide a matching text transcript.

• It is recommended that instructors host all of their video content (excluding library-owned/licensed content) in the Kaltura Platform within Bb.

• Can you use the TAB key on the keyboard to move to each of the controls on the video player and then press ENTER to activate them?
• Another alternative would be that all video player controls are accessible via keyboard shortcuts (e.g., Ctrl + Up Arrow to increase volume)

• Can the user use the TAB key to navigate to the embedded video, access all of the controls on the video platform, and then continue to navigate outside of the video to the rest of the content hosted in the Bb course. Some video players may be keyboard traps – i.e., pressing the TAB key repeated cycles the focus through all of the controls on the video player without allowing the user to move back into the Bb course.