At CCRI we are committed to providing an inclusive learning community that is accessible
to all learners. As an instructor, it is your responsibility to ensure that all students
have equal access to your course content.
By following WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines and reducing the amount of content in your course
that is marked inaccessible by Blackboard Ally, you are increasing student success
in all demographics.
There are a few different laws that relate to accessibility for online courses - the
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and its 2008 amendments and the Rehabilitation
Act of 1973, particularly sections 504 and 508 (updated in 2015). There is also a
lot of information on accessibility as it relates to a learning environment.
In a nutshell, qualified individuals with disabilities must be afforded the opportunity
to acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same
benefits and services within the same time frame as a person without a disability, with substantially equivalent
ease of use.
When writing a script, it’s important to stick to the key points and keep it as short
as possible. The better you plan your lecture script, the longer you can use record
without having to stop and rerecord. Having lectures ready to go each semester is
an incredible way to save time.
Every video need captions or a transcript. Many learners turn captioning on, including
me. Students will use captions/transcripts as a learning tool in addition to watching
the video.
It is critical that the transcript be accurate and an equivalent educational experience
to your narration.
If you use a transcript, it should be accessible near the lecture video.
Avoid dates and times in your recording to extend the life of the video.
Auto-Captioning Videos
CCRI has two products that will auto-caption for you to an accuracy of 80%.
We also recommend using the below products for auto-captioning. YouTube is particularly
good for adjunct faculty. CCRI doesn't support the below products.
Blackboard Ally is a tool that focuses on making digital course content more accessible.
Using inclusivity, sustainability, and automation as its key pillars, Blackboard Ally
helps you understand and tackle accessibility in a way that benefits all students.
Online technologies used for online courses and supported by Online Learning and Technology
are accessible to most students at CCRI. Blackboard, SafeAssign, Ally, Respondus,
Class Collaborate, Zoom, TutorMe, Starfish and VoiceThread are WCAG 2.0 AA rated products.
Our technologies are compatible with a variety of screen readers and text-to-speech
applications.
Other products used by CCRI students are also WCAG 2.0 AA certified such as MS Office
365, Webex, OneDrive, Adobe Creative Suite, Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, Adobe Acrobat Reader,
and Kurzweil 3000.
MEDIALecture does not currently have WCAG 2.0 AA certification. The application is
not browser-based making it difficult to gain WCAG 2.0 AA certification. This product
doesn’t have automatic captioning or transcriptions. When there is an accommodation
for captioning, the MEDIAL Admin contacts MEDIAL and a 3rd party provides human captions which are approx. 100% accurate. Fortunately, MEDIAL
will soon release a browser-based application. Version 8.5 will allow MEDIAL to work quickly toward WCAG 2.0 AA certification.
VPATs
Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates
A Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) is a document that explains how
information and communication technology products such as software, hardware, electronic
content, and support documentation meet (conform to) the Revised 508 Standards for IT accessibility.