Online courses and accessibility

[downer]

I'm curious about this. Has anyone during the transition to online teaching been given any requirements about maing their courses ADA compliant? My impression has been that just about every school has made little or no effort to enforce this, or even to inform faculty about the standards.

I'm not even sure that using Zoom fits with the standards. Has this come up at all?

[Parasaurolophus]

Not a peep here (with respect to our equivalent of the ADA). Just a list of tips and things we might want to include on our syllabi, all pertaining to online instruction but none to disability accomodations.

[polly_mer]

https://insidehighered.com/news/2020/04/06/remote-learning-shift-leaves-students-disabilities-behind

Can you say "class action lawsuit waiting to happen"?

[downer]

I have been told by two places that online teaching needs to be ADA compliant whether or not any students in my courses are registered with the college disability services. But presumably only students who have actually suffered as a result of the change can sue.

[FishProf]

My uni won't sign the contract with a new Closed Captioning company.

Instead, I did 20 videos for my colleagues using Youtube. 

I should get paid for that.....

[downer]

My uni won't sign the contract with a new Closed Captioning company.

Instead, I did 20 videos for my colleagues using Youtube. 

I should get paid for that.....

I'm not sure I understand. You used the YouTube auto closed captioning, or you wrote out the captioning yourself?

[FishProf]

Let Youtube do the auto, then edit for clarity.

"Meiotic cell division" came out "my toxic sell television".

[Caracal]

I'm curious about this. Has anyone during the transition to online teaching been given any requirements about maing their courses ADA compliant? My impression has been that just about every school has made little or no effort to enforce this, or even to inform faculty about the standards.

I'm not even sure that using Zoom fits with the standards. Has this come up at all?

Is there a different requirement for online versus in person in terms of accommodations? It would seem strange if there was a requirement to make courses accessible to all, rather than just provide accommodations for students who need it.

[downer]

I'm curious about this. Has anyone during the transition to online teaching been given any requirements about maing their courses ADA compliant? My impression has been that just about every school has made little or no effort to enforce this, or even to inform faculty about the standards.

I'm not even sure that using Zoom fits with the standards. Has this come up at all?

Is there a different requirement for online versus in person in terms of accommodations? It would seem strange if there was a requirement to make courses accessible to all, rather than just provide accommodations for students who need it.

It is strange to me. But that's what I've been told. In a regular class, we make accommodations for the actual students. In an online class, have to make accommodations whoever is in the class.

[downer]

It is strange to me. But that's what I've been told. In a regular class, we make accommodations for the actual students. In an online class, have to make accommodations whoever is in the class.

[dr_codex]

I'm curious about this. Has anyone during the transition to online teaching been given any requirements about maing their courses ADA compliant? My impression has been that just about every school has made little or no effort to enforce this, or even to inform faculty about the standards.

I'm not even sure that using Zoom fits with the standards. Has this come up at all?

Is there a different requirement for online versus in person in terms of accommodations? It would seem strange if there was a requirement to make courses accessible to all, rather than just provide accommodations for students who need it.

It is strange to me. But that's what I've been told. In a regular class, we make accommodations for the actual students. In an online class, have to make accommodations whoever is in the class.

+ 1

[Katrina Gulliver]

The place I teach is abysmal on this stuff at the best of times. I suggested to colleagues that images on the CMS should have captions, and that having a written exam based entirely on visual sources (I am not in art history) was not accessible. They looked at me like I was from another planet. That was pre corona. Now we have weekly livestreams where the high ups tell us what is going on. These are not captioned, and no transcript is provided later either.

[doc700]

Oh I do have a hard of hearing student in my course and the university provides someone who comes along on Zoom. I don't think the person is interacting with the student in real time but does provide transcripts at the end. They frankly aren't that accurate since the person doesn't seem to have even tried to learn the technical terms and I've never been told how to interact with the person. But there is something... The rest of the accommodations were all extended time on tests.

[Hegemony]

The thing is that Universal Design — designing the course so it's accessible to students with disabilities — is not something that it's easy to retrofit. For instance, machine readers or whatever they call those things that read the text out loud for you. They only operate intelligibly if the documents are formatted a certain way. You can't have all kinds of sudden multiple columns of text and different blocks of text and things and have the machine read it so that it can be understood.  So it makes a lot more sense to learn the principles, and design your documents that way from the ground up (once you know the tricks it's easy; it just requires following the principles). If a student were to enroll in your course and show up and say "But my machine reader can't read your documents, can you alter them?" you'd have a lot of work on your hands at the last minute. So that's why it's much easier on everybody to use Universal Design from the get-go.

Now, what my place did was to have a day-long workshop on the importance of Universal Design, with all kinds of people from the disability office and students with disabilities speaking and everything. Great, we were convinced, we were ready to go.  Then we had a 90-minute introduction to about 1000 options for Universal Design, narrated at a rapid-fire pace by a guy whose slides were impossible to follow as they flashed by. So I know only the most basic principles. But I agree that the concept is important.

[dr_codex]

The thing is that Universal Design — designing the course so it's accessible to students with disabilities — is not something that it's easy to retrofit. For instance, machine readers or whatever they call those things that read the text out loud for you. They only operate intelligibly if the documents are formatted a certain way. You can't have all kinds of sudden multiple columns of text and different blocks of text and things and have the machine read it so that it can be understood.  So it makes a lot more sense to learn the principles, and design your documents that way from the ground up (once you know the tricks it's easy; it just requires following the principles). If a student were to enroll in your course and show up and say "But my machine reader can't read your documents, can you alter them?" you'd have a lot of work on your hands at the last minute. So that's why it's much easier on everybody to use Universal Design from the get-go.

Now, what my place did was to have a day-long workshop on the importance of Universal Design, with all kinds of people from the disability office and students with disabilities speaking and everything. Great, we were convinced, we were ready to go.  Then we had a 90-minute introduction to about 1000 options for Universal Design, narrated at a rapid-fire pace by a guy whose slides were impossible to follow as they flashed by. So I know only the most basic principles. But I agree that the concept is important.

I agree with all of this. It's like building ramps in every new structure: most people might not need them, but those who will, will, and it's a lot harder to retrofit later.