The deadline we had to demonstrate meaningful progress is upon us… and we’re not quite there yet. Across all our courses, we still have a lot of files that need remediation. So we need to get going with this, at tad more actively than we have so far.
If I made the rules, I’d say, we should shoot for a 10% accessibility gain per week. And I’d also say that 90% should be the line we should all aim for.
An Easy Thing to Do
One easy thing that might improve your accessibility score without too much work is to remove the unused files from your courses. I had a whole blog post about it, a while back. Cleaning up older, no longer in use files might not only reduce the size of your course, but probably improve your accessibility score by itself.
Get Trained
Inaccessible PDFs are still a major problem with no easy solutions unless that PDF was based on your own word documents. If that’s the case, that’s solvable.
The problems are trickier with scanned files.
Side note: please don’t scanned materials that are under copyright because you want to save your students some money. Good intentions do not offset copyright laws. If you think your materials are too expensive, look for cheaper (legal) options. Or heck, put in a request to create OER materials or resources. Talk to Lauren Kosrow.
To help us with this, the college has retained the services of a consultant for the entire college. That consultant multiple sessions scheduled on accessibility topics.
Upcoming sessions are as follows:
Creating Accessible PDFs
Mon 4/13 — 10:00 AM–11:30 AM
Wed 4/15 — 11:00AM–12:30 PM
Fri 4/24 — 1:00 PM–2:30 PM
Creating Accessible Graphics
STEM Focused Sessions
STEM – Math Emphasis
Wed 4/22— 3:00PM–4:30 PM
STEM – Science Emphasis
Tu 4/28 — 2:00PM–3:30 PM
STEM – Engineering Emphasis
Thu 5/7 — 3:00PM–4:30 PM
Drop-In Q&A / Additional training based on feedback
Wed 6/3 — 2:30PM–4:00 PM
Tue 6/9 — 10:00AM–11:30 AM
All these sessions are posted in Cornerstone.
Use the LT Lab
Lastly, all the training is well and good, but, at some point, we just need to sit down and get it done. If you find the task overwhelming, the Learning Tech people are ready to help. But keep in mind that it’s not their job to fix your content, it’s their job to help you fix your content.
If You’re A Chair…
As always, if you are a chair, make sure your adjuncts know this is something that needs to be done.
