Online Course Peer Review

As we design and teach our online courses we need to keep in mind some basic accessibility issues over and above just listing the contact information for LSC’s Disability Coordinator.  The online course peer review rubric addresses this in one of its standards.  It reads:

“There is evidence of effort to recognize the importance of ADA  (Americans with Disabilities Act) requirements.

Some easy things we can do to increase the accessibility of our online courses:

• Avoid using colorful text, especially oranges, yellows, and pinks.  If using darker colors, such as maroon, navy, etc, bold them. Consider emphasizing important points using italics and bold, rather than with color.
• If using audio or video, try to always have a written alternative or a script that could be made available upon request.
• Use sans serif fonts, such as Arial, Tahoma, and Verdana as they tend to be easier to read on a computer screen.
• Provide alt tags on all images (D2L prompts us to do this everytime we insert an image directly into the class).
• Avoid overusing animated images.  Some images in a class can add a great deal, but too much action can be distracting.

For more information visit:

http://www.doit.wisc.edu/accessibility/online-course/index.htm

http://www.accesselearning.net/