Complementary to the advice provided in the briefing, additional information on the effective ways of improving accessibility has been provided in the guidance below. This guidance has been produced by JISC TechDis and AbilityNet.
It is possible to improve accessibility without major investments of time or money. Clearly wider reaching and more substantial benefits can be obtained by investing appropriately but there are a number of ‘quick wins’ that most organisations can make with relatively little effort. These are outlined below:
Most organisations now have an accessibility statement on their external facing website. This is good practice but research by JISC TechDis suggests that this is not always as useful for users as it could be.
Where there are clear links from the VLE/Intranet to the services available to learners it is more likely a learner will use them. Online help requests have the advantages of convenience and privacy. Some institutions have created an online database service to available assistive technologies and services. The learners can find what hardware/software the college has available on which campus site, how to request it and how to access training.
Many learners like to personalise their view of the screen. For some the ability to personalise the font sizes, colours or styles has a big impact on their productivity – even to the point of excluding them from learning.
Dyslexic learners often form the single biggest group of learners with specific accessibility needs. For many, text to speech can provide a very effective way of accessing information.
For most technical teams, security is one of the biggest issues in their risk assessment; systems tend to be locked down to minimise security risks. Increasingly, though, the balance of risks is changing. A system that is locked down for security may be less personaliseable for a learner with specific access needs.
If technical support teams are to make best use of their skills they need to be fully integrated into the core business of the institution – teaching and learning. This can be achieved in a range of ways - joint training sessions with teaching staff on e-learning, technical staff attached to subject areas or technical staff sent on e-learning related courses, for example wikis, blogs, mobile learning, Flash content etc.
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