ADA Online Courses

Dr. Brian NewberryCalifornia State University

San Bernardino

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ADA compliance has implications across a college or university campus. For example, buildings and other campus infrastructure must be equipped with certain accessibility features to ensure reduction of physical barriers to use of the infrastructure.

Some types of disabilities require specific accommodations for students. In such cases students must work with the Services to Students with Disabilities office who will verify the disability and assign a SSD councilor who will work with the student and the student’s instructors to develop reasonable accommodations.

As you will see, instructors of online classes must ensure a certain level of accommodations for a variety of physical disabilities when they design and develop course materials.

ADA

ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) refers to law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability and specifies certain conditions to ensure that discrimination doesn’t occur. There are several laws and some specific sections of laws that are most often what is meant at a University when someone discusses ADA.

Law

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973: Mandates that employers and any institution that receives Federal money provide equal access to information, activities, program and services to all individuals with disabilities.

1998 Amendment to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act specifies requirements for Internet resources that are guidelines to be used.

Americans with Disabilities ACT 1990 extends the equal opportunity provision to private organizations.

Law

There have been a number of lawsuits that involve ADA compliance at educational institutions.

Lawsuits often establish parameters for required accommodations, modifications and alternative formats.

Lawsuits also establish who must pay for modifications.

ADA is not fully litigated, meaning there are many issues that are part of ADA accommodation that haven’t yet been tested fully in court cases.

Institutions are aware of this and many are doing the best that they can to avoid being involved in such lawsuits, and to provide adequate accommodations to students with disabilities.

Lawsuits

These are examples of ADA policy from various institutions:

The University of XYZ is committed to providing equal opportunity for persons with disabilities. This commitment includes complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and Sections 504 and 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. In addition, all of the University's websites and online courses will comply with the web page design standards established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

Priority One Compliance. The university should adopt a plan, whose adoption should not extend past three years, for bringing all Internet sites and on-line courses into Priority One compliance with W3C guidelines (http://www.w3.org/WAI) or to exceed them.

Instructional Material. Faculty members posting instructional materials online or utilizing course management software should plan to assure their accessibility.

Laws + (Lawsuits x Lawyers) = Policy

More Actual Policy:

The development of new courses and new course content, including instructional materials and instructional websites will incorporate accessible design. If incorporating accessibility is not possible or would constitute an undue burden, then a plan to provide an equally effective alternate form of access must be developed, documented, and communicated. Existing course content will be made accessible at the point of course redesign or when a student with a disability enrolls in the course.

http://www.calstate.edu/AcadAff/CodedMemos/AA-2007-04.pdf

Policy

Designing, developing and delivering accessible online courses is a good thing!

It is the right thing to do.

It is not always an easy thing to do.

Commitment to Accessibility

Developing Accessible eLearning

• Understand Disability Characteristics and Appropriate Accommodations

• Resources• Time and “Overhead” Issues

ADD-ADHD-Learning Disabilities, TBI etc.

Accommodations are only made when a student with a disability enrolls in a class.

Typically Student Registers With Campus Office to document disability. Accommodations that meet the student’s needs are listed. The instructor is notified and the assistance is provided where needed.

At CSUSB this is the Services to Students with Disabilities office http://ssd.csusb.edu/

Disability Characteristics and Accommodations

Online Materials Must Be Developed To Meet The Needs Of Individuals With A Variety Of Disabilities Even If No Student With These Disabilities Is In The Class.

This is by extension of the Section 504 rules for online resources (such as university websites) being extended to online course media.

Textbooks and Other Commercial Media Need To Be Identified Well in Advance So Accessible Versions Can be Located If Needed.

Disability Characteristics and Accommodations

VisualColor Blindness

High ContrastAvoid Red-Green-Blue CombinationsDon't Use Color to Convey MeaningMake Use of a User Changeable FontText Version

Disability Characteristics and Accommodations

VisualLow Vision – No Vision

High ContrastMake Use of a User Changeable FontNavigation RequirementsConfigurability – Screen Reader CompatibilityText Version

Disability Characteristics and Accommodations

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SeizureAvoid Strobes Such As:

Flickering ImagesFast AnimationsHigh Contrast Close Lines (optical illusions)

Disability Characteristics and Accommodations

AuditoryAlternatives to Audio Such As:

Text VersionCaptioning Videos and Slide Shows with Audio (Multimedia)

Disability Characteristics and Accommodations

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MotorNavigability Issues, Provide:

Keyboard Control Instead of MouseInternal Navigation to Skip Through Long SectionsUser Configurability

Disability Characteristics and Accommodations

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Text Version is Key – This is because text or screen readers can change text into speech and because text can be easily enlarged/magnified.

Alternative Formats and Resources – When you create media in a format other than text, you will need to also provide a text equivalent.

Web Standards W3C - HTML and CSS – These are technical issues. By ensuring that HTML and CSS comply with web standards you ensure that the content and formatting are separated and that tools like screen readers will be able to assist disabled students.

Multimedia (slide shows, videos) Must Be Captioned (CSUSB)

Requirements and Recommendations

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Since text versions of content are crucial, means of producing text are important:

Dragon Naturally Speaking – Software that converts speech to text.

Automatic Sync (http://automaticsync.com) – Fee service for production of transcripts.

Current Resources

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Faculty don’t typically have to worry about ensuring accessibility of the CMS/LMS. More advanced developers do need to ensure web resources they create meet accessibility guidelines. The first level of this is to ensure the validity of their HTML and CSS.

HTML Validationhttp://validator.w3.org/

CSS Validationhttp://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

Current Resources

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Captioning Multimedia

Apple’s Quicktime Pro – This what was used to caption the orientation video. This process is time and labor intensive.

Automatic Sync (http://automaticsync.com) – Fee service for production of captions for multimedia.

Current Resources

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Preparing to Develop

Understand Overhead Involved in Production of Accessible Media/Alternative Formats

Development and Delivery Overhead

Note: Description of this graphic available in web format.

• Reliable and Affordable Real Time Audio to TextTransformation – Closed Captions etc.

• Reliable and Affordable Real Time Video and Still PictureDescriptions

• Better Institutional Support for Media Development

• Lawsuits – Lots and lots of lawsuits. What Must Be Done To Achieve AccessibilityWhose Responsibility – Who PaysDo The Unintended Consequences Burden Others?

Future Trends and Resources

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• Law, Policy, Best Practices and Doing the Right Thing calls for development ofaccessible materials that meet the needs of all students.

•Lawsuits and Lawyers Dictate Policy.

•It is important to understand types of disabilities and the accommodations needed for each.

•There are numerous resources available to assist in the creation of accessible classmaterials.

•Creating online class materials can with more production overhead than teaching faceto-face. Creating accessible online class materials even more so.

•This production overhead comes with unintended consequences including betterinstruction, less online classes, less innovation, less diversity of resources, more reused materials.

•Text is key (for now) because reliable text readers are available.

•In the future new technologies will help reduce some of the negative unintendedConsequences.

Wrapping Up