The document provides guidelines for making open textbooks accessible. It discusses the four principles of web accessibility - perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. It provides information on screen readers like NVDA and their keyboard shortcuts. It also provides tips for making documents accessible including using descriptive links and alt text, ensuring proper color contrast, using accessible tables, and evaluating accessibility with tools like WAVE.
OpenEd 2016: The HOW of Adapting an Open Textbooklaesoph
Adapting or modifying educational resources is what gives open the competitive advantage over its commercial counterparts. Adapting an educational resource means that a faculty member can change the content to best suit the learning outcomes of their course; it means that students can take an active role in adapting and changing material for assignment and assessment purposes. However, adapting is rarely done across open educational projects. BCcampus's Open Textbook project is one of the few open projects to have successfully completed a series of adaptations on a number of open textbooks. This presentation will walk you through the steps of HOW to adapt an open textbook. Participants will be introduced to a step-by-step approach to adaptation, including technical format considerations and style guide supports. Participants will leave the session with an adaptation toolkit, produced by BCcampus, that is CC licensed and can be adapted for the needs of each institution or project.
CURSO Y CERTIFICACION, ANCLAJES PARA HORMIGÓN CON ADHESIVO QUÍMICO ( ACI/RSI )
Curso y certificación de anclajes químicos para instaladores y supervisores.
Más información en www.ichcapacitacion.cl
2016-05-10 Læringsfestivalen To Share Open Education StrackeChristian M. Stracke
2016-05-10 Læringsfestivalen Invited Speech To Share or Not To Share Open Educational Policies, Methodologies and Resources by Christian M. Stracke from OUNL
본문서는 [교육부 고시 제2015-74호] 초중등학교 교육과정 총론 및 교과 교육과정 고시에 따른 개정 교육과정 질의 응답자료입니다.
예 )
교육부에서 2015년 9월23일 고시한 「2015 개정 교육과정」에 소프트웨어(SW) 과목은 어떻게 반영되었나요?
o 미래사회가 요구하는 기초 소양인 소프트웨어(SW) 교육을 강화하기 위해 초중등 학교의 정규 교육과정을 통해 소프트웨어(SW)를 필수로 이수할 수 있도록 교육과정이 개정되었습니다.
- 초등학교는 ‘실과’ 과목의 ICT 활용 단원을 SW 기초소양 단원으로 확대 구성하여 17시간 이상 교육하고,
- 중학교는 ‘과학/기술·가정/정보’ 교과군을 신설하고, ‘정보’ 과목을 SW교육 중심으로 개편하여 필수 과정으로 34시간 이상 교육하며,
- 고등학교는 ‘정보’ 과목을 ‘심화선택’에서 ‘일반선택’으로 전환하여 운영할 계획입니다.
o 새로운 소프트웨어(SW) 교육과정은 초등학교는 ‘19년부터, 중·고등학교는 ‘18년부터 학교 현장에 적용될 예정입니다.
Constructor Civil de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile con un Magister en pedagogía
y gestión universitaria y un pos-título en el área de hormigones en el instituto Eduardo
Torroja de España.
Ha sido Secretaria Técnica de diversas normas del área hormigones y participó activamente
en el comité de norma NCh170
OpenEd 2016: The HOW of Adapting an Open Textbooklaesoph
Adapting or modifying educational resources is what gives open the competitive advantage over its commercial counterparts. Adapting an educational resource means that a faculty member can change the content to best suit the learning outcomes of their course; it means that students can take an active role in adapting and changing material for assignment and assessment purposes. However, adapting is rarely done across open educational projects. BCcampus's Open Textbook project is one of the few open projects to have successfully completed a series of adaptations on a number of open textbooks. This presentation will walk you through the steps of HOW to adapt an open textbook. Participants will be introduced to a step-by-step approach to adaptation, including technical format considerations and style guide supports. Participants will leave the session with an adaptation toolkit, produced by BCcampus, that is CC licensed and can be adapted for the needs of each institution or project.
CURSO Y CERTIFICACION, ANCLAJES PARA HORMIGÓN CON ADHESIVO QUÍMICO ( ACI/RSI )
Curso y certificación de anclajes químicos para instaladores y supervisores.
Más información en www.ichcapacitacion.cl
2016-05-10 Læringsfestivalen To Share Open Education StrackeChristian M. Stracke
2016-05-10 Læringsfestivalen Invited Speech To Share or Not To Share Open Educational Policies, Methodologies and Resources by Christian M. Stracke from OUNL
본문서는 [교육부 고시 제2015-74호] 초중등학교 교육과정 총론 및 교과 교육과정 고시에 따른 개정 교육과정 질의 응답자료입니다.
예 )
교육부에서 2015년 9월23일 고시한 「2015 개정 교육과정」에 소프트웨어(SW) 과목은 어떻게 반영되었나요?
o 미래사회가 요구하는 기초 소양인 소프트웨어(SW) 교육을 강화하기 위해 초중등 학교의 정규 교육과정을 통해 소프트웨어(SW)를 필수로 이수할 수 있도록 교육과정이 개정되었습니다.
- 초등학교는 ‘실과’ 과목의 ICT 활용 단원을 SW 기초소양 단원으로 확대 구성하여 17시간 이상 교육하고,
- 중학교는 ‘과학/기술·가정/정보’ 교과군을 신설하고, ‘정보’ 과목을 SW교육 중심으로 개편하여 필수 과정으로 34시간 이상 교육하며,
- 고등학교는 ‘정보’ 과목을 ‘심화선택’에서 ‘일반선택’으로 전환하여 운영할 계획입니다.
o 새로운 소프트웨어(SW) 교육과정은 초등학교는 ‘19년부터, 중·고등학교는 ‘18년부터 학교 현장에 적용될 예정입니다.
Constructor Civil de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile con un Magister en pedagogía
y gestión universitaria y un pos-título en el área de hormigones en el instituto Eduardo
Torroja de España.
Ha sido Secretaria Técnica de diversas normas del área hormigones y participó activamente
en el comité de norma NCh170
Please do this asap its already late. I will provide log info to www.docxChereCheek752
Please do this asap its already late. I will provide log info to www.my.devry.edu.com
Week 1: Site Selection And Proposal
Create a Project Proposal document stating the basic elements you will include in your website. Include a cover sheet with your name, course, and week number. The body of your report must include
site title;
developer;
rationale or focus of the site;
outline of main elements;
content;
target audience;
design considerations; and
limiting factors.
Upon completion, name your MS Word document as
lastname_CIS363_projectWk1
.
Grading Rubric
Category
Points
%
Description
Proposal format
15
33
Cover page, headings, APA guidelines
Proposal content
30
67
All points addressed (Milestone 1) with adequate content
Total
45
100
A quality project will meet or exceed all of the above requirements
Submit your assignment to the Dropbox, located at the top of this page. For instructions on how to use the Dropbox, read these
step-by-step instructions
.
See the Syllabus section "Due Dates for Assignments & Exams" for due date information.
Listen
Week 2: Site Diagram
Update the project proposal/design document based on any feedback given from milestone 1.
Extend the Week 1 Project Proposal/Design document by adding a site diagram using MS Visio that includes the following:
layout of the site (identify all pages and their relationships);
page filenames (use ISO standard naming conventions);
links between pages (show the relationships using arrows); and
navigation structure (choose which type of navigation structure best suits your topic).
This layout will be the main design template for all of the pages in your site. In future weeks, you will be altering the main content areas as needed. In the diagramming application, use the Save As option to create an image file (jpg, gif, or png) of your site. Copy this image file into your Project Proposal document.
Upon completion, name your single, MS Word document as
lastname_CIS363_projectWk2
.
Grading Rubric
Category
Points
%
Description
Content updated as necessary
5
12
Proposal updated based on feedback from milestone 1
Site diagram layout
10
22
All pages identified (5–7)
Site diagram file names
10
22
Appropriate file names (ISO Standard)
Site diagram links
10
22
Reasonable linkages between pages
Navigation structure
10
22
Navigation structure is simple and consistent
Total
45
100
A quality project will meet or exceed all of the above requirements
Submit your assignment to the Dropbox, located at the top of this page. For instructions on how to use the Dropbox, read these
step-by-step instructions
.
See the Syllabus section "Due Dates for Assignments & Exams" for due date information.
Listen
Week 3: Page Layout and Site Navigation
Extend the Week 2 Project Proposal/Design and create a detailed page layout design in Visio that you will use as a template for all the web pages in your site. The template should include
a header area;
a link area;
a main content area; and
a footer area.
In the.
Website accessibility matters! There are many reasons to make your site accessible - not only will incorporating accessibility into your daily lives help people with disabilities actually be able to use your site, but it can help attract a wider audience/larger customer base, make your site rank higher with search engines, and can improve your overall user experience on both desktop and mobile devices.
But how can you make your site accessible? Website accessibility is often an afterthought at the end a project when there is an accessibility audit or a user submits an issue, but what if we switched focus and started thinking about accessibility at the beginning of a project during the initial design and development stages?
In this talk I will present a quick overview of website accessibility (the what, who, and why), then review the underlying guidelines to making a site accessible, and present some general rules to keep in the back of your mind while designing and developing your next site. Finally, we will review some current D7/D8 modules that can help you make your site accessible.
What is the current status quo of the Semantic Web as first mentioned by Tim Berners Lee in 2001?
Not only 10 blue links can drive you traffic anymore, Google has added many so called Knowlegde cards and panels to answer the specific informational need of their users. Sounds complicated, but it isn’t. If you ask for information, Google will try to answer it within the result pages.
I'll share my research from a theoretical point of view through exploring patents and papers, and actual testing cases in the live indices of Google. Getting your site listed as the source of an Answer Card can result in an increase of CTR as much as 16%. How to get listed? Come join my session and I'll shine some light on the factors that come into play when optimizing for Google's Knowledge graph.
Slides from a webinar on webware presented by Mike Qaissaunee and Gordon F. Snyder, Jr. (both of nctt.org). The webinar was hosted by MATEC NetWorks (http://www.matecnetworks.org/) and delivered via Elluminate. Visit MATEC NetWorks to watch the webinar.
How to Optimize Your Drupal Site with Structured ContentAcquia
<p>With the advent of real-time marketing technologies and design methodologies like atomic design, web pages are no longer just “pages” – they are collections of modular, dynamic data that can be rearranged according to the context of the user.</p>
<p>To provide optimized user experiences, marketers and publishers need to enrich websites with additional structure (taxonomy and metadata). By adding metadata, content becomes machine-understandable, which leads to better interoperability, SEO, and accessibility.</p>
<p>Structured content is also one of the foundations of real-time personalization; By tagging and describing content with metadata, personalization engines like Acquia Lift can provide more relevant content to individual users.</p>
<p>In this webinar, we will discuss:</p>
<ul>
<li>How to further enrich your Drupal website with structure</li>
<li>Taxonomy best practices for dynamic content and how to configure auto-tagging in your Drupal site</li>
<li>How to leverage Microdata and the schema.org vocabulary to improve SEO through rich results</li>
<li>How to improve the social shareability of your content through the use of Twitter Cards and OpenGraph tags</li>
<li>Why Drupal 8 is the best CMS platform for managing structured content</li>
</ul>
PoolParty is a world-leading semantic technology platform focusing on standards-based management of taxonomies and ontologies.
Its outstanding text mining capabilities based on controlled vocabularies open up new options for masterdata and information management.
Try out a powerful thesaurus management system and entity extractor. See how easily knowledge models can be generated with PoolParty, and learn how linked open data can enrich your own thesaurus. Get an impression how simple it is to publish a knowledge model as linked open data and test our text mining component.
PoolParty Thesaurus Server (PPT) is an advanced software platform to manage enterprise metadata and linked data based on semantic knowledge models (taxonomies, thesauri, ontologies and knowledge graphs). PPT´s metadata management is based on W3C´s Semantic Web standards RDF, SKOS and OWL and is combined with text mining and linked data mapping technologies. PoolParty´s API (based on W3C´s SPARQL standard) allows the integration of semantic technologies with other systems like search engines, CMS, DMS, web shops or Wikis. In addition, PoolParty Enterprise Server offers outstanding facilities based on PoolParty Extractor that allow text mining over large document collections.
PoolParty knowledge modeling approach combines best-of-breed approaches of the semantic web (text corpus analysis, entity extraction, linked data enrichment, SKOS thesaurus management). This enables thesaurus managers to build, maintain and publish even the largest and most complex knowledge models built on top of RDF Schema and SKOS.
Application scenarios
web-based thesaurus-, vocabulary- and taxonomy-management based on open standards;
(semi-)automatic annotation and categorisation of documents with high precision;
thesaurus- and linked data publishing on the web and on the intranet (Sharepoint, Confluence etc.) as a basis to build semantic mash-ups;
data integration from different sources (structured and unstructured) based on flexible metadata models;
PoolParty Thesaurus Management - ISKO UK, London 2010Andreas Blumauer
Building and maintaining thesauri are complex and laborious tasks. PoolParty is a Thesaurus Management Tool (TMT) for the Semantic Web, which aims to support the creation and maintenance of thesauri by utilizing Linked Open Data (LOD), text-analysis and easy-to-use GUIs, so thesauri can be managed and utilized by domain experts without needing knowledge about the semantic web. Some aspects of thesaurus management, like the editing of labels, can be done via a wiki-style interface, allowing for lowest possible access barriers to contribution.
Similar to BCcampus: Open Textbook Accessibility Webinar (20)
Indigenous History Month Art Activity
In June 2022, we got together virtually to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Month by working our way through a month-long art project. Each person was to think of an Indigenous artist they admire, research the artist and their work, and create a piece of art for themselves influenced by the artist they had chosen. Throughout the month we presented on these artists and why we connect to their art and discussed important topics like appropriation vs. appreciation. We learned a lot about Indigenous artists in Canada and about each other and ourselves. The art project allowed people to connect with their heritage as well as Indigenous peoples; it was as much a research and art project as it was a team-building and self-reflection activity.
Unpacking Power Hierarchies in Students as Partners PracticesBCcampus
Slides from a session with Roselynn Verwoord, Conan Veitch, Yahlnaaw, and Heather Smith from the Symposium 2018 held on October 24, 2018 in Vancouver, B.C.
Building Canada’s Zed Cred: Challenges and OpportunitiesBCcampus
Slides from the panel session with Amanda Coolidge, Krista Lambert, and Rajiv Jhangiani from the 15th Annual, Open Education Conference held on October 10 – 12, 2018 in Niagara Falls, New York
Connecting Students with People who Care(er): Post-Secondary Professionals as...BCcampus
Presentation by Candy Ho, Faculty, Educational Studies, Kwantlen Polytechnic University and Dr. Cindy Xin
Director of Research, Simon Fraser University
Increasingly students begin their post-secondary experience with a career in mind, and two recent studies (Environics Research Group, 2011; Ho, 2017) suggest that those paths are largely influenced by educators (e.g. Faculty) before a student even considers visiting a career centre. Consequently, these professionals have the inherent capacity to extend their care for students beyond their teaching roles: as Career Influencers, defined by the EdD study as individuals working in a higher education institution who informally provide career-related advice, guidance, and/or counselling to prospective and current students and/or alumni.
This session has two goals. It aims to help attendees recognize their influence in student career development, and consider how they can incorporate career development components into their teaching practice. Findings and implications from Ho’s (2017) EdD study will serve as a backdrop of the session (research questions are included at the end*), while attendees are guided through reflective and discussion activities that enhance the awareness of their influence in student career development.
Current planned activities include having the attendees:
-Reflect on their “constellation of life roles” (Magnusson, 2014) and how roles, events, and experiences contribute to their approach as educators
-Consider how their current activities and interactions with students (e.g., curriculum, office hours conversations) help students develop employability skills
-Discuss their impressions on the notion of the ‘Everyday Career Influencer’, pondering on questions such as:
How do they currently serve as Career Influencers and demonstrate a sense of care for student career development?
How might they further their practice as Career Influencers?
What opportunities and/or challenges do they face as Career Influencers within their institutions? What can they do to take advantage and/or overcome them?
-EdD study research questions and sub-questions:
How do post-secondary education professionals conceive their influence in student career development?
How do they conceptualize the term “career”?
How do they see their role as having an impact on student career development?
How do they see themselves as individuals as having an impact on student career development?
What resources and/or competencies do they believe are important in furthering their impact on student career development?
Festival of Learning 2018 - May 28 – 30 at the Pinnacle Hotel Harbourfront in Vancouver, B.C.
Presentation by Ian Linkletter, Learning Technology Specialist, UBC
Presenting about UBC’s efforts to implement and evaluate team chat as a learning technology for online and blended courses. Team chat (like Slack) is a transformative communication and collaboration technology, combining threaded discussions with real-time chat in an intuitive and flexible way. Features like persistent history, advanced search capability, file sharing, typing status, mobile apps, and emoji reactions add up to a versatile tool that is still easy to use.
Research shows how timely interactions with instructors, collaboration with classmates, and a sense of community can enhance teaching and learning. This is particularly important in an online learning environment. Team chat has given our students a direct communication channel to their instructor and each other, helping them connect, ask questions, seek clarification, collaborate, and build community.
Since 2016, the Faculty of Education has been piloting an open source team chat application called Mattermost on a UBC-hosted server. Unlike Slack or Microsoft Teams, which are both cloud-hosted outside of Canada, Mattermost allows us to keep student data secure in compliance with BC’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA). Mattermost has been used in over 20 course sections across the faculties of Education, Arts, and Science. As of December 2017, the UBC Mattermost pilot consists of 100 daily active users, 300 monthly active users, and almost 70,000 posts.
Attendees will learn (and chat) about:
• Ways team chat can enhance learning
• How team chat has been applied in real use cases including online program cohorts, learning communities, and research teams
• The relationship between secure, safe, transparent platforms and academic freedom
Mattermost will be blended into the session, allowing attendees to choose the conversation(s) they wish to join, participate in real-time, network with colleagues, and carry on chatting after the Festival of Learning concludes.
Festival of Learning 2018 - May 28 – 30 at the Pinnacle Hotel Harbourfront in Vancouver, B.C.
Cultivating trust and Emotional Safety in Educational EnvironmentsBCcampus
Presentation by: Steven Bishop, Learning Designer, Douglas College, Ross Laird, Educational Consultant, Laird Associates, Leva Lee, Manager, BCcampus, Kathryn McNaughton, Hope Miller, Online Learning Designer/Trainer, Douglas College, Sandra Polushin, Coordinator / Faculty, Douglas College
Many educational institutions are grappling with the troubling rise of mental health challenges within their communities. Issues such as depression and anxiety are becoming increasingly common not only within the student population but also among instructors and educational administrators, many of whom find their collegial environments to be fraught with new hurdles involving the care and wellness of people.
Bedrock human values such as belonging, trust, and emotional safety are becoming harder to develop and sustain in educational environments undergoing turmoil and change from a variety of influences. How might we preserve and nurture these values? How might we commit to practices that cultivate the wellness and well-being of our colleagues and communities? How might we commit to environments of authentic caring in which people feel emotionally safe and valued?
Over the past year, a small group of practitioners at several local institutions (BCcampus, Douglas College, Vancouver Community College) has been working on projects designed to encourage emotional care and wellness. In this interactive session on the theme of "Mental Health for all within and across our organizations", these practitioners will each share the hurdles and rewards of their process. The purpose of the session will be to provide participants with perspectives and tools to use in approaching themes of care and wellness at their own institutions -- with colleagues, students, and community partners.
The experiential session will be informed by the practice, theory, and research currently being conducted at the partner institutions involved in these projects. Participants will hear about common hurdles involved in promoting the care and wellness of people, will hear perspectives about navigating the complex terrain of human relationships, and will practice tools and ideas for moving forward with their own initiatives.
Festival of Learning 2018 - May 28 – 30 at the Pinnacle Hotel Harbourfront in Vancouver, B.C.
An adventure into creation of OER: A STEM wiki projectBCcampus
Presentation by Pamini Thangarajah, Associate Professor, Mount Royal University
Removing financial barriers to undergraduate education is crucial, and the creation of open educational resources (OER) will directly help. And not only would the resources developed benefit the students as they are taking the class, but also by making the material open, it could be used by other faculty and students, not only at your institution but beyond.
In an appreciation of my financially unburden educational experience, I have explored what I can do to help the students to access the required learning materials. There is no open text(s) available that can be used for this course. To this end, I have created the resources in an open educational environment.
In this session, I will be walking you through my experience of creating open educational resources for a mathematics course at the Mount Royal University, Calgary.
Festival of Learning 2018 - May 28 – 30 at the Pinnacle Hotel Harbourfront in Vancouver, B.C.
Analysis of UFV Student Learning Patterns: Ratio of Instructor-Directed (In-C...BCcampus
Presentation by Samantha Pattridge and Hannah Peters (UFV)
Symposium 2017: Scholarly Teaching & Learning in Post-Secondary Education
The Symposium is an annual one-day event presented by the BCTLC and BCcampus that combines presentations, discussions, and networking with colleagues who share an interest in scholarly teaching and learning in post-secondary education.
When: Nov. 6, 2017
Where: Simon Fraser University – Harbour Centre, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Encouraging Folio-Thinking: Capturing the Learning with e-PortfolioBCcampus
Presentation by Claire Hay, Associate Professor of Geography, University of the Fraser Valley, Michelle Johnson, Educational Developer, University of the Fraser Valley and Mary Gene Saudelli, Faculty, Teaching and Learning, University of the Fraser Valley
Symposium 2017: Scholarly Teaching & Learning in Post-Secondary Education
The Symposium is an annual one-day event presented by the BCTLC and BCcampus that combines presentations, discussions, and networking with colleagues who share an interest in scholarly teaching and learning in post-secondary education.
When: Nov. 6, 2017
Where: Simon Fraser University – Harbour Centre, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Presentation by Shauna Jones, Senior Lecturer, Simon Fraser University
Symposium 2017: Scholarly Teaching & Learning in Post-Secondary Education
The Symposium is an annual one-day event presented by the BCTLC and BCcampus that combines presentations, discussions, and networking with colleagues who share an interest in scholarly teaching and learning in post-secondary education.
When: Nov. 6, 2017
Where: Simon Fraser University – Harbour Centre, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Scholarly Teaching to SoTL: Exploring the Shared "S" BCcampus
Symposium 2017 Keynote - Dr. Nancy Chick,
University Chair in Teaching and Learning, University of Calgary
Symposium 2017: Scholarly Teaching & Learning in Post-Secondary Education
The Symposium is an annual one-day event presented by the BCTLC and BCcampus that combines presentations, discussions, and networking with colleagues who share an interest in scholarly teaching and learning in post-secondary education.
When: Nov. 6, 2017
Where: Simon Fraser University – Harbour Centre, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
How to Make a Field invisible in Odoo 17Celine George
It is possible to hide or invisible some fields in odoo. Commonly using “invisible” attribute in the field definition to invisible the fields. This slide will show how to make a field invisible in odoo 17.
How to Split Bills in the Odoo 17 POS ModuleCeline George
Bills have a main role in point of sale procedure. It will help to track sales, handling payments and giving receipts to customers. Bill splitting also has an important role in POS. For example, If some friends come together for dinner and if they want to divide the bill then it is possible by POS bill splitting. This slide will show how to split bills in odoo 17 POS.
Instructions for Submissions thorugh G- Classroom.pptxJheel Barad
This presentation provides a briefing on how to upload submissions and documents in Google Classroom. It was prepared as part of an orientation for new Sainik School in-service teacher trainees. As a training officer, my goal is to ensure that you are comfortable and proficient with this essential tool for managing assignments and fostering student engagement.
Ethnobotany and Ethnopharmacology:
Ethnobotany in herbal drug evaluation,
Impact of Ethnobotany in traditional medicine,
New development in herbals,
Bio-prospecting tools for drug discovery,
Role of Ethnopharmacology in drug evaluation,
Reverse Pharmacology.
We all have good and bad thoughts from time to time and situation to situation. We are bombarded daily with spiraling thoughts(both negative and positive) creating all-consuming feel , making us difficult to manage with associated suffering. Good thoughts are like our Mob Signal (Positive thought) amidst noise(negative thought) in the atmosphere. Negative thoughts like noise outweigh positive thoughts. These thoughts often create unwanted confusion, trouble, stress and frustration in our mind as well as chaos in our physical world. Negative thoughts are also known as “distorted thinking”.
Synthetic Fiber Construction in lab .pptxPavel ( NSTU)
Synthetic fiber production is a fascinating and complex field that blends chemistry, engineering, and environmental science. By understanding these aspects, students can gain a comprehensive view of synthetic fiber production, its impact on society and the environment, and the potential for future innovations. Synthetic fibers play a crucial role in modern society, impacting various aspects of daily life, industry, and the environment. ynthetic fibers are integral to modern life, offering a range of benefits from cost-effectiveness and versatility to innovative applications and performance characteristics. While they pose environmental challenges, ongoing research and development aim to create more sustainable and eco-friendly alternatives. Understanding the importance of synthetic fibers helps in appreciating their role in the economy, industry, and daily life, while also emphasizing the need for sustainable practices and innovation.
2. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
Four Principles of Web Accessibility
1. Perceivable
2. Operable
3. Understandable
4. Robust
Understanding Web Accessibility: http://courses.idrc.ocadu.ca/understandinga11y/
How to Meet WCAG 2.0: https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/quickref/
4. “As a result of the ionic character, silicon becomes a cation
(with a charge of +4) and oxygen becomes an anion (with a
charge of –2).”
5. Document Structure - Headings
In addition to facilitating formatting and styling, assigning heading levels to
the subsections of a chapter allows a screen reader user to easily jump from
heading to heading.
Sample Markup:
<h1>Chapter 1: An Introduction to Sociology</h1>
<h3>Learning Objectives</h3>
<h2>Introduction</h2>
<h2>1.1 What is Sociology</h2>
<h3>What are Society and Culture? Micro, Macro, and Global
Perspectives</h3>
6. Accessible Links
Descriptive
• The text of a link should make sense when heard out of context
Ex 1. “Click here for practise questions.” vs “Complete the practise questions.”
Ex 2. “Open Google: https://www.google.ca” vs “Open Google: https://google.ca
No new windows or tabs
• Links should not open to a new window or tab but in the same page
• replace target=“_blank” with target=“_self”, or delete target information
Ex 3. <a href=“https://www.youtube.com” target=“_self”>YouTube</a>
<a href=“https://www.uvic.ca”>UVIC Homepage</a>
If opening a new window is unavoidable
• If opening a new window in unavoidable, make it clear in the link what will happen
Ex 4. <a href=“https://google.ca”>Google [New Window]</a>
• If the link opens an unexpected page format, make that clear also
Ex 5. <a href=“https://www.uvic.ca/humanities/history/assets/docs/Sample
%20Qualicum%20Program%20-%202014%20Conference.pdf”>Sample Qualicum
Program [PDF]</a>
7. Colour and Accessibility
1. Using colour to convey information.
2. Text- or image based content on a coloured or textured background
3. Links
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Series 1
Series 2
Series 3
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Series 1
Series 2
Series 3
11. Alt Tags and Screen Readers
alt=“Rows of individual
office cubicles”
12. Decorative/Non-Essential Images
When not to include an alt tag
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
alt=""
Vs.
alt=""""
Source: Introduction to Sociology 2nd Canadian
Edition
13. Long Descriptions
Alternate text description: A twitter
post reading: 5 ways to help: call
Egypt consul in SF, host petition on
your blog, write a letter 2 editor, Digg
the CNN story, email. In the replies,
people are calling on authorities to
release Mohammed, who was still
missing.
Limit alt tags to 100 characters (including spaces). If an image requires a longer
description, provide a link to a long description.
14. Figure 8.9 These Twitter updates…. On the political stage.
<a href=“#fig8.9”>[Long Description]</a> (Photo courtesy
of….)
<strong id="fig8.9">Figure 8.9 Long Description:</strong>
A twitter post reading: 5 ways to help: call Egypt consul in
SF, host petition on your blog, write a letter 2 editor, Digg
the CNN story, email. In the replies, people are calling on
authorities to release Mohammed, who was still missing.
<a href="#attachment_119">[Return to Figure 8.9]</a>.
Visual Appearance Text Editor
16. Tables and Graphs – Visual vs. Data
Graphs showing trends – Prioritizing the visual
Image courtesy of AltimeterGroup/Flikr
alt="Statistics show that divorce rates in
Maine and the consumption of margarine
fell and rose at the same rate"
Figure 2.7. Correlation does not imply causation
17. Tables and Graphs – Visual vs. Data
Graphs showing trends and data – Providing options
alt=“Marriage satisfaction. Long description
available."
Source: Introduction to Sociology 2nd Canadian
Edition
18. Tables and Graphs – Visual vs. Data
Graphs showing trends and data – Providing options
19. Tables and Graphs – Visual vs. Data
Replacing Images of Tables with HTML
Replace images of tables and graphs with HTML when there is nothing to be gained
visually by the image.
Source: Introduction to Sociology 2nd Canadian
Edition
20. Tables and Graphs – Visual vs. Data
Replacing Images of Tables with HTML
22. Accessible Table Markup
<table>
<caption>Table 10.1 Statistics such as infant
mortality rate and life expectancy vary greatly
by country of origin.</caption>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Country</th>
</th>Infant Mortality Rate</th>
<th>Life Expectancy</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Canada</td>
<td>4.9 deaths per 1,000 live births.</td>
<td>81 years</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Democratic Republic of the Congo</td>
<td>17.2 deaths per 1,000 live births.</td>
<td>55 years</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Thank you for joining us today to listen to the exciting work that has been happening in the area of accessibility and open textbooks. As many of you know in 2014 Sue Doner, Tara Robertson and I created the BC Open Textbook Accessibility Toolkit. The purpose of the toolkit is to help instructional designers and faculty have a better understanding of how to make educational materials accessible. We conducted user testing with students who have a range of visual disabilities and from that user testing it was identified where we,as the open textbook project could make changes to ensure all of our open textbooks are accessible. We were able to work on a few of the books, but because of a small team, we had to put that project on hold until this fall when we hired Josie Gray, a History Major from UVIC. Josie has been instrumental in researching best practices in accessibility and in implementing many changes throughout the open textbooks to comply with accessibility standards. I would like to hand the presentation over to Josie who will be talking about the lessons learned with regards to accessibility and she will guide you through changes you can make to your own educational materials.
WCAG is a set of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines which describe the minimum standards a web page must adhere to for it to be considered accessible. There are three levels: A is the lowest standard and AAA is the highest. When I first started my position at BCcampus, my first exposure to concepts of web accessibility was WCAG. There are four principles of web accessibility:
Content must be Perceivable – That is, information and user interface components must be presented to users in ways they can perceive. This involves things like text size, colour contrast, and text alternatives for images.
User interface components and navigation must be Operable. Users must be able to navigate around the page and access all information.
Content must be Understandable – This principle expands on Principle 1 and 2. Just because a user can perceive and use the content on a webpage, does not guarantee they can understand it.
Robust – The content is displayed and functions as it is supposed to and the markup has little to no errors.
I’ve provided two links to helpful resources when getting started with web accessibility. The first, Understanding Web Accessibility, is an open, self guided course that walks you through the four principles of web accessibility and their specifics. The second, How to Meet WCAG 2.0, allows you to filter the guidelines for levels (A, AA or AAA) and the specific aspects of accessibility you are focused on. For example, if you only want to know how to make web links conform to WCAG AAA, you can select “Links” and “AAA” in the filter window in the left side of the screen and it will show you the specifics for only that.
Ultimately, I am presenting on web accessibility in the context of online textbooks. The practises described in the following slides will help improve accessibility for people who access BCcampus‘ textbooks in all types of formats, including on the web, PDF, Mobi, epub, and word files.
For BCcampus’ textbooks, we decided that WCAG level AA would be the standard we would conform to. I won’t go into too much detail about the specifics of WCAG specifically because a lot of it is not relevant to online textbooks. Instead, I will use examples from textbooks I have worked on to illustrate potential problems that are common in these textbooks and demonstrate the solutions I have developed.
I used a number of tools to help me test for potential accessibility issues and they will be described more later on. However, becoming familiar how a screen reader works and ensuring that all of the important information can be accessed when using a screen reader proved to be absolutely vital to the accessibility editing process. The way screen readers present information can be quite different from how visual users are used to accessing information and once I became for comfortable with using a screen reader, I realized how much I took for granted as a visual user and the many barriers a non-signed user faces when accessing web contenet.
I spent a lot of time learning how to work NVDA, which is an open source screen reader available for download on any Windows computer. I’ve attached links to the NDVA webpage where you can download the software and also a page which provides a list of keyboard shortcuts that help you navigate with NVDA. Other Screen Readers include JAWS, VoiceOver, and Windows Eyes.
Once I figured out how to navigate through the textbooks using NVDA and a keyboard, I began to realize that there was a lot I could do to make navigation easier. In addition I found things what I assumed would be accessible to everyone, but clearly would not be for screen reader users.
For example, the Physical Geology textbook has a large section on elements and chemical formulas.
Here is a sentence from the text book: As a result of the ionic character, silicon becomes a cation (with a charge of positive 4) and oxygen becomes an anion (with a charge of negative 2).
However, when a screen reader reads this sentence it says, “As a result of the ionic character, silicon becomes a cation with a charge of plus 4) and oxygen becomes an anion (with a charge of 2).” Instead of saying positive 4 and negative 2, it reads a plus sign and ignores the negative sign which it interprets as a dash.
This is a huge problem for screen reader users because not only does it makes the sentence confusing, it also makes it wrong.
This is an issue which I am still trying to figure out how to fix. However, I bring it up to illustrate how important it is to use a screen reader to test for accessibility for sighted users, who might not otherwise notice barriers that exist only for non-sighted users.
Headings are important because they help identify the structure of a document such as sections and sub-sections. Headings provide a visual cue that helps sighted readers quickly skim through content until they find a section they are looking for. Similarly, non-sighteds users can navigate a page or document easily using a screen reader by jumping between headings.
While changing the font and type size of text may be enough for a sighted reader to comprehend divisions in the document, a screen reader wont identify bolded or larger text as a heading. Instead, a screen reader will just “read” through the text of a heading as if it were part of another paragraph of content.
Screen readers can jump from heading to heading in a document by pressing the [H] key. For example, this is what it would a screen reader user would hear if they wanted to jump from heading to heading in Chapter 1 of Introduction to Sociology: “Chapter 1: An introduction to sociology heading level 1. Learning Objectives heading level 3. Introduction to sociology heading level 2. 1.1 What is Sociology Heading level 2. What are Society and Culture? Micro, Macro, and Global Perspectives heading level 3, etcetera. By marking up the subsections of this chapter, a screen reader user can skip from heading to heading to get an idea about what the chapter is about, understand how the different sections relate to each other, and skip the parts that they want to read. Without headings, a screen reader user would be forced to read the entire chapter through from beginning to end every time they wanted to find specific information on a page.
Links are fairly straightforward. The two main requirements are that they are descriptive and that they don’t open in any new windows or tabs.
Like headings, screen reader users can use the [Tab] key to jump between links on the page. For this reason, the text of a link should be able to describe the content of the link when read out of context. While things like “click here for practise questions” would make sense to a sighted reader, if a screen reader user tried to skip through the links, all they would hear is “Link: here” and would have no idea about the content of the link. This can be fixed by making the link text “practise questions” as shown in the first example.
The second example shows the web address as the linked text. While it is better than the first example, it can still be confusing when a screen reader reads out a web address, especially if it is long and complicated. If it is important to include the web address (such as when there is a possibility of the page being printed), then put the hyper link on the words that describe the link and provide the unlinked web address next to it.
Links should not open into new windows or tabs as it can be disorienting and confusing if the user – sighted and non-sighted – is not expecting it. The only time a link will open in a new tab is if its markup contains target=“_blank”. To ensure a link will open in the same page, either delete the target information completely or replace _blank with _self. If opening a link in a new window is unavoidable, or if the file being liked to is in a different format which requires a new window – such as a PDF – that should be indicated in the link, as shown in example 4 and 5.
If a screen reader user was to use the tab key to skip through the links on this slide they would hear, “Link here. Link practise questions. Link https://www.google.ca. Link Google. Link YouTube. Link UVIC Homepage. Link Google New Window. Link Sample Qualicum program PDF.
In addition, although links are usually identified by their colour, it is best if there is some other visual marker that helps people identify links located within text. This is most easily accomplished by underlining the link, as shown in the above examples.
Paying attention to the use of colour and colour contrast in web content is important for people who have low vision, poor contrast vision, are colour blind, or for those who use a device with a monochrome display.
WCAG 2.0 sets a standard for colour contrast at A, AA, and AAA levels and generally recommends that information never be conveyed by colour alone.
For example, in the two graphs pictured here, information is conveyed by colour alone. When seen in black and white, it becomes really difficult to tell which bar corresponds with which series. This may be a serious barrier for someone who has a hard time differentiating between colours for whatever reason. As a general rule, it is best practice to never use colour alone to convey information.
Adequate contrast between colours is important for people who have poor eyesight or are colour blind.
This Colour Contrast Analyzer shown in the screenshot can be downloaded for both Windows and OS X systems. It evaluates the contrast of two colours based on standards set by WCAG 2.0 at both AA and AAA levels. This tool is useful because you can select colours from a palette and it will provide the corresponding HTML colour codes or you can enter the colour codes and it will show the colour. In addition, it tells you the colour contrast between selected colours and whether it passes or fails at various levels.
When I first started, this is what table headings in our open textbooks looked like. The light grey text on an even lighter grey background made the table headers quite hard to read, with a colour contrast ratio of only 3 to 1. As you can see the in Colour Contrast Analyzer, that fails both AA and AAA levels. For level AA, the minimum contrast ration for regular text is 4.5:1 and large text can have a contrast ratio of 3:1. The required contrast ratio is larger for level AAA.
I brought the colour contrast problem to the person who looks after the CSS code for open textbooks and was able to increase the colour contrast ratio between the background colour and text. This is what our tables look like now. The black on light grey has a colour contrast of 11.5 to 1, so tables now satisfy both AA and AAA levels of WCAG in regards to colour contrast.
Providing an alternate text description for images will ensure screen reader users, or those whose computers will not load the images, can still access all of the important information in an image. I will describe what the markup looks like and how screen readers interpret images and alt tags, what to do with decorative images that convey no useful information, how to provide a link to a long description, and what to do with tables and graphs presented as images.
Alt tags are absolutely vital in web accessibility. When a screen reader comes across an image, it reads out the content of the alt tag and then continues on with the text. In this case, a NVDA screen reader would say “Graphic: Rows of individual office cubicles. Figure 2.16: Field research happens in real locations. What type of environment do work spaces foster? What would a sociologist discover after blending in?”
There are many cases where an image doesn’t need an alternate description. This may be when an image is purely decorative or when the content of the image is already adequately described in the caption or surrounding text. This picture of Emile Durkheim, while interesting to a sighted user, provides no useful information. The caption already tells us who is pictured and in this context, his appearance is insignificant.
When no description is required, leave the alt tag blank – do not delete it. When a screen reader comes across a blank alt tag, it knows to skip the image. However, if the image lacks an alt tag, a screen reader will read out useless information like the source file name.
From all that I have read, if an image can be skipped, the alt tag should be empty like the first example with two quotation marks. However, through my experimentation with NVDA, that still causes the screen reader to read out the file information. I've solved the problem by having an extra two quotation marks within the alt tag the second example. In this case, an NVDA screen reader would say, “Graphic. Figure 15.16 Emile Durkheim (1857-1917)”
Screen readers do this really annoying this where they say “graphic” again after a certain number of characters when reading out the alt tag. For example, the alt text for the above image is quite long – over 250 characters (including spaces). If left in the alt tag, a screen reader would likely interrupt the flow of text at least twice to say “graphic” which can be confusing. To avoid this, I create a link to a long description which is located at the end of the chapter. There are a few websites online which talk about how to do long descriptions – supposedly there is or used to be a <longdesc> tag – but I wasn’t able to find anything that worked. Instead, I developed my own way to provide long descriptions. This process does require a certain knowledge and comfort with HTML.
Using the twitter post from there previous slide as an example, here is how to use HTML to link to a long description. I’ve divided the slide by how it looks visually in the textbook and what the markup would look like in a text editor.
The first row shows the image caption. On the left, you can see the caption followed by a link that says long description. The right shows the link markup. The <a> tag is a link tag and the href attribute provides the location of what you are linking to. Because the link is on the same page, there is no need to provide a web address, just a unique ID. In this case, I chose “fig8.9,” to keep it simple.
The second row shows the long description which is located at the end of the chapter but on the same page. The link id can go in any tag. In this case, I put it inside the strong tag. Although created for non-sighted users, any digital user of the textbook can click on this link to access the long description. People using printed versions can also access the long description; they just have to flip to the end of the chapter to find it.
At the end of the long description, I’ve also provided a link back to the image. This makes it easy for a screen reader user to tell when the long description is done, and allows all users to easily return to their place in the chapter.
When presented as images, the data in graphs and tables is completely inaccessible to non-sighted users. In the example above, the small text size and low colour contrast may also be an obstacles for people with colour blindness or who have poor eyesight.
There are three possible solutions:
Describe the table in the alt tag or link to a long description.
Link to a long description where there is the table or graph in HTML.
Replace the table or graph completely with an HTML table.
The best solution depends on the table or graph and what is most important about it. I will go through three examples that are applicable to each solution.
This image shows a graph comparing the divorce rate in Maine to the per capita consumption of margarine. The caption explains that “Correlation does not imply causation.” In this example, the visual trend of the graph is more important than the individual data points. The rate at which they fell from 2000 to 2005 does not matter as much as the fact that the graph shows them falling and rising again at almost exactly the same rate. Instead of replacing this image with a data table, a short description describing the point of the image is more useful.
In this case, an NVDA screen reader would say: “Graphic. Statistics show that divorce rates in Maine and the consumption of margarine fell and rose at the same rate.” Figure 2.7. Correlation does not imply causation.”
This table shows the number of husbands and wives in different stages of family life who described their marriage as “highly satisfying.” In this case, while the visual graph is useful for sighted users, it would be quite difficult to describe in an alt tag. The best solution here is to provide an accessible table based on this graph in a long description. Although created for non-sighted users, any digital user of the textbook can click on this link to view the html table.
This table’s use of colour also poses another accessibility issue. Notice how the “Husbands” and “Wives” lines are differentiated only by colour? For people who are colour blind, it may be impossible to tell which line refers to whom.
Here is the table I produced based on the previous image. Although it doesn’t show the trends visually, it allows non-sighted users to judge the statistics for themselves and to see the differences between genders – both of which would be near impossible without a page long alternate text description. By linking to this table from the original image rather than replacing the graph, visual users lose nothing.
In addition, I added what each of the Stages signify, which was omitted from the original image. The stages are described earlier in the chapter, but by putting that information right into the table, I save anyone using this table from having to go back to try to find that information.
Images of data tables, like the one pictured here, that offer nothing visual for sighted users should be replaced directly in the text with an HTML table that can be accessed by screen readers.
This is a screenshot of a table that can now be found in the sociology textbook. As very little has changed visually, there was no reason to keep this table’s image in the book. I will cover how create accessible tables next.
This is an example where an accessibility edit can have more than one benefit. Not only can screen reader users now access the data in the table, it will also make the table easier to read in other formats.
Again, creating accessible tables does require some comfort with html. Depending on how the table is formated will determine how a screen reader will read it out. Ultimately, there are two types of tables: Lay out tables, which screen readers read out from left to right, top to bottom. And data tables, which are still read from left to right and top to bottom, but the screen reader will continuously refer back to the table headers that correspond to the data.
I’ve listed some useful tags and attributes to remember.
Here is an example of an accessible table and its corresponding markup (I’ve left out the third row to make it all fit). Notice how all of the elements of the table are identified with specific tags. The title of the table is in the <caption> tag marked in green, the table headings are in th tags (marked in orange) which are grouped together by thead tags in pink. The data of the table is contained in td tags (purple) which are grouped within the tbody tags (blue). The entire table is encompassed by the <table> tags (brown).
These tags make a huge difference in how a screen reader will read out a table. Like heading levels and links, screen reader users can also jump between tables on a page using the key board. If a table has a caption tag, the screen reader will tell the listener what the name of each table is.
This is what it would sound like if a screen reader read out the first two rows of this table: “Table 10.1 Statistics such as infant mortality rates and life expectancy vary greatly by country of origin. Central Intelligence Agency, 2011. Table with 4 rows and three columns. Row 1 column 1 Country. Column 2 Infant Mortality Rate. Colum 3 Life expectancy. Row 2 Country column 1 Canada. Infant mortality Rate column 2, 4.9 deaths per 1,000 live births. Life expectancy column 3, 81 years.
This is an example of a data table that has been marked up as a layout table. All of the cells are marked as data cells. The <strong> tag bolds the words in the first row, which tells sighted users that those words represent table headings. However, <strong> tags mean nothing to screen readers and a screen reader will simply read the contents of the cells all the way through, from right to left, row by row. By reading the information this way, the data becomes meaningless.
For example, a screen reader reading the sixth row would say, “row six column one, 5. Column two, 1977. Column three, June, Column four, 5. Column five, 9.5. Column 6, 11,300.” It would be up to the listener to remember what each column refers to.
In addition, the caption is located at the end of the table without any markup that shows it is associated with the above table.
Here is the markup showing how to provide a link to skip the table. Options to skip a table are helpful for screen reader users who would otherwise have to listen to the screen reader read out each and every cell. This is especially important when there are large data tables containing information that while interesting, might not be useful or important. As you can see on the left, I left out the body of the table to save space.
The [Skip Table] link is placed within the thead tags, but in a row before the table header content. As it is not a header itself, it is put in a data cell, or a <td> tag, not a header cell. The colspan=“5” attribute allows the cell to span all five columns. Without it, the [Skip Table] cell be stuck above “Country.”
The reason I’ve placed the link within the table itself, rather than right before it, is because this way the caption will be read first so someone using a screen reader will know the content of the table before being given the option to skip it.
A screen reader would say something like this:
“Table 20.1 Varying Fertility and Mortality Rates by Country. (Chart Courtesy of CIA Worl Factbook 2014). Table with six rows and five columns. Row 1 column 1. Link Skip Table. Out of table. As Table 20.1 illustrates, countries vary…
The link itself is created in the exact same way as links to long descriptions are created. Come up with a unique id. In this case, I used “table20.1”. In this case, I am linking to the paragraph immediately after the table, so I put the id in the p tag that contains that paragraph. The id can go in any tag, including heading tags, other table tags, and strong tags – it just depends on what kind of text immediately follows the table.
WAVE is a tool I use to test the textbooks I am working on to help me catch things I might have missed. It is easy to use and although it not perfect, it is quite comprehensive. All it requires is a web address. In this case, I am linking to Chapter 16 of the Intro to Sociology book. Wave can be accessed at wave.webaim.org.
Here is a screen shot of what comes up immediately after providing a link. As you can see, this tool will label the page with features and problems it identifies. This makes it easy to visually evaluate the page without having to comb through the HTML markup to find things you might have missed.
On the left, WAVE provides a summary of Errors, Alerts, Features, Structural Elements and more. To see a detailed report, click the flag along the left side, to switch from the Summary to Details about specific aspects of the web page.
The details section names features and potential errors and alerts and provides links to those problems. For example, the screen shot on the right describes the features of the webpage. In this chapter, there are 8 images with alternative text. By clicking on one of those green boxes, I can quickly skip between those images.
Wave allows you to see the content of the alt tag which is normal not visible on the webpage. In this case, I can easily make sure the caption, the image, and the alt tag fit together.
Here, you can see that Wave has labeled various aspects of the web page. Pictured here are two headings and two unordered lists.
Wave will also alert you to all links that are PDFs. Here, you can see that I have already gone though and added [PDF] to the link text.
If a table has been marked up properly, Wave will identify all of its components including the caption, table headings.
In contrast, if a table has not been marked up with accessibility in mind, Wave wont mark it as an error but as a “Layout table.” As previously mentioned, screen readers read layout tables different than data tables.
In the panel on the left, you can see that WAVE has identified 9 alerts regarding the alt text of images. By clicking on one of those errors, I am redirected to the above image.
This image has been marked as having “redundant alternative text” and “long alternative text.” In this case, the alternate text is exactly the same as the figure caption and is 162 characters long.
To fix it, I would likely edit the alt tag and provide a link to a long description that described the graph.