This document discusses the importance of digital accessibility in education. It notes that around 17% of students in Northern Ireland have a disclosed disability or learning difficulty. The document emphasizes that accessibility benefits go beyond students with disabilities to include things like improved digital literacy skills. It describes how to audit online resources for accessibility issues using software like Blackboard Ally. The current accessibility rating is 63% with main issues being inaccessible documents, images without descriptions, etc. The document outlines a roadmap and 7-point action plan to improve digital accessibility through training, replacing inaccessible content, and promoting inclusive design practices.

1. Digital
Accessibility
Sharing Inclusive Practice
Dr Helen Dixon

2. Whydoesdigital
accessibility
matter?
Around one in five of NI FE students
have a disability and/or learning
difficulty (DfE CDR, 2017/18)
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17% of
students
disclosed a
disability

3. Beyond the statistics
We may not be aware of which students
have a disability, so we need to anticipate
their requirements.
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Our anticipatory duty
We should not wait until a student with a
disability arrives in the college before
making adjustments to our teaching.
Beyond disabilities
We need to look at the benefits beyond
disabilities such as improved digital and
literacy skills.

4. Accessibility is about
presenting information better
It’s mainly about good document design!
• Improve document formatting and layout.
• Make presentations more meaningful.
• Use colours effectively.
• Make tables and diagrams easier to
understand.
• Provide information in a range of formats.
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5. Accessibility can benefit everyone!
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Students with short-term illnesses impacting their studies
Students who prefer to learn using different media
English language learners
Students learning in noisy or silent environments
Students who like to be able to search or edit documents

6. Auditing
ourresources
How can we check our online
resources for accessibility?
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7. BlackboardAlly
Accessibility checking software that
integrates with the VLE.
Why we purchased it
• Checks uploaded resources for common
accessibility issues.
• Instant reports at course and college level.
• Raises awareness and guides staff in how
to correct issues.
• Students can easily download an
accessible version of a document (e.g.
tagged PDF, electronic Braille, audio).
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8. Our AccessibilityChallenge
Our current Blackboard Ally rating is 63%.
Our main accessibility issues
• Documents are scanned but not OCRed.
• Images do not have a description.
• Documents do not have headings.
• Tables do not have headers.
• PDF documents do not have tags.
• Documents do not have a title.
• Documents do not have a correct heading
structure.
• Links do not have discernible text.
• Videos do not have captions.
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9. Meetingthe
accessibility
challenge
Creating a culture of inclusive
practice
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10. Our Accessibility Roadmap
Training and
awareness
Accessibility audit
Replace
inaccessible
content
Fix accessibility
issues
Promote inclusive
instructional
design
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11. 7-Point Action Plan for DigitalAccessibility
1. Replace scanned documents with accessible alternatives.
2. Use simple font styles and high colour contrasts.
3. Add a description (alt text) to images.
4. Use the built-in heading styles for documents.
5. Use readable hyperlinks that describe the destination.
6. Use the built-in bullet point and number formats.
7. Add captions or a transcript for videos and podcasts.
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12. Next steps?
Collaborate
On training resources,
templates and guides
Share
resources
Use Creative
Commons licences to
Raise
awareness
By promoting
inclusion in future
events
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13. Useful Links
• AbilityNet Factsheets
• AbilityNet My Computer My Way
• Blackboard Ally
• Dos and don'ts on designing for accessibility (Home Office Digital posters)
• Enhance Digital Teaching Platform (ETF Foundation)
• Getting started with accessibility and inclusion (Jisc guide)
• Lexdis Digital Accessibility Toolkit
• Training teachers to author accessible content (Microsoft online course)
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14. ThankYou
Helen Dixon
@HelenDixon10
helen.dixon@nrc.ac.uk
https://www.linkedin.com/in/drhelen
dixon/