Back to Basics: Improving Accessibility in the Keele Learning Environment

By Dan Harding, Learning Technology Officer Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Keele University

Last summer, HumSS embarked on a review of its baseline course provision within the Keele Learning Environment (KLE), aiming to make each module an easier space to navigate for students. Previous attempts to introduce templates at an institutional level, combined with existing local practices, had seen some success. However, overall consistency remained patchy with navigation structures ranging from non-existent to overly complex and inaccessible.

Screenshot of online guidance available at https://www.keele.ac.uk/kletemplates.

Drivers included feedback from past IT surveys, a recent pilot of the Jisc Student Digital Experience Tracker and discussions around accessibility with Student Services. All pointed towards the need for a back-to-basics approach that would pre-populate each module with clearer signposting to key resources such as handbooks, learning materials, and assessment information.

Example infographic, demonstrating how to use the new template structure.

Processes reliant upon commonly used tools within the KLE (e.g. Turnitin) also had the potential for improvement, particularly in relation to assessment. As the Faculty was moving towards electronic submission for summative assignments, the opportunity to create more standardised guidance would alleviate some of the issues often reported by staff and students. A network of TEL Champions, represented by academic and professional support staff from across the Faculty, would also be critical in understanding each school’s requirements.

Some of the main actions included:
The HumSS TEL Team meeting with TEL Champions to understand current practice, and to develop new, school-specific templates.

Exploring the possibilities for customising the Blackboard interface by manually altering some of its CSS. For example, making better use of ‘Review Status’ for acknowledging assignment submission requirements.

Revising the information at https://www.keele.ac.uk/kletemplates to feature downloadable templates for each school, and keep other areas of the University who use the generic template up to date.
Professional support staff taking responsibility for the initial setup of all KLE courses by applying a standard school template at the beginning of each semester.
To avoid a reoccurrence of the same issue, develop guidance materials that provide simple steps on how to keep courses intuitive and accessible.

A customised Blackboard Review Status for students acknowledging assignment requirements.

The inclusion of a ‘Study Support’ folder, containing links to University support providers (e.g. the Library, Student’s Union, IT and Student Services) also directs students to services available in relation to their learning. This is accompanied by local sources of information such as school blogs and social media feeds that have been added as custom panels within each home page to keep students informed of extra curricula activities they may wish to know about.

Quick Tips for KLE Accessibility - A Guide for Staff

Following a successful first year, there remains the potential for further work. By having templates in place, it offers a foundation for more collaboration with schools and support providers to target other areas for development; especially those identified in exercises such as the NSS, module evaluations and surveys related to the student digital experience. Also, it is hoped that by encouraging thoughtful course design and demystifying some of the features found within Blackboard, the KLE will continue its overall development as Keele’s main online learning environment.

For more information, please contact humss.lto@keele.ac.uk.

Back to Basics: Improving Accessibility in the Keele Learning Environment by Dan Harding, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at lpdcsolutions.blogspot.co.uk.

JISC Accessibility and Inclusion event hosted by the Learning and Professional Development Centre (LPDC)

Moving beyond text, presented by Alistair McNaught, Subject specialist Accessibility and Inclusion 

An event earlier this year organised by the LPDC and led by JISC focused on accessibility and inclusion.  The event offered simple strategies to make your practice more inclusive with a focus on digital tools.

Participants from the day were asked to share 3 things that they found useful, these could be tips, things learned during the day or interesting points that more staff should know about.

Emma Holdham from the LPDC noted,

• Greater awareness raising required across the University of the support available and where/how to access it
• How to make learning materials truly accessible
• Speak text function within word

Phil Devine from IT noted, 

Mapping of disability with regards to audio visual contexts, in that, (i) text (ii) image (iii) audio (vi) Video and (v) interactivity can be mapped and visualise to help direct learning and teaching. This was brought into sharp contrast with an example of what disabled students often get that is, Lecture, Creation of Notes, Course Readings. In sharp contrast JISC offered multi-media contexts for delivery of learning and teaching in partnership with curative technologies in order for students to configure their own learning. This in contrast, is in real terms, representative of solid digital pedagogic practice, therefore not only flatting the learning landscape for disabled students (with all benefits that brings) but potentially providing a road-map for a generic digital pedagogic framework for all.

This video shows interesting snippets from the event focused on accessibility and inclusivity with a focus on digital  ran by JISC.  The video was created by Aniqa Ashraf a Technology Enhanced Learning ambassador for the LPDC and an undergraduate student

Tips included 

- Locating the text to speech option in Microsoft Word instructions can be found here

- Using text to speech in a PDF document instructions can be found here (NB this will only work with PDFs that are created from text not scanned images of text)