Accessible Course Asset Challenge

The core of accessibility is about understanding and meeting the diverse needs of your learners. It is not about accommodating people after the fact who have specific learning needs, and it is definitely not about just being compliant or avoiding a lawsuit. Instead, it is about being aware of the barriers that could occur in your course content, preventing learners from accessing, using, or understanding it. And then, of course, avoiding or removing any barriers when you create the content.

This topic is timely because for the first time the law and the practical realities of digital accessibility are converging to provide a framework for accessible course design. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are well-aligned to the needs of the users it aims to support. The 2017 Section 508 refresh adopted WCAG 2.0 as the governmental standard for accessibility. Having an understanding of WCAG can help in better accessible course design while also complying with the law. A WCAG checklist is a great tool to use in the initial phase of course design because it allows you to plan your course assets appropriately.

The reality is most course assets were not created with accessibility in mind. Often we find the need to retroactively fix an asset or provide an alternative format after the fact. This session will embrace that reality and provide some inaccessible course assets and training on how to fix them. The twist from a traditional training is that you will compete in teams to identify possible barriers that need to be overcome. By working in teams, we can share knowledge across our diverse participants, thus helping the team as a whole be able to more easily identify barriers. Teamwork should also help reveal some of the less common or less obvious (but still important) barriers. Teams will get more points for sharing these lesser known barriers with the group. Since it is a competition, the team with the most points at the end of the session will be the winner. There will be a lot to discover in a short amount of time!

In this session you will:

• Gain familiarity with WCAG, the current digital standard for accessibility.
• Improve your critical thinking around possible barriers in your course content.
• Obtain resources to help you intentionally create course assets that allow all learners participate fully in your courses.

The session will be broken into 10 minutes of introducing the accessibility mindset and the game mechanics, 30 minutes of competition, and 5 minutes to wrap up and announce the winner.

Participants will split into teams and elect a team scribe. The scribe will be responsible for writing down the team-decided answer and sharing it. All teams will receive multiple copies of an abbreviated WCAG checklist to use as a reference in this challenge.

After teams are formed, the room will be presented with a content item commonly found in courses (e.g. PowerPoint, video, image, PDF). In a defined time limit, team members will need to work together to identify what could possibly be a barrier for learners in regard to this content type. Things the team may consider are barriers to access, barriers to use, and barriers to understanding. Content items will have multiple possible barriers. The team will decide on one barrier to share as their answer.

When the time limit passes, all teams will simultaneously share their answer. The presenter will have a masked list of possible barriers (answers) that could apply to this content item. Each predetermined barrier will have a point value associated with it based on how likely it is that a team might identify it. Higher points will be awarded to items that are less commonly thought of, less obvious to identify, or only occur in certain circumstances. The presenter will go around the room, team-by-team, and reveal if the team's barrier appears on the predetermined list, and what the point value is. Teams answering with the same barrier will both be awarded the indicated point value. Valid barriers that are not on the predetermined list can also be awarded points.

After points are awarded, the presenter will provide a short training on how to improve the content item to remove some barriers. The WCAG checklist will again be used as a support document. Links will be provided for participants to continue to learn about accessibility fixes and accessibility in general. 

Then the competition will continue with identifying barriers in additional content items and short trainings on removing barriers. The team at the end of the competition with the most points will win a prize.