Category: Accessibility

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Digital Accessibility Demo Day – Event Recap

On March 5th 2025, Disability Interest Group and Christian Lawson-Perfect, with support from LTDS, hosted the first Digital Accessibility Demo day in the Boiler House on the central campus of Newcastle University.

We were very pleased with the high turnout of attendees. It was wonderful to initiate conversations with colleagues about accessibility awareness and the importance of creating inclusive environments.

Attendees were greeted on entry and encouraged to take away a series of handouts giving accessibility advice prior to visiting one of the stations.

People from LTDS, NUIT and the Disability Interest Group were on hand offer support and answer any questions attendees had about digital accessibility.

Sample of Handouts

Image of Poster for Designing for Diverse Learners
Poster for “Designing for Diverse Learners”
Image of Poster for Digital Accessibility Resources
Poster for Digital Accessibility Resources at Newcastle University”

You can download copies of these handouts at:

Attendees were also informed of the wide range of digital accessibility resources available on the Digital Accessibility Webpages on the Learning and Teaching Website.

Review of Accessibility Demonstration Stations

We had set up stations that simulated various access requirements and featured different accessibility software for attendees to try out.

Screen Reader

A laptop was set up with a red card covering the screen. Attendees were asked to use the provided headphones and screen reader (NVDA) software to navigate online teaching materials.

After using the screen reader, the red card was removed to reveal the content.

This setup provided attendees with a first hand experience of navigating online materials using a screen reader, highlighting the challenges and solutions associated with this.

NVDA enables blind and visually impaired users to interact with the Windows operating system and many third-party applications through synthetic speech.

Image of Devin using the Screen Reader
Devin Louttit of LTDS testing the Screen Reader Station

Text to Speech Software (ClaroRead)

A station featuring ClaroRead was set up alongside a course created on Canvas with intentionally poor accessibility. This setup aimed to demonstrate the capabilities of text-to-speech software. While ClaroRead was used for this demonstration, many other programs offer similar functionality.

Text-to-speech software converts written text into spoken words using synthetic voices. This technology is designed to assist individuals who have difficulty reading text on a screen, but it can also be used for convenience and productivity.

It was demonstrated how ClaroRead works on the demonstration course, providing attendees with the opportunity to experience the software first hand.

Colour Vision Deficiency

Colour Vision Deficiency (CVD), commonly known as colour blindness, is a condition where an individual has difficulty distinguishing between certain colours.

To demonstrate this, a station was set up with colour filters that removed all colours from the screen, rendering everything in black and white. This setup aimed to illustrate the challenges faced by individuals with CVD and to emphasise the importance of not relying solely on colour to convey meaning. It also highlighted potential contrast issues that could arise if colours were inverted. This also would impact users who print materials in black and white.

By experiencing this simulation, attendees gained a better understanding of the need for accessible design practices that consider colour vision deficiencies.

An example was provided of online materials that used colour in a way that could be challenging for users with Colour Vision Deficiency (CVD) to understand, particularly when reading the graph and the highlighted text.

When colour is removed, interpreting the graph and text becomes noticeably more challenging.

Image of Canvas materials in greyscale
Canvas materials in greyscale (with colour removed)
Image of Canvas materials on colour
Canvas materials with colour

Attendees remarked on the increased difficulty in understanding the content when the colours were changed to greyscale. This experience prompted them to reconsider how they use colour in their own online teaching materials to ensure better accessibility.

Low Mobility

A laptop was set up just out of reach, requiring attendees to use a long stick to access the keyboard. This added level of difficulty was designed to demonstrate the challenges faced by users with mobility issues when accessing content. By experiencing this first hand, attendees gained a deeper understanding of the importance of designing accessible digital environments that accommodate various physical limitations.

Magnification

A laptop and screen were set up for using the Magnifier in Microsoft Windows. The Magnifier on Microsoft Windows is an accessibility tool designed to make parts or all of your screen larger, making words and images easier to see. This is particularly useful for individuals with low vision.

Image of Microsoft Windows Magnification on a Canvas Course
Microsoft Windows Magnification in action on a Canvas course

Canvas Accessibility Tools

There are numerous accessibility tools built into Canvas and Microsoft Office. At this station, we demonstrated some of the accessibility features in Canvas that can help you make your materials more accessible.

In addition to Canvas, Microsoft Office offers a variety of tools designed to enhance accessibility, such as the Accessibility Checker and Immersive Reader. By integrating these features, attendees learned how to create more inclusive and user-friendly online teaching materials.

Canvas Built in Accessibility Tools

Canvas Rich content editor accessbility checker

The demo included looking at the Rich Content Editor Accessibility Checker which helps identify common accessibility issues within your course content. It checks for issues such as missing alt text for images, improper table structures, and insufficient colour contrast.

canvas immersive reader

The Immersive Reader in Canvas tool designed to enhance reading accessibility and comprehension for all learners. Developed by Microsoft, it offers features such as text-to-speech, syllable breakdown, line focus, picture dictionary, and adjustable text settings.

The Immersive Reader can be used on various Canvas pages, including the Course Home Page, Syllabus, assignments, and individual pages, helping to create a more inclusive learning environment.

A group of students that attended the event were unaware that this was available and were very impressed with how the tool worked, they said they’d be looking to incorporate this into their future use of Canvas.

Ally Tool with Canvas

The Ally tool in Canvas is designed to improve the accessibility of course content. The key features include:

  • Accessibility Scores: Ally provides detailed accessibility scores for course materials, helping instructors identify and prioritise accessibility issues that need attention.
  • Instructor Feedback: It offers guidance and support to instructors on how to improve the accessibility of their content, including suggestions and documentation on how to correct barriers.
  • Alternative Formats: Ally automatically generates alternative formats of course content, such as readable text for screen readers, tagged PDFs, HTML, ePub, and audio files. These formats are made available alongside the original content, ensuring students can access materials in the format that best suits their needs.

Some students attending the event had never been introduced to Alternative Formats and were very impressed with their functionality. They were very enthusiastic about incorporating these tools into their studies moving forward.

Microsoft Office Accessibility Tools

The Accessibility Checker in Microsoft Office is a tool that identifies and suggests fixes for common accessibility issues in your documents and presentations. By scanning your content for problems such as missing alt text, improper table structures, and insufficient colour contrast, it ensures that your materials are accessible to all users. The tool provides real-time notifications and detailed explanations for each issue, helping you understand and address them effectively.

This ensures that content is checked for accessibility before being uploaded to Canvas, which helps improve the course’s accessibility score. Additionally, it can be used to troubleshoot and resolve accessibility issues in existing course materials.

A number of academic and professional service colleagues remarked that they would start using these tools when creating materials following the event as they were easy to use and would save time in the future troubleshooting accessibility issues in uploaded documents to Canvas.

Recap Captioning

The captioning tool in Recap was also demonstrated. Captions also benefit those who may struggle to understand spoken language due to background noise or where their first language isn’t English.

Additionally, captions support flexible viewing in various environments, such as public places where sound may be disruptive.

It was demonstrated how easy it is to check and alter these captions in your course using the Recap editor.

Sample of Tool Demonstrations

Image of Microsoft Immersive Reader
Image of Microsoft Immersive Reader
Image of Canvas Accessibility Checker
Image of Canvas Accessibility Checker
Image of Alternative Formats Options
Image of Alternative Formats Options
Image of Ally Canvas Course Report
Image of Ally Canvas Course Report
Image of Ally Tool for file checking
Image of Ally Tool for file checking
Image of Recap captions
Image of Recap captions

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Digital Accessibility Demo Day – 5th March 2025

What does “accessible” mean?

What difficulties do students have accessing the material we provide?

How do students surmount those difficulties?

How do you improve the accessibility of your material?

We’re putting on an event to help answer those questions.

It’s important that all of our digital services are accessible to their users, whether they’re students or colleagues. The Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations set out some legal requirements that we must meet.

But digital accessibility is a complex topic and many colleagues have found it hard to understand what they need to do to ensure their teaching material is accessible.

At our digital accessibility demo day, you can have a go at accessing university teaching material at a selection of stations simulating different access requirements and supports, including:

  • Screen reader
  • Speech to text
  • Keyboard-only interaction
  • Low vision
  • Low mobility
  • Magnification
  • Canvas Ally

We’ll have plenty of pointers to guidance and training opportunities to help you improve the accessibility of your material.

People from LTDS, NUIT and the Disability Interest Group will be there to offer support and answer any questions you may have about digital accessibility.

Time and location

The event will take place 13:00 – 15:00 on Wednesday 5th March 2025, in the Boiler House.

The Boiler House is in the middle of campus, between the Armstrong Building and the Student Union. Access is step-free.

There’s no presentation as part of the session – just drop in and talk to one of the facilitators.

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Working inclusively: a refresh of the Accessibility in Practice course

Whatever our role, creating documents and other content that can be accessed and used by everybody is an essential professional skill.

The good news is that creating content that’s inclusive and user-friendly is actually quite simple, and the bulk of it can be done by creating good working document templates and making minor adjustments to work flows.

Accessibility in Practice has existed as an online course for a few years, but has just had a refresh to bring it up to date with the latest legislation (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WGAC) 2.2), and in using the most up-to-date tools in Microsoft365 and within Canvas.

Accessibility isn't extra steps, it's steps you've missed.
“Accessibility isn’t extra steps, it’s steps you’ve missed.”

Accessibility in Practice is an online course that will take you about 60-to-90 minutes to complete.

  • Learn about the the importance of working inclusively and embedding accessible practice.
  • Structure your documents effectively for screen readers and other assistive technologies.
  • Optimise images, hyperlinks, colour contrast, and media content for maximum accessibility.
  • Evaluate and fix your content using built-in checking tools in Canvas and Microsoft apps.
  • Create captions, transcripts, and accessible PDF documents.

You can access Accessibility in Practice through Elements.

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Creating Accessible Documents

Accessibility week – Day 2

In learning and teaching, it’s crucial to ensure that everyone can access and engage with the materials we share. In this post, we’ll guide you through the fundamentals of document design that apply to various platforms such as Microsoft Word, Adobe PDF, and even Canvas pages.

Document Design Fundamentals

There are some key points of accessible document design that are true across all platforms, be it Microsoft Word, Adobe PDF, and even Canvas pages.

1.      Text Headings

Use a hierarchy of headings such as:

  • Title
  • Heading 1
  • Heading 2
  • Heading 3 etc.

This enables ease of navigation for all users, as well as allowing screen readers to identify and describe the structure of a document.

2.      Font and text

Use a minimum of font size 12 and 1.5 line spacing for Microsoft Word documents. When using lists use bullet points for items that aren’t sequential or numbered lists for sequential items.

Use Sans Serif fonts (e.g. Arial, Calibri) as they are more accessible. These fonts are well defined and regular in shape and size and display better on computers and mobile devices. Most popular font styles, like Tahoma or Arial, are accessible; opt for the most popular fonts rather than decorative ones.

It’s also best to keep your use of bold and italic text to a minimum.

3.      Colour and Contrast

Do not use colour alone to convey meaning. If someone has a visual impairment, including colour blindness, the emphasis you’re trying to create by using colour will be lost. Additionally, when you use colours, please be mindful of the colour contrast. This means the colour contrast between background and foreground content should be great enough to ensure it is legible.

If you want to check if you contrast, you can visit WebAIM’s Color Contrast Checker website. (Links to an external site)

4.       Alternative Text (Alt text)

Always use alternative text (or ‘alt text’) to provide a meaningful description of an image. Alt text allows screen readers and text-to-speech tools to read aloud the content of an image to the user.  

Alt text should be clear and concise (1-2 sentences) and explain the relevant content of an image. Alt text is limited to 125 characters, so use that wisely and try to describe the key elements of the image.

If your graphic has text in it, this should be added to the alt text also.

If an image is there only for appearance, you can mark it as decorative. For example, In Microsoft Word, select the “Mark as decorative box” when the image is selected.

5.       Use Tables for Data – Never for Layout

Tables can be great for organising information. However, if used incorrectly, they can be difficult for people to navigate using assistive technologies.

If you add a table to your document, be sure to use it for data and not for layout or document design.

It’s important to ensure that your table has a header row that repeats itself when the table extends beyond a single page. When deciding on a structure for tables, remember they are read from left to right and top to bottom.

6.       Hyperlinks

Use hyperlinks to describe where the link will take the user. It is recommended that you create descriptive text about where the URL will take the user so it can be easily read by a screen reader. For example, the “Semester 1 – Assignment Brief” details can be found in the Assignments section of Canvas, where “Semester 1 – Assignment Brief” is the hyperlink. Avoid using ‘click here’, ‘read more’ or ‘for more info’. Also avoid underlining text for emphasis, but rather use the bold function.

For printed documents, it’s advised to use the full URL or you can use bit.ly or other link shortener if the hyperlink is very long

7.       Use an Accessibility Checker

Use built-in accessibility checkers to identify any accessibility issues in a document. Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat and Canvas all have built-in accessibility checkers. These tools can help identify any accessibility issues in your documents, ensuring they meet the necessary standards. They will guide you, step by step, on how to make your document more accessible.

Software Specific Guides

Microsoft Word

For specific guidance on how to make documents accessible in Microsoft Word visit the Good Practice Guide for Microsoft Word.

Portable Document Format (PDF)

For specific guidance on how to make documents accessible in Adobe PDF visit the Good Practice Guide for PDFs.

Conclusion

By implementing the strategies and recommendations outlined in this article, we can collectively make a significant impact on the accessibility of our documents, creating an inclusive environment for all students and educators.

Let’s get started!

Visit our blog tomorrow for more tips on digital accessibility.

Further Resources

For more information on accessibility please visit our webpages for Digital Accessibility and Universal Design.

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Global Accessibility Awareness Day

Global Awareness Accessibility Awareness Day logo
Thursday 18 May 2023

What is Global Accessibility Awareness Day?

Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) is an international event intended to get everyone talking, thinking and learning about digital accessibility and inclusion. This year the event will be held on 18 May 2023, but in the run up to the big day, we’ll be posting tips and techniques to help you improve the accessibility of your own teaching materials.

Every user deserves a first-rate digital experience on the web. Someone with a disability must be able to experience web-based services, content and other digital products with the same successful outcome as those without disabilities. This awareness and commitment to inclusion is the goal of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, a global event that shines a light on digital access and inclusion for people with disabilities (from https://accessibility.day).

At Newcastle University, accessibility is about ensuring that things can be used by as many people as possible, working towards equality of opportunity. Our commitment to inclusion is underpinned by both the Equality Act and the more recent Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations.

This week

In a nutshell, it’s our collective responsibility to design out any barriers to engagement that may occur in our digital content, teaching materials, learning activities and assessments. Fortunately, it’s quite easy to do, and we have a range of resources, guides and tools to help.

To mark Global Accessibility Awareness Day, we will be posting a series of daily articles here on the LTDS blog covering a wide range of topics related to digital accessibility and inclusion:

Day 1 – An introduction to accessibility and inclusion
Day 2 – Creating accessible files (including PDFs, Word and PowerPoint)
Day 3 – Creating accessible pages in Canvas
Day 4 – Creating accessible videos in Panopto
Day 5 – Using Ally in Canvas

Can’t wait? Get a sneak peak of what’s coming this week on our new Digital Accessibility and Universal Design pages.

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Announcing the University’s new Digital Exam System: Inspera Assessment

In September 2021 we will be launching a new system for centrally supported digital exams, called Inspera Assessment. Implementing the system will enable the Digital Exam Service to: 

  • Deliver secure locked down present-in-person exams on University computers and students’ own laptops, monitored by University invigilators 
  • Ensure that digital exams are accessible to all our students, and enhance the student experience of exams 
  • Increase the University’s digital exam capacity in the long term 
  • Enable more authentic exams by introducing new functionality

New exam types possible with Inspera will include:  

  • Students taking written exams online, by typing their answers on computer, and incorporating drawings or written calculations done on paper into their online answers where needed. 
  • Allowing access to specific online resources or applications during a secure exam, using allow listing functionality. 

Introducing Inspera is a big step forward for education, assessment and feedback at Newcastle University.  Adopting a specialist digital exam system allows us to do much more than would be possible if we continued to use the Virtual Learning Environment for digital exams.

Choosing a digital exam system 

Inspera has been selected as our digital exam system following a rigorous procurement process, which began with requirements mapping workshops in February 2020, attended by over 60 academic and professional services staff.  The procurement was postponed for a year as a result of the global pandemic, and restarted in semester 2 2020/21 when colleagues had the opportunity to feed in any new or updated requirements via an online survey.   

Once the tender was issued key digital exams stakeholders contributed to a rigorous evaluation process to decide on the system that best fit our requirements.  Students and staff were invited to volunteer for usability testing in each system that met the mandatory technical requirements. The team are very grateful to the 36 colleagues, and 13 undergraduate and postgraduate students, who completed a total of approximately 150 hours of usability testing between them! 

Inspera scored the highest overall for both usability, and for technical and functional requirements. 

Rolling out Inspera 

As standard all 2021/22 modules that have a present-in-person digital exam in MOFS will use Inspera.  If the public health situation requires, it will be possible for these modules to use the system for open book take home exams.

Numbas maths assessment system remains an option digital exams that need specialist mathematics functionality.

The system will be available for additional new digital exams from 2022/23 onwards.  There will be opportunities in the coming months to see demonstrations of the software, and learn more about the new types of assessment that it makes possible.  If you would like to learn more now, please contact digital.exams@newcastle.ac.uk. 

How to get started  

The Digital Exams Service team will contact all 2021/22 module teams with a digital exam in their MOF at the beginning of September, with details of the process for preparing their exam. 

Training will also launch in September 2021, and all colleagues who will be using Inspera in the new academic year are encouraged to sign up.   

Online resources to help students prepare for a digital exam will be published in September, and students will also be able to try out a demo exam in Inspera to help familiarise themselves with the system. 

If you are interested in introducing a new digital exam using Inspera in future, or if you have any queries about a 2021/22 digital exam, please contact digital.exams@newcastle.ac.uk. 

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Getting the most out of Synchronous Online Sessions

Like the rest of the University, our colleagues from the Academic Practice Team in the Learning and Teaching Development Service (LTDS) have redeveloped their face to face small group teaching sessions for online delivery.   Their learners are postgraduate research students taking  the Introduction to Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (ILTHE) and academic staff new to Newcastle University who are engaging with Newcastle Educational Practice Scheme (NEPS) Units en route to UKPSF fellowship.   

“In order to make a session engaging online, you have to think about what it is that you’re trying to achieve.”

Dr Rosa Spencer, Professional Development Manager

I met up with Dr Rosa Spencer, Emma McCulloch and Chris Whiting to ask about their top tips on how they planned these 1-2 hour sessions, how they used them to build community, and what they did to keep these Zoom teaching sessions engaging and accessible.

Helpful Hints and Tips

  • Keep group sizes relatively small, 20 people max.
Continue reading “Getting the most out of Synchronous Online Sessions”
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Making it accessible: Benefits of the Accessibility in Practice Course

The Accessibility in Practice online course is designed to provide you with some of the core skills and techniques for embedding accessibility into your teaching and learning practice, and in making your digital resources accessible to everyone.

Tom Harrison recently completed the online course. He shares the parts of the course he found most useful and how he has changed his practice resulting in real benefits to students.

Hi, I’m Tom Harrison; I work as a Student Recruitment Co-ordinator at Newcastle University and also teach English Literature. My roles involve designing lots of activities and presentations for a wide variety of students, so I was interested in using the Accessibility in Practice course to develop my awareness of how to adjust my materials to accommodate different learner needs.

Tom Harrison

One of the most revealing sections was an exercise to simulate difficulties that dyslexic students could have reading slides in lectures. The team presented a simple story (Aesop’s ‘Tortoise and the Hare’: a classic!) and changed the text a bit to give an idea of how reading speeds can differ.

Even with such a simple, familiar story I found the text difficult to read, and although I managed a couple of lines I got nowhere near finishing the full paragraph in the two minutes allotted by the presenter. The experience was confusing and frustrating, and made worse when the presenter spoke while the text was onscreen: at this point my attention was split between the audio and the visuals, which meant I wasn’t paying attention to either.

The manipulated text, the short reading time, and the over-talkative presenter were of course all part of the team’s cunning plan to show how difficult it can be for dyslexic students to read large blocks of text in a lecture setting. I have to confess that previously I’ve assumed that students can multi-task as I rattle through text-heavy lecture slides, and that highlighting key words and phrases in bold or in different colours was enough to focus students on what they need to know. Those visually-enhanced techniques work fine for some, but of course are no help at all to students who are colour blind, or who are accessing lecture materials through specialist software. I looked back over my old PowerPoints with fresh eyes and realised that, to some students, my beautifully colour-coded, quote-heavy slides would have just been a big blocky mess.

The biggest change the training has made to my practice is that I now appreciate that students need more time to process on-screen text, and that they may be accessing this text in a different way to how I’ve previously assumed. I now make a point of reading out any text that I include on slides to help keep students focused and avoid unnecessary distractions. As an added bonus, I’ve also learnt to cut down the size of my on-screen quotations: no one, not even me, wants to hear me reading out huge chunks of text!

If you are delivering information to students in any capacity I recommend having a look at this resource: the course is full of useful, practical tips that will help you modify what you already do rather than change it to something completely different. Well worth an hour of your time, I’d say, and your students will thank you for it!

All Newcastle University colleagues can complete the Accessibility in Practice online Canvas course.

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Accessibility and inclusion update

Four students accessing electronic resources together

This blog post is to provide an update on the work that has been undertaken over this academic year to raise awareness of the need to create digitally accessible content. The aim is to support staff to develop the skills required and helping them to make simple changes to their practice that will result in more accessible resources to enable all our learners to take part in their learning without having any barriers in their place.

Visits to academic units

33 presentations to academic units have either taken place, or are scheduled to take place in the 2019-20 academic year. The reception from staff to the information in the presentation has been extremely positive with colleagues keen to find out how they can engage with the work to improve accessibility for all. The team are very happy to present at all appropriate forums so if we haven’t visited your area, please get in touch with LTDS and we can arrange this.

Accessibility in Practice Workshop

The “Accessibility in Practice” workshops ran in academic units, and centrally and is always well received. In this workshop we focus on quick wins to create accessible documents. We support staff to use accessibility checkers on documents and, they experience how learners adapt and work with digital content. We explore how SensusAccess can empower students and staff to make the inaccessible accessible. This is a hands-on workshop, staff will take away ideas, check-lists and tools that support inclusive practices. Feedback from staff to the session include:

  • “Great for someone new to the topic but also still valuable to someone who is aware of the basics.”
  • “Super practical. Learnt about loads of features I had no idea about.”
  • “I enjoyed learning about the resources available within Newcastle University and on software such as Office 365, an often ignored topic in teaching training I’ve attended in the past”

Accessibility and Inclusion on the Digital Learning website

An accessibility and inclusion section has been added to the Digital Learning Website that highlights how inclusive teaching practices can support all learners, not just those with particular learning requirements. The site covers the requirements and deadlines from the most recent accessibility regulations, the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

There are useful links to many of the resources across the University that will help you make your content more accessible including updated NUIT Guidance, and SensusAccess. Further resources relating to the University approach to accessibility and inclusion are available, including a screencast of the presentation we have been providing to academic units.

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Accessibility in practice, workshop feedback

Do you want to hear about quick wins to create accessible documents, use accessibility checkers and experience how some of your learners adapt and work with digital content?

The Accessibility in Practice workshop covers this and more. You can book your place now from a range of dates over the next couple of months.

Victoria Rafferty, Learning Development Officer in the Writing Development Centre came along to one of these workshops. Find out what she thought below.

‘The accessibility training sessions provided the timely opportunity to become more aware of issues and techniques when making resources accessible.  By working with techniques demonstrated and discussed in the workshops, we’ve constructed a new range of study guides.  These sessions were important as we need to ensure that our study guides are suitable for students across the university’.

Victoria Rafferty, Learning Development Officer, Writing Development Centre

Victoria Rafferty

View an example of one of the study guides developed following the workshop, demonstrating good practice in designing accessible documents.

If you need further information about accessibility take a look at the LTDS website or get in touch at LTDS@ncl.ac.uk