We believe that accessibility is key to creating an inclusive and supportive learning environment for all students.

Our commitment to accessibility is reflected in the wide range of resources and tools we offer to ensure that every student can engage fully with their studies.

From the Canvas Baseline, which provides essential best practice information and promotes consistency across courses, to Ally for Canvas, which enhances the accessibility of digital learning content, we are dedicated to making education accessible to everyone.

In addition to these tools, we offer training and courses such as the Accessible Documents Training workshop and the Accessibility in Practice Canvas course.

Join us as we explore the various accessibility resources available at Newcastle University and discover how they can benefit you and your academic journey.

Canvas Baseline

The Newcastle University Canvas Baseline outlines the essential requirements for all University modules within the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It ensures students receive a core set of materials, including programme-related information and details about learning, assessment, and skills for each module.

The Baseline aims to create consistency across modules, provide clear guidance
on available information and resources, and offer a foundation for module development while enhancing student engagement through Canvas.

More information on the Canvas Baseline can be found on the Canvas Baseline pages on the Learning and Teaching Website.

New Courses Guidance

The Get your Canvas courses ready has a checklist section provides a step-by-step
guide for preparing Canvas courses. This includes checking your courses for accessibility in both Canvas and Ally.

More information on New Course Guidance can be found on the New Courses Guidance page on the Learning and Teaching website.

Ally

Ally for Canvas is a tool integrated into Newcastle University’s Canvas platform to enhance the accessibility of digital learning content. It automatically generates alternative formats of course files, such as MP3, electronic braille, ePub, and HTML, making it easier for students to access materials in the format that suits them best.

For instructors, Ally provides an accessibility score for uploaded files and offers guidance on how to improve them. This helps ensure that course content is inclusive and accessible
to all students.

More information on Ally in Canvas can be found on the Ally for Canvas page on the Learning and Teaching website.

Accessible Documents Training

In this workshop we uncover why accessible practices are so important
for our students and colleagues.

The workshop includes short activities to introduce participants to tools and
techniques to ensure digital materials are accessible, and includes audience
interaction via Vevox.

If you are interested in taking part in this training, please contact: ltds@newcastle.ac.uk

Accessibility in Practice – Canvas Course (Self Enrol)

Learning and Teaching Development Service (LTDS) host an Accessibility in
Practice Canvas course. The course provides you with some core information, skills, and techniques for embedding accessibility into your teaching, learning, and work practice,
and in making your digital resources accessible to everyone.

Accessibility benefits everybody, not just individuals with additional needs. You can self enrol on the course to complete at your own pace.

This course can be accessed here: Accessibility in Practice – Canvas Course (Self Enrol).

What is Ally?

Ally is an external tool integrated into Canvas that automatically checks course materials against WCAG 2.0 accessibility standards and provides feedback on their accessibility. It’s important to note that Ally doesn’t evaluate the quality of your course content; it simply assesses how well the content meets accessibility standards.

This video provides an overview of Ally in Canvas and how it works within our Virtual Learning Environment:

Alternative Formats

A beneficial feature is that it also enables students to download accessible alternative formats of published module materials, without the need to create and upload these ourselves. These formats are made available with the original file, so students can find everything in one convenient location.

While the alternative formats are created for you, you can, if you want, disable alternative formats for any individual content item for whatever reason (a good example being translated versions of texts on foreign language courses).

Alternative formats made available by Ally are:

• Tagged PDF;
• HTML;
• e-Pub;
• Electronic braille;
• Audio (text-to-speech conversion);
• BeeLine Reader;

Course Accessibility Report

Accessibility Summary

The course accessibility report acts as a complement to the existing accessibility indicators. It provides an accessibility summary and overview at the course level. 

The report gives an overall accessibility score for the course, which is an average of the accessibility scores of all course materials. Scores range from Low (0-33%), Medium (34-66%), High (67-99%), to Perfect (100%).

Detailed Feedback

It identifies specific files that need remediation, categorizing them by accessibility score and issue type. This helps instructors prioritize which content to fix first 1.

Guidance and Corrective Actions

The report provides detailed explanations of why certain issues are problems and offers step-by-step instructions on how to fix them.

Instructors can even upload corrected versions of files directly within Canvas.

The aim of this week is to help you strive to make all your learning resources as accessible as possible. This also extends to our video content, which plays a crucial role in the educational experience.

In this blog, we will explore the importance of video captioning and how it can be effectively implemented using the Panopto system (also known as Recap).

When we refer to video content, we mean recordings provided to students for educational purposes. These recordings are typically delivered via Canvas and include lecture recordings, teaching presentations, and other instructional videos.

By ensuring that these videos are captioned, we can enhance accessibility for all students, including those who are deaf or hard of hearing, non-native English speakers, and individuals who benefit from reading along while listening.

What is ReCap (Panopto)?

Panopto, also known as Recap, is a video platform at Newcastle University. This system facilitates the recording, editing, and sharing of video content, making it an essential tool for both educators and students.

The primary reason for using Panopto is to enhance the learning experience. By providing students with access to lecture recordings and other educational videos, Panopto allows them to review material at their own pace. This flexibility is particularly beneficial for revisiting complex topics and catching up on missed lectures.

Moreover, Panopto significantly contributes to accessibility. It supports students with diverse learning needs by offering features such as video captioning, ensuring that all students, including those who are deaf or hard of hearing, can benefit from the content.

Captioning in Panopto (ReCap)

The ReCap service (Panopto) provides the ability to add ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) generated captions to your recordings. 

The University recognises that automatically generated captions are not 100% correct and have published a captions disclaimer for viewers. 

We recommend reviewing automatically generated captions and making light-touch edits before making them available. 

How Do I Edit Captions in Panopto (ReCap)

The support pages of the Panopto website offer great advice on how to work with captions in Panopto.

The How to Edit or Delete Captions guide provides a comprehensive guide on how to edit or delete captions in Panopto. It outlines the steps required to access the caption editor, make necessary adjustments to the text, and save changes.

The guide also covers how to delete captions if they are no longer needed. Additionally, it includes tips for ensuring caption accuracy and improving the overall quality of video content. This resource is essential for anyone looking to enhance the accessibility and usability of their Panopto recordings.

There is also a very useful video at How to Add ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) Captions into a Video to help with editing your captions.

Other Accessible Features in Panopto

Screen Reader Support

Panopto supports screen readers like NVDA and VoiceOver for Mac, making it easier for visually impaired users to access content.

Keyboard Accessibility

All functions in the Panopto web interface can be accessed using the tab key, allowing users to navigate without a mouse.

More information on Keyboard Shortcuts can be found in the following guide: Learn About Keyboard Shortcuts for Video Viewing.

Audio Descriptions

Creators can add audio descriptions to videos, providing additional context for visually impaired viewers.

More information on this can be found in the following guide: How To Add Audio Descriptions.

Variable Playback Speed

Users can adjust the playback speed of videos to match their personal needs, from 0.5x to 2.0x speed.

More information on this can be found in the following guide: Variable Speed Playback With Fast Panopto.

Document Design Fundamentals

Welcome to Day 2 of our Accessibility Awareness blog series. In this post, you can learn about aspects of document design to help you create documents that are accessible from the go. By ensuring that your documents are designed in an accessible format when you create them, anyone using them have the opportunity to engage with the content from the get go. Making a document accessible does not need to happen after the fact. You can do it as you create, and make a difference from now.

Our Learning and Teaching Development Service (LTDS) have created a helpful crib sheet available that covers the do’s and don’ts to enable you to design documents for a diverse range of learners. Take a look at the Designing for Diverse Learners resource – and why not save a copy to your ‘favourites’ or put a copy in your office space?

We’ll now dive into some of the guidance from the Designing for Diverse Learners resource in more detail to understand ways you can design documents to ensure that they are accessible:

On each page, you’ll find essential digital document design guidelines along with step-by-step instructions on how to implement these changes in your own digital documents.

Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) takes place on the 3rd Thursday of May each year. Individuals are encouraged to take an hour to experience first-hand the impact of digital accessibility (or lack thereof). This year GAAD takes place on Thursday 15^th May. 

Participate Directly 

There are many ways to get involved. The GAAD webpage recommends ways that individuals can participate directly – for example, you can: 

• Think about how you can make your events and meetings more accessible – whether it’s the moment you start planning, writing communications, and looking at how these are hosted (online, in-person or hybrid). 

• Watch a Disability Awareness video – GAAD recommend: a 3-minute Disability Sensitivity video. 

• Make accessible digital experiences – e.g. ensure images have alt text and considering contrast when using colour.  

There is also a list of actionable ideas for GAAD available. 

Spread Awareness 

The GAAD webpage also shares how we can spread awareness. One of the suggestions is sharing blog posts. To help our colleagues and students at Newcastle to engage with accessibility content, colleagues in the Learning and Teaching Development Service (LTDS) are going to be sharing blog posts each day during the week that GAAD falls in (week of 12^th May). We will be writing and sharing content for you to engage with, including additional resources available to you, around digital accessibility. 

Resources 

There are plenty of resources you can use to get started and learn about how you can make further considerations around accessibility and encourage others to do the same. You can check out the following resources available at Newcastle: 

• Our Blog Series from GAAD in 2023 

• LTDS Digital Accessibility webpage – in particular you may wish to look at: Summary of Accessibility Resources at Newcastle and Designing for Diverse Learners checklist 

• LTDS Universal Design for Learning webpage (You may also wish to look at The Universal Design for Learning Guidelines). 

Check back on the blog on Monday 12th May for more information.