DoIT and Student Disability Services hosted a "Candid Conversation on Enhancing Accessibility" on March 15th. The session highlighted ways that course accessibility benefits all students and results in inclusive learning and working environments. Student Disability Services and DoIT's Instructional Technology team collaborate to provide resources and support to enhance course accessibility. Proactively designing and teaching a course with accessibility in mind not only supports students with documented accommodations, but also supports Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles and best practices in course design. In the session panelists shared several key recommendations and resources that are available:

Key recommendations for course design and delivery

• Use Blackboard Ally to check the accessibility of course content, get guidance on remediating content, and to access alternative formats of course materials.

• Videos about Ally

• Alternative Formats in Bb Ally 

• Which Alternative Format is Best to Use? 

• Student FAQ - How do I download an alt format file generated by Ally? 

• Use live captioning in online course meetings, either with Webex or Google Chrome browser live captioning enabled.
• Caption video recordings with automatic captions in Panopto or VoiceThread.
• Upload a Video to Panopto
• Add time limit and due date accommodations in Blackboard.

Accessibility Resources

In addition to the tools noted above, the following resources also support accessibility:

• Create accessible documents with Office 365.
• Review the Google Workspace guide to accessibility.
• Explore SDS assistive technology resources.
• Review assistive technology resources available at the AOK Library.
• Review SDS Information for Faculty.

Technology Highlight: Class

UMBC will be piloting Class, a synchronous web conferencing platform built on Zoom's infrastructure. Class provides support for the following:

• Live transcription. All students in a Class session can view captions.
• Multiple video displays while sharing content, including support for sign language interpreters with a dedicated Sign Language Camera.
• Notes, an upcoming Class feature, will allow students to highlight text from the meeting transcript and add notes.
• Screen reader compatibility and keyboard navigation.