What is Accessibility?
Accessible means something is usable by as many people as possible, regardless of their cognitive, physical or cultural situation. Accessibility can mean many different things to different people, as the students in these videos explain.
See more Students Explain Digital Accessibility
Why?
- We have a responsibility as educators, as humans and by law to create resources and teaching that don't disable people.
- Inclusive teaching practices will benefit all learners in your class, not just those with specific 'labels'.
How do I get started?
Workshops: Inclusive design for learning & communication
In this online workshop you will get a better awareness of accessibility issues faced by many students & staff. The session includes practical examples of working with inaccessible materials and simple guidelines to create accessible documents.
Monthly - see event page for details
Digital Accessibility for Learning and Teaching
Learn more about digital accessibility for learning and teaching and also how Blackboard Ally can help you identify and improve the accessibility of your Moodle content.
Also read/print a two page Accessibile Documents Guide.
Take Action!
The biggest journey starts with a single step!
- 5-10 mins - learn how to check Word documents, create accessible Excel tables or another accessible MS Office feature with these short tutorials.
- 10-20 mins - edit the automatic captions for a short video you plan to reuse next year.
- 30 mins - review your Moodle course with Blackboard Ally and see where you can make impactful changes.
Quick Tips: Running accessible online meetings
Read our quick and easy tips on running accessible meetings to enhance your next call for everyone.
Quick Tips: Supporting Inclusive Teaching
Accessibility is more than alt text, subtitles and labelling students. Read these tips on inclusive teaching practices that benefit all leaners, as well as those with specific learning needs.
Where can I learn more about Accessibility?
Quick Tips: Accessibility Tools for All
See a list of accessibility tools at the University of Bath that can help your students and boost your productivity.
Blackboard Ally in Moodle
Blackboard Ally integrates with Moodle. For staff, it can guide you through the steps you need to make to update you content so that it is more accessible; for students, Blackboard Ally can automatically convert course resources into a variety of formats.
Making Bath Digitally Accessible
Accessibility doesn't stop with learning and teaching activities, but all digital interactions. See the Making Bath Digitally Accessible page from the Digital Accessibility Initiative who are leading the effort to raise awareness , embed inclusive design and support accessibility here at Bath.
Blog: Using bookdown to generate accessible course materials
Read Dan Green's discussion with Dr Thomas Cottrell (Mathematics) about how Thomas switched from LaTeX to bookdown to write lecture notes and problem sheets.
Blog: Inclusion in Higher Education
CLT colleagues reflect on working with international colleagues on embedding inclusive learning and teaching approaches.
Themes
- Accessibility
Contacts
- For advice on implementing this guidance to enhance learning, teaching and assessment contact the TEL team: tel@bath.ac.uk
- For help with using and getting specialist IT equipment and software to help increase your productivity and improve your access to technology: see Assistive Technology page
- For questions around the Digital Accessibility generally at the University of Bath, contact the Digital Accessibility Initiative: dai@bath.ac.uk