Accessibility Toolkit for Course Materials

Education is about sharing.  Lumen has a firm commitment to sharing learning materials that meet the needs of learners with variable strengths so that all learners can access and use them effectively.  We strive to understand what barriers learners may face and what inclusivity really means and to adhere to guiding principles regarding accessibility in order to be able to create inclusive learning materials.

Waymaker in General:

Waymaker courses deliver enriched OER course content and personalized learning tools into educational institutions OER content system. keyboard only navigation but for quiz reading sequence must use combination of arrows and tab to navigate question

Cons: 

Supplemental Materials: "Simulations are considered supplemental in nature, and are not foundational to the learning experience delivered, or critical for course completion" and are therefore not checked for accessibility.
 

Waymaker Training Materials:

Lumen Learning embeds training materials about Waymaker into all it's courses. This is "so that [faculty] have easy access to information that will improve the learning experience for [faculty] and ...students. They include key information ... about new features and tips for getting the most out of Waymaker."

Waymaker Training Material Pros: 

Within those training materials there is a section titled "Accessibility Statement".  Here they discuss their general commitment to accessibility, Waymaker's current accessibility status and a table showing Waymaker courseware against WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA Success Criteria for each of the four accessibility principles: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.

Waymaker Training Material Cons: 

More detailed, how-to instructions on actually creating accessible content is badly located.  Information on creating accessible content is located in a section titled "What Are Common Questions About Waymaker Assessments" This accessibility guideline document should be re-located..

Accessibility information is also not listed throughout the training materials.  Reminders about accessibility should not be relegated to only one module.   As an example, in the folder "Orient Your Students" there is a suggestion for professors to add their own videos to personalize the course but professors are not reminded to make sure the videos they create and add have closed captioning or a transcript.  

Suggestions for Lumen Learning: 

• Relocate the "Accessible Content Authoring Guidelines" to a more relevant section.
• Add a link to the "Accessible Content Authority Guidelines" in the "Accessibility Statement" section.
• In each section/folder/module should contain a part about accessibility and tips.
• When providing faculty with tips or suggestions for content and creation, Lumen personnel must look at each of those through the lens of accessibility and ask themselves if they are including all the relevant accessibility issues, i.e: When suggesting adding a video or a pdf, they should also put a note about accessibility issues to consider.

Suggestions for Using Waymaker:

• Remind faculty that only content offered in the Lumen Catalog and classified recommended and highly recommended has been reviewed by Lumen to meet accessibility standards.
• Remind faculty to check the accessibility of the community developed OER course content they use.
• Make sure to direct faculty to Lumen's "Accessible Content Authoring Guidelines"

Lumen’s Candela editing platform shares Pressbooks’ and Wordpress’ accessibility features.

(VPAT focused on Lumen authored content and excludes Pressbooks’ or Wordpress’ accessibility.)

Accessibility Statement

General

• Accessibility options can be enabled on User Profile page.
• User-created content, including questions, text materials, and videos may contain elements that do not meet the accessibility standards.

Pros:

Student-facing pages are accessible. Students who need to be able to zoom the screen, who have trouble with fine control of the mouse, who have seizures or distraction issue, or needing especially high contrast will be able to use OHM.

Accessibility options can be enabled by viewing the User Profile page.

Cons:

Accessibility is different on instructor-facing pages. Instructors with accessibility issues will encounter problems using OHM

• Non-text Content: Not all inputs are properly labeled
• Use of Color: Some instructor pages use color as the only indicator of status.
• Contrast: Some instructor pages use greyed text of insufficient contrast.
• Keyboard: Not all instructor pages are operable by keyboard.
• Link Purpose: On instructor pages, some link’s purpose is only evident through title text or aria-label text
• Headings and Labels: Some instructor pages have unclear or missing labels.
• Language Parts: Many instructor-facing pages are only in English, and the language is not marked.
• Labels or Instructions: Some instructor pages are missing labels.

Accessibility Technology Recommended Settings

• Accessibility options can be enabled by viewing the User Profile page.
• Depending on the particular system, this can be done by clicking the “User Settings” link at the top of the screen  (Lumen OHM)
• On the profile page, you’ll be able to adjust your display preferences for math, graphs, drawing entry, text editor, contrast, and auto-preview.

Recommended screen reader settings:

• Math display: MathJax, which provides the best accessibility available. It can integrate with most screenreaders. In some screen readers, you may need to enable the accessibility features of MathJax by:
  • Right-clicking a math equation (or tab to select it and press Space) to active the menu
  • Navigate to Accessibility, then Explorer, then select Activate.
• Graph display: text alternatives, which will replace graphs with tables or charts.
• Drawing entry: keyboard and text based alternative, which will allow answering of most graphing questions by selecting equation type and using keyboard entry to enter coordinates.
• Text editor: plain text entry, for a simpler text-entry experience, or Rich text editor for more markup options.
• Live Preview: only show a preview when I click the Preview button.  While the default will work fine, this reduces the risk of unnecessary update alerts.

To be able to Zoom settings:

• Math display: MathJax, which will look crisp and clear even when zoomed. It also has built-in capability for showing a zoomed equation when clicked.
• Graph display: SVG, which will look crisp and clear even when zoomed.

Students who have trouble with fine control of the mouse:

• Drawing entry: keyboard and text based alternative, which will allow answering of most graphing questions by selecting equation type and using keyboard entry to enter coordinates, rather than requiring careful entry with a mouse or touch device.

Students with seizures or distraction issues:

• Live Preview: only show a preview when I click the Preview button.  This will disable the default automatic display of a preview while you’re typing an equation, which can be distracting.  The updated area is very small, so unlikely to be a seizure risk, but this option is available if there is concern.

Students needing especially high contrast:

• Course styling and contrast: High contrast dark on light.  While all themes are designed to meet the AA requirements, this will override the instructor-chosen theme with an especially high contrast alternative.

MyOpenMath runs on the open source, IMathAS platform. IMathAS is primarily a web-based math assessment tool for delivery and automatic grading of math homework and tests.

• All functions are accessible via keyboard.
• Students have the option for basic keyboard entry of answers or graphical palette.
• Text-based alternatives are available for graph entry.
• Community-based support is available through open support forums and training videos.
• MyOpenMath does not provide direct support for instructors or students.

Using the Accessibility Features

Accessibility options can be enabled by viewing the User Profile page. On the profile page, you’ll be able to adjust your display preferences for math, graphs, drawing entry, text editor, contrast, and auto-preview. Depending on the particular system, this can be done by one of the following:

• Clicking your name in the upper right corner of the screen  (MyOpenMath & WAMAP)
• Clicking the “User Settings” link at the top of the screen  (Lumen OHM)
• Clicking the “Change User Info” link on the home page  (Default IMathAS)

Screen Reader recommended settings:

• Math display: MathJax, which provides the best accessibility available. It can integrate with most screenreaders. In some screen readers, you may need to enable the accessibility features of MathJax by:
  • Right-clicking a math equation (or tab to select it and press Space) to active the menu
  • Either:
    • Navigate to Accessibility, then select Assistive MathML, if you want to use your screen reader’s built-in MathML reader
    • Navigate to Accessibility, then Explorer, then select Activate, to use MathJax’s math reader.
    • You will need to experiment to determine which works best with your screen reader.
• Graph display: text alternatives, which will replace graphs with tables or other alternative.
  • Drawing entry: keyboard and text based alternative, which will allow answering of most graphing questions by selecting equation type and using keyboard entry to enter coordinates.
  • Text editor: plain text entry, for a simpler text-entry experience, or Rich text editor for more markup options.
  • Live Preview: only show a preview when I click the Preview button.  While the default will work fine, this reduces the risk of unnecessary update alerts.

Zoom recommended settings:

• Math display: MathJax, which will look crisp and clear even when zoomed. It also has built-in capability for showing a zoomed equation when clicked.
• Graph display: SVG, which will look crisp and clear even when zoomed.

Trouble with fine control of the mouse:

• Drawing entry: keyboard and text based alternative, which will allow answering of most graphing questions by selecting equation type and using keyboard entry to enter coordinates, rather than requiring careful entry with a mouse or touch device.

Students with seizures or distraction issues:

• Live Preview: only show a preview when I click the Preview button.  This will disable the default automatic display of a preview while you’re typing an equation, which can be distracting.  The updated area is very small, so unlikely to be a seizure risk, but this option is available if there is concern.

Students needing especially high contrast:

• Course styling and contrast: High contrast dark on light.  While all themes are designed to meet the AA requirements, this will override the instructor-chosen theme with an especially high contrast alternative.

-- Source: MyOpenMath Help and MyOpenMath / WAMAP / IMathAS Accessibility