No matter how well you plan your digital learning, you can’t possibly know what every user might want to do with it. Or in fact what kinds of devices they may be using to access it.
This is especially true with accessibility, where tutors and learners often need to find alternative routes through their online resources to help students learn from them
Old-school e-learning made this more complicated than it needed to be by not publicising the thinking that went on during development, believing that learners and tutors did not need to know. But accessibility champions have been changing this, arguing that if tutors can understand a bit more of the technical thinking that went on, they can use the materials in new ways.
The Accessibility Passport from JISC TechDis (due to be launched shortly) will offer exactly this - encouraging e-learning development teams to publicise their thinking, outline in-built accessibility features in a resource, and highlight any specific areas which may be problematic for some users. The online passport will also provide an opportunity for learners to give feedback - so that the current e-learning assets can be used more creatively and future resources be developed more inclusively.
To quote the techdis team directly:
“The Accessibility Passport has been developed to enable a dialogue
between the specifier, developer, tester (including teacher/tutor) and user (student) of software or learning objects in development. By stating the original brief, the specifier can express what accessibility requirements were, or were not, expected to be included. The developer can outline any accessibility features
built in and any user testing undertaken. Crucially users of the software or learning object (teachers and learners) can communicate their experiences back into the development process for future modifications or adaptations.”
The Tribal team are very proud to be part of the early trials, and look forward to its imminent release
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