[Athen] Accessibility tips for foreign language faculty

[Kara Zirkle]

We have had several meetings in the past with our foreign language department due to a couple students who were blind taking classes.  It is a very visual course.  Though we were not able to find a fully accessible solution we had some very unique work arounds.  Contact our office on the main line to get more details:  703-993-4329.  Most of our office is traveling this week for AHG.

Regards, 

Kara Zirkle
IT Accessibility Coordinator
http://ati.gmu.edu
@AccessibleMason
703-993-9815


-----Original Message-----
From: athen-list [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman13.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Thompson, Rachel
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2015 10:12 AM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Accessibility tips for foreign language faculty

Thanks for all the suggestions! I will incorporate them into out materials for the meeting and will post them online, sharing the link once it is live. 

See you in Westminster, I hope. 

Rachel 

Dr. Rachel S. Thompson
Director, Emerging Technology
Center for Instructional Technology
University of Alabama


> On Nov 13, 2015, at 7:17, "Jeffrey Dell" <jeffreydell99 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 

> I agree with Joe that having the prooffing language and the language 

> set in the code for the web pages is critical.

> One problem that I have noticed with online modules for foreign 

> language materials is very colorful graphics with text embedded in 

> them.  Usually the color schemes are very low contrast.  If it is just 

> colors specified in the coding then student can change browser 

> settings to compensate.

> Materials that come from the publisher in PDF usually do not have the 

> language set to anything but English or had not been run through OCR 

> engines to recognize multiple languages contained in the documents.

> In those cases the screen reader or TTS just reads gibberish.  For 

> multiple language documents PDF documents are much harder to remediate 

> than Word.

> Many of the professors in our classes create their own handouts or 

> their own PowerPoints and use the IME keyboards in Windows to type the 

> content.  This creates the basics of a great document for the student 

> to read.  The key is for professors to keep the original document and 

> to give access to it for the student.  The second part of that last 

> sentence would seem to be obvious but some professors do not like 

> giving their documents to anyone electronically.  That causes some 

> unnecessary arguments.

> Jeff

> 

> 

>> On 11/12/15, Humbert, Joe <johumber at iu.edu> wrote:

>> Hi Rachel,

>> 

>> 

>> *         Make sure the primary/default human language for each document,

>> website, etc. is specified (WCAG 2.0 Understanding SC

>> 3.1.1<http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/meaning-doc-lang-id.h

>> tml>)

>> 

>> *         Make sure changes in languages for parts of "documents" are

>> specified. (WCAG 2.0 Understanding SC

>> 3.1.2<http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/meaning-other-lang-id

>> .html>)

>> 

>> 

>> 

>> The links I have provided have links to techniques for both websites 

>> and other types of documents.

>> 

>> 

>> 

>> I assume specifying the language of parts of a document would be 

>> extremely important as there are bound to be multilingual documents 

>> (e.g., English and Spanish mixed).

>> 

>> 

>> Thankx,

>>   Joe

>> 

>> Joe Humbert

>> Principal Accessibility Analyst

>> Assistive Technology and Accessibility Centers University Information 

>> Technology Services Indiana University, IUPUI IT 210F

>> (317) 274-4378

>> johumber at iu.edu<mailto:johumber at iu.edu>

>> http://atac.iu.edu<http://atac.iu.edu/>

>> 

>> -----Original Message-----

>> From: athen-list 

>> [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman13.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of 

>> Thompson, Rachel

>> Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2015 12:42 PM

>> To: Access Technology Higher Education Network 

>> <athen-list at u.washington.edu>

>> Subject: [Athen] Accessibility tips for foreign language faculty

>> 

>> 

>> 

>> Hi, all.

>> 

>> 

>> 

>> Our area is soon meeting with a group of faculty from the modern 

>> languages and classics department regarding ways to make their course 

>> materials more accessibility from the outset.  Do you have any 

>> foreign language specific suggestions?

>> 

>> 

>> 

>> Some topics we will address include discussing accessibility with 

>> publishers (and asking my team to evaluate the responses), making 

>> sure web content, PDFs, and office docs are accessible (via NCDAE 

>> cheatsheets and workshops and assistance we offer), and keeping 

>> communications lines with students open. We will also include info 

>> about working with our campus disability services team.

>> 

>> 

>> 

>> Any ideas you have would e much appreciated, Rachel

>> 

>> 

>> 

>> Dr. Rachel S. Thompson

>> 

>> Director, Emerging Technology

>> 

>> Center for Instructional Technology

>> 

>> University of Alabama

>> 

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>> 

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