Accessibility in a Moodle Course
Moodle as a platform has made an effort to make itself as accessible as possible. While not perfect it is one of the more accessible learning management systems available. There are steps below an instructor may take to make the materials in a course more accessible.
Alt Text
Alt text is descriptive text that is attached to images on the web and can be read by screen readers. Adding this information to any images you upload to Moodle makes them more accessible.
Text Formatting
The use of styles makes the page content accessible to screen readers. Use styles in the text editor to format the page text. Use the heading styles to format headings for major sections and subsections of the text. This applies not only to Moodle, but to MS Word and Google Docs as well. The image on the right shows the options available in the Moodle Atto HTML editor.
Captioning and Transcription
Captioning of video and transcription of audio materials can make them more accessible to every student, but is critical for students who need it. There are options within Google Docs for speech-to-text transcription.
While not perfect using this can save a large amount of time.Instructional Technology has access to a captioning service that may be leveraged in an instructor has video that needs to be captioned. Turn around time for this service depends greatly on the length and complexity of the source material, but files generally are available within 10 business days from submission. If you have students who need materials to be captioned please contact Instructional Technology well in advance of when you will need the materials.
HTML Editor
Moodle's Atto HTML editor has an accessibility checker built in. This tool will review the content you have added and determine if the content can be read by a screen reader. The image below illustrates where the button is located on the tool bar. You will also notice that colors are limited in this editor. This is by design, to help make content as accessible as possible. The editor will also require the addition of alt-text for any images that are added (unless the description is not necessary check-box is selected).