What Is It?
Accessibility tools relate to software that Carleton has access to to help you create course materials and other digital documents (Google Docs, Word documents, slides, PDFs, Moodle pages, etc.) that work for for every user, including those using a screen reader, screen magnification, or other assistive technology. As set forth by the Department of Justice’s ADA Title II rule, the benchmark for this is WCAG 2.1 AA, which is a set of technical standards that define a level of accessibility for digital or web content. For more information about this at Carleton, please visit Carleton’s Accessibility site.
Why is this useful?
Accessible documents help more people than you might expect. Clear heading structure lets a screen reader user jump straight to the section they need, but it also lets anyone skimming a long reading on their phone find what they are looking for without scrolling through the whole document. Alt text describes an image for someone who can’t see it, and it’s also what shows up if an image fails to load or someone is reading on a slow connection. Descriptive link text and well-tagged PDFs matter for assistive technology, but they also mean a document opens cleanly and reads the same way no matter what device or software someone’s using. Creating an accessible document, video, or site of any kind, means every user gets that content accessible to all of them regardless of the device(s) they use.
How to Get Started?
Checking a document against WCAG 2.1 AA by hand isn’t realistic in many situations or for many people, because of volume and complexity. Carleton has access to two add-on tools that can speed up the review process by reviewing files and suggesting remediation strategies.
- Ally, built into Moodle, checks a variety of file types once they are uploaded into Moodle. Ally will also check any content you put into the text editor in a Moodle page.
- Grackle checks Google Docs, Slides, or Sheets.
Additionally, some of our other software we use to create content have built-in accessibility checkers (ex. Moodle, MS Word, MS PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat Pro).
Below you will find clickable tiles to bring you to more information about these options.