Saturday, December 17, 2016

Students with Disabilities Meet Challenges with Online Courses, Accessibility Improvements - Beth Salamon, Rutgers

According to the Americans ​with Disabilities Act, online courses must be made accessible to students with disabilities, but it’s up to individual schools to establish their own online standards. At Rutgers, a universal design committee was established to speak with students like Etori and research the best ways to make online courses the most accessible for all students, as well as those with disabilities. This universitywide committee, led by Rutgers Center for Online and Hybrid Learning & Instructional Technologies, consists of faculty, staff and administrators in Camden, Newark and New Brunswick who are active in the online education space. The guidelines created by the committee will help faculty design better online courses, says Antonius Bittmann, associate vice president of online programs. They cover everything from using certain fonts that are more legible on screen to using headings in the correct style for screen readers to be able to decipher the information. All course material should be accessible in different ways, whether through audio or video or text. http://news.rutgers.edu/feature/students-disabilities-meet-challenges-online-courses-accessibility-improvements/20161130#.WEV2a9IrLow