Launch of UCEM Accessibility Awareness Course

I have been running accessibility awareness webinars and workshops at UCEM with my colleague Graham for almost two years now. We had great feedback from participants in these sessions. But I felt there was something missing. The missing bit was that there was no place where people could quickly refer back, to find relevant information if they wanted to. For example, if you wanted to check colour contrast but forgot the website that was introduced you had to go on Google to find it. But then again there are a lot of details on technical stuff on accessibility and it may not be the right level people want it at. UCEM Online Education blog addressed some of the topics but it wasn’t quite the place for all of it to be collated.

Accessibility Awareness Badge
Accessibility Awareness Badge

I have tried to bring together just enough information on the topics relevant with extra reading and links for people who are interested in understanding more about accessibility. The course consists of several topics:

  • How we view disability
  • Assistive technologies
  • Web accessibility and standards
  • Colour
  • Document structure
  • Images
  • Video and audio
  • Links
  • Tables
  • Check accessibility
  • Reflection
  • Additional information

Some topic areas contain quizzes that allow participants to earn an open badge if they achieve 100%. To be fair we are allowing three attempts. Once a participant has completed all seven milestone badges and provided a reflection of their learning and their future plans to support accessibility at UCEM, they can earn the final badge, Accessibility Awareness. These badges are valid for two years from the date of issuing.

Milestone Badges to be earned in the Accessibility Awareness Course

This course is the culmination of years of Accessibility Research work that was done by the Online Learning Research Centre at UCEM. The course has had input from the Online Education Team and I want to thank everyone who provided feedback to improve it. I really hope the course will help to further increase accessibility awareness at UCEM.

The course launch is on the 11th November and we look forward to getting our colleagues’ feedback on the course. Perhaps after getting feedback and improving it further we could provide the whole course with CC licenses so that anyone can use this course content to improve accessibility awareness in their institutions.