As Oregon State University provides remote learning and work environments, we must focus on how to ensure people with disabilities have access to these environments. There are many different considerations to keep in mind.
Main Considerations
- Benefits for all. While digital accessibility is about creating access for disabled individuals, in practice it has wide benefits. Not only do individuals with disabilities gain access to materials, so to do those who; use English as an additional language, have limited technology experience, have older technology or limited internet access, etc.
- Avoid camera phone pictures of handouts.
- Share handouts or documents ahead of time.
- Do not assume that participants can see your screen or read what is on it. Read and describe visuals or other shared screen materials.
- If recording Zoom teaching or meetings, ensure automated captioning for the recordings if human captions are not provided or available. Automated captioning is not perfect and likely will need to be reviewed and edited for accuracy.
- In live teaching and meeting environments, to ensure that all know who is speaking, consider asking participants to restate their names before they comment. Also, consider pacing of your instruction for those with disabilities and others who need more time to process and contemplate communication.