1. Digital Accessibility: an Overview
John Harding
Head of the Disability Resource Centre

2. What am I talking about? What are our duties, under what regulations?
What does this actually mean, and what do we have to do?
What is already happening in the University?
What is already happening in the HE sector?
What needs to happen over the next few years?

3. Our duties: The Equality Act (2010)
The Equality Act places a duty upon HEIs to make reasonable adjustments for staff, students and service users in relation to:
a provision, criteria or practice
physical features
auxiliary aids
Education providers have a duty to make reasonable adjustments to ensure disabled people do not face ‘substantial disadvantage.’
The duty is anticipatory.

4. Our duties: The Equality Act (2010)
10.25: The duties in relation to the provision of education and access to a benefit, facility or service cover all of the services, facilities and benefits, both educational and non-educational, that an institution provides or offers to provide to students. This includes:
libraries, learning centres and information centres and their resources
• information and communication technology and resources
Source: Equality Act 2010, Technical Guidance on Further and Higher Education (EHRC)

5. Our Duties: The UN Convention on the rights of disabled people
The Convention stresses that persons with disabilities should be able to live independently and participate fully in all aspects of life. To this end, States Parties should take appropriate measures to ensure that persons with disabilities have access, to the physical environment, to transportation, and to information and communications technology…

6. Our duties: EU Directive on Web Accessibility
The European Union (EU) Directive on the Accessibility of Websites and Mobile Applications requires EU member states to make sure their websites and mobile apps meet common accessibility standards. The Directive will be transposed into the laws of each EU member state by September
The Directive uses the four principles of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, requiring that public sector organisations across the EU take steps to make sure their websites are “Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust”.
The Directive references EN as the standard which will enable websites and apps to comply with the law. EN is a set of Functional Accessibility requirements broken down into chapters, and chapter 9 on Web Content cites WCAG 2.0 Level AA as the expected standard.

7. Our duties: EU Directive on Web Accessibility
So what does that mean?
APPGAT Report recommends Universities:
Establish working groups to develop a digital accessibility strategy
Audit the accessibility of VLEs and establish an action plan
Set targets for training and raising awareness
Establish and promote a clear Accessibility Statement
Have a clear procedure for students to raise issues concerning inaccessible content and make requests for accessible materials

8. What is happening within the University?
DTLS (Digital Teaching and Learning Strategy) working group
Sub-Committee on Accessibility
UIS Accessibility Committee
Libraries Accessibility Committee
FutureLib
Alternative formats service
Sensus Access
ALLY project

9. What is happening across the HE sector
APPGAT (All Party Parliamentary Group on Assistive Technology)
Report and Guidance
JISC
Aspire project: ‘Making the most of digital’ – e-books accessibility
AbilityNet
NADP (National Association of Disability Practitioners)
Training on digital accessibility

10. What does this mean we have to do?
Produce an accessibility statement
Ensure that websites and VLEs are accessible
Ensure that teaching materials are accessible
Ensure that students have accessible versions of books, e-books and journals/literature
Provide an effective alternative formats service
Raise awareness and provide training ha

11. An inclusive approach – not just about disability
Inclusive design benefits everybody

12. An inclusive approach
Inclusive design benefits everybody

13. Accessible PDF Documents (example from AbilityNet)
Run “Make Accessible” wizard
Add Document Description
Recognize Text using OCR
Detect Form Fields
Set Tab Order Property
Set Reading Language
Add Tags to Document
Set Alternate Text
Add Table header
Check/edit reading order
Hint: It is easier/better to make documents accessible if they are created before converting it to a PDF.
SOURCE:
Creating Accessible PDF Documents In Adobe Acrobat XI
1. Run “Make Accessible” wizard
Select Tools from the upper right corner, then select Action Wizard > Make Accessible from the sidebar. Select Start button.
Add Document Description — Enter a descriptive page Title. Other fields are optional.
Set Open Options — Runs automatically
Recognize Text using OCR — If your PDF is not true text, it will be converted into true text during this step. If you are not sure if your PDF is true text, one easy test is to search for a word that you know occurs in the document. If no results are found, it needs to be converted to text.
Detect Form Fields — Only necessary if your page contains fillable forms.
Set Tab Order Property — Runs automatically
Set Reading Language
Add Tags to Document — PDF “tags” provide accessibility information to screen readers. If your document does not have tags they will be added during this step. You will need to check the quality of these tags later on.
Set Alternate Text — A window will appear that allows you to add alternative text. Use the arrows to move between images and check Decorative figure if the image should be ignored by a screen reader.
Run Accessibility Full Check — This checker will show additional issues. Right click errors and warnings and select Fix to address the issues, Skip Rule if the issue has been addressed, and Explain to read online help.
2. Add/Change tags
The TouchUp Reading Order tool allows a user to quickly add and edit PDF tags and view the reading order of elements on the page. To edit tags, do the following.
From the right-hand menu, select Tools.
Then select Accessibility > TouchUp Reading Order. If the Accessibility option is not listed, use the Options button to check Accessibility on the menu.
When selected, the view on the screen changes. All of the content is enclosed in numbered boxes. Each of these boxes represents a tag and the number corresponds with the reading order in the Order panel.
Select the Structure Types radio button. The page will now display tag types instead of reading order.
Within the TouchUp Reading Order window you will notice a group of buttons with the names of several common tags. You can use these buttons to assign tags to selected text or objects. Use the Text button for body text and the Heading 1-6 buttons to assign correct heading levels.
You can also add/edit the following tags in the TouchUp Reading Order tool:
Images
Tag a part of the page as an image, drag a box around the image and select the Figure button.
To add or change alternative text, Right click on the image, select Edit Alternate Text.
Enter the appropriate alternative text in the dialog box.
Table headers
Select a table and then select Table Inspector. Table header cells will be identified in red.
Select a table or cell by dragging a box through the cells (not around them or you might select additional cells). Right click on a selected cell(s) and choose Table Cell Properties. A dialog box will appear.
If the selected cell(s) needs to be tagged as a header, select the Header Cell option and assign a scope of either Row or Column.
Move items to/from the background
Select an element you wish to move to the background (i.e., it will be ignored by a screen reader) and press the background button. This may include repetitive headers or footers.
If a part of the page is not in a gray box then it is already in the background. If it should be read by a screen reader, select the item and press the appropriate button (e.g., Text, Heading 1-6, Figure).
3. Check/edit reading order
The TouchUp Reading order tool can also allow you to change the reading order of the page content so it matches the visual reading order.
Select the Page Content Order radio button. Reading order will now be displayed in the page instead of tag type.
Select Show Order Panel. The Order Panel will appear in the left sidebar with numbers that correspond to the numbers in the page.
To change the reading order of an element in this panel, click and drag the tag to the location that reflects the correct reading order.