A Practical Digital Accessibility Check for Learning Materials — from educationtechnologysolutions.com by John Bigelow
A learning resource can be accurate, attractive and impossible for some students to use.
The barrier is often not dramatic. It may be a scanned PDF that cannot be read aloud, a video without captions, a chart whose meaning depends on colour, or a page with headings that only look like headings. Each problem is small at the point of creation and expensive when a student encounters it during a lesson.
Accessibility is therefore best treated as part of preparing the material, not as a repair requested after access has already failed.
Australian educators and education providers have obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and the Disability Standards for Education 2005, including making reasonable adjustments so students with disability can participate and learn on the same basis as other students. The Australian Government provides educator resources explaining those responsibilities.
The following check is not a full accessibility audit. It is a practical first pass that teachers can apply before uploading a document, slide deck, video or LMS page.