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Accessing Higher Ground Accessible Media, Web & Technology Conference Presented by AHEAD in collaboration with ATHEN

Accessing Higher Ground Virtual Conference 2019—you’re invited!

The Center for Instructional Technology is happy to host the Accessing Higher Ground Virtual Conference, and you’re invited! Sessions from all five days of the conference will be streamed live in A232 and A342 Gordon Palmer Hall, Monday, November 18–Friday, November 22. Drop by for a session or stay for the entire event, and feel free to bring your lunch (and your friends!). Registration is not required.

Accessing Higher Ground focuses on the implementation and benefits of:

  • Accessible media, Universal Design and Assistive Technology in the university, business and public setting;
  • Legal and policy issues, including ADA and 508 compliance;
  • The creation of accessible media and information resources, including Web pages and library resources.

There is a strong focus on campus accommodation, universal design, and curriculum accessibility as well as best practices for web design, reaching untapped audiences through accessible design, and compliance with existing and anticipated Section 508 and ADA stipulations.

A complete agenda is available on the conference website. As the schedule is subject to change, please check for updates before making the trip to Gordon Palmer. Times on the conference site are in Mountain Time; Central Time is one hour ahead.

Upcoming accessibility-related learning opportunities

We’re compiling our team’s favorite sources for accessibility news and professional development opportunities to add to the collection of Accessibility Resources on our website. Let us know if there are organizations, listservs, social media accounts, etc. you find particularly useful, and we’ll add them to the list.

Here are some upcoming accessibility-related learning opportunities:

Read more

Fall 2019 Technology Accessibility Workshops

The Technology Accessibility team invites you to enhance your technology accessibility skills by participating in these workshops and webinars. Starting this semester, we are proud to partner with HR Learning and Development to offer workshop/webinar registration via UA LMS, the new online learning system for faculty and staff. Register for workshops/webinars via the links here, or view the entire Accessibility instructor-led training catalog in UA LMS: UA LMS Instructor-Led Training: Accessibility

We are also happy to offer private training sessions on these and other accessibility-related topics to members of the University community. Please contact us if we can help with your technology accessibility needs.

Read more

Updated Texthelp tools

Updated versions of two Texthelp tools, Read&Write and EquatIO, are now available on the OIT website, along with updated installation instructions: Texthelp in the OIT software catalog

Texthelp offers a collection of Mac and PC desktop software, Google Chrome apps and extensions, and iOS and Android apps that support reading, writing, language learning and STEM subjects. Texthelp tools freely available to all UA students, faculty and staff include: Read&Write, a literacy support toolbar with supports for reading, writing, research, and studying; EquatIO, an application you can use to type, handwrite, or speak to create equations, formulas, and other math and chemistry expressions; and Snapverter, an easy to use add-on for Read&Write for Google Chrome and iOS app that transforms papers and files into readable PDF documents.

Video: Introduction to using Read&Write at University

Video: Introducing EquatIO® – Make Math Digital. Make Math Together

Video: Introduction to Snapverter – An Add-On for Read&Write

AHEAD Equity & Excellence: Access in Higher Education

AHEAD 2019 Virtual Conference—you’re invited!

The Office of Disability Services and the Center for Instructional Technology’s Technology Accessibility team are happy to host the Association on Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD) 2019 Virtual Conference, and you’re invited! The conference’s Opening Plenary address and a dozen concurrent sessions and featured presentations will be streamed live in A232 and A342 Gordon Palmer Hall, Thursday, July 11–Friday, July 12. Drop by for a session or stay for the entire event, and feel free to bring your lunch (and your friends!). Registration is not required.

AHEAD is the leading professional membership association for individuals committed to equity for persons with disabilities in higher education. AHEAD’s annual international conference is the organization’s hallmark event and draws attendees from around the world. Participants and presenters come from diverse fields, including education, technology, law, scholarship, and government, but share a common interest in fostering equitable higher education experiences for individuals with disabilities.

Read more

Summer 2019 Technology Accessibility Workshops

The Technology Accessibility team invites you to enhance your technology accessibility skills by participating in these workshops this summer:

  • Accessibility Office Hours and Work Session
    Bring your accessibility questions or work to improve the accessibility of your digital content. We’re here to help!
    • Thursday, June 27, 2:00 p.m.
    • Thursday, July 25, 2:00 p.m.
  • Advanced PDF Accessibility: Forms
    Participants in this hands-on workshop will learn techniques for creating accessible PDF forms with Adobe Acrobat Pro DC.
    Tuesday, August 6, 2:00 p.m.
  • Advanced PDF Accessibility: Lists
    Participants in this hands-on workshop will learn how to correctly tag PDF lists using Adobe Acrobat Pro DC.
    Thursday, August 1, 2:00 p.m.
  • Advanced PDF Accessibility: Scanned Documents
    Participants in this hands-on workshop will learn how to use Adobe Acrobat Pro DC to correct accessibility issues in a PDF created by scanning a document.
    Thursday, July 18, 2:00 p.m.
  • Advanced PDF Accessibility: Tables
    Participants in this hands-on workshop will learn how to correctly tag PDF tables using Adobe Acrobat Pro DC.
    Tuesday, July 30, 2:00 p.m.
  • Creating Accessible PDFs with Adobe Acrobat Pro DC
    Participants in this introductory hands-on workshop will learn how to use Adobe Acrobat Pro DC to create accessible PDFs from Microsoft Office content.
    Tuesday, June 18, 2:00 p.m.
  • Creating Accessible PDFs with Adobe InDesign CC
    Participants in this hands-on workshop will learn how to export an InDesign file as a tagged PDF and other accessibility considerations for InDesign.
    Thursday, August 8, 2:00 p.m.
  • Creating Accessible Social Media Content
    Learn how to create Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media content accessible to users with disabilities.
    Monday, July 22, 9:00 a.m.
  • Creating Accessible Social Media Content (webinar)
    Learn how to create Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media content accessible to users with disabilities.
    Monday, June 10, 9:00 a.m.
  • Designing for Accessibility
    Learn the importance of designing for accessibility and impactful practices you can apply to create accessible documents, images, audio, video, and web content.
    Thursday, June 6, 2:00 p.m.
  • Designing for Accessibility (webinar)
    Learn the importance of designing for accessibility and impactful practices you can apply to create accessible documents, images, audio, video, and web content.
    Monday, June 24, 9:00 a.m.
  • Interpreting AMP Tests and Reports
    Learn how to navigate and understand accessibility testing results documented in an AMP Report.
    Thursday, July 11, 2:00 p.m.
  • Introduction to AMP
    Learn about UA’s Accessibility Management Platform (AMP), a comprehensive accessibility and reporting tool freely available to members of the UA community.
    Tuesday, June 4, 2:00 p.m.
  • Manual Testing in AMP
    Learn how to use Access Assistant, a browser toolbar integrated with AMP, to perform guided manual accessibility testing.
    Tuesday, July 9, 2:00 p.m.
  • PDF Remediation Basics
    Participants in this hands-on workshop will learn how to use Adobe Acrobat Pro DC to correct basic tagging issues in a PDF.
    Tuesday, July 2, 2:00 p.m.

All classroom workshops are held in A232 Gordon Palmer. Registration is requested but not required.

We are also happy to offer private training sessions on these and other accessibility-related topics to members of the University community. Please contact us if we can help with your technology accessibility needs.

PDF Accessibility Sessions Added

We’ve added several opportunities to learn about PDF accessibility in April and May. Enhance your ability to create accessible PDFs by participating in these workshops and webinars:

  • Creating Accessible PDFs with Adobe Acrobat Pro DC (webinar)
    This session covers how to use Adobe Acrobat Pro DC to create PDFs that are accessible to people with disabilities: what it means for a PDF to be accessible; generating accessible PDFs from Microsoft Office and other applications; and using Acrobat’s Accessibility Checker and Make Accessible Action Wizard to evaluate the accessibility of a PDF and make basic accessibility fixes.
    Thursday, Apr. 11, 2019, 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
  • Creating Accessible PDFs with Adobe Acrobat Pro DC
    This session covers how to use Adobe Acrobat Pro DC to create PDFs that are accessible to people with disabilities: what it means for a PDF to be accessible; generating accessible PDFs from Microsoft Office and other applications; and using Acrobat’s Accessibility Checker and Make Accessible Action Wizard to evaluate the accessibility of a PDF and make basic accessibility fixes.
    Tuesday, April 16, 2019, 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
  • Advanced PDF Accessibility with Adobe Acrobat Pro DC: Scanned Documents, Tables, and Lists (webinar)
    You’ve mastered the basics of creating accessible PDFs, but what about more complex documents? This session covers advanced techniques such as working with scanned documents, complex tables, and complex lists. You are welcome to submit challenging PDF content in advance so we can address it during the session.
    Monday, April 22, 2019, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
  • Advanced PDF Accessibility with Adobe Acrobat Pro DC: Scanned Documents, Tables, and Lists
    You’ve mastered the basics of creating accessible PDFs, but what about more complex documents? This session covers advanced techniques such as working with scanned documents, complex tables, and complex lists. You are welcome to submit challenging PDF content in advance so we can address it during the session.
    Tuesday, April 23, 2019, 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
  • Advanced PDF Accessibility with Adobe Acrobat Pro DC: Forms (webinar)
    This session covers how to use Adobe Acrobat Pro DC to create accessible PDF forms: adding fillable form fields and field descriptions, tagging, setting the set tab order, and other PDF form accessibility tasks.
    Monday, April 29, 2019, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
  • Advanced PDF Accessibility with Adobe Acrobat Pro DC: Forms
    This session covers how to use Adobe Acrobat Pro DC to create accessible PDF forms: adding fillable form fields and field descriptions, tagging, setting the set tab order, and other PDF form accessibility tasks.
    Tuesday, April 30, 2019, 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
  • Creating Accessible PDFs with Adobe InDesign CC (webinar)
    Be it a handout, flyer, poster, article, or other digital content, it’s important to ensure your InDesign document is accessible to people with disabilities. This session covers using InDesign and Acrobat to create an accessible PDF: tagging and ordering content, identifying and describing images and other non-text content, selecting the most accessible export options, and using Adobe Acrobat Pro DC to touch up the exported file.
    Monday, May 6, 2019, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
  • Creating Accessible PDFs with Adobe InDesign CC 
    You’ve mastered the basics of creating accessible PDFs, but what about more complex documents? This session covers advanced techniques such as working with scanned documents, complex tables, and complex lists. You are welcome to submit challenging PDF content in advance so we can address it during the session.
    Tuesday, May 7, 2019, 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

All classroom workshops are held in A232 Gordon Palmer. Registration is requested.

We are also happy to offer private training sessions on these and other accessibility-related topics to members of the University community. Please contact us if we can help with your technology accessibility needs.

What’s new on Rev

As part of the University of Alabama’s Technology Accessibility Initiative, the Technology Accessibility team administers captioning grants that may be used to and/or transcribe UA-owned video and audio that will be shared on public or campus-wide websites. Rev, the captioning vendor with whom we contract, recently announced these new features. Logged-in UA Rev.com users can access these and future updates via the notifications tab in the top menu bar.

All Transcripts Synced to Audio

Published by Rev on March 4, 2019

Reviewing transcripts alongside audio or video can be difficult sometimes. A quick distraction can cause you to completely forget where you were in the text! Then you have to take your best guess at scrubbing the video back to where you were.. equally frustrating.

It happens, we feel you – that’s why we built read-along tracking into every new transcript you order. Now words are highlighted on the transcript as they are spoken in the media player, and scrubbing the audio/video brings the highlight along with it. Let yourself get distracted, the Rev Editor has your back!

Try it out on an example file

Add Insightful Comments in Rev’s Transcript Editor

Published by Rev on March 12, 2019

Do you want to leave in-line comments on your transcript for your teammates & clients? Do you keep notes in the Rev Editor, but wish they were more specific to a certain segment?

Even if you don’t use the Rev Transcript Editor (we see you downloaders..), here’s great reason to start: you can now leave comments in-line with your transcripts! Take a look at how it works below:

Go to Rev Transcript Editor

10 Ways to Make The University of Alabama More Accessible: A Video Collaboration

In Fall 2018, Honors College freshmen from Rick Dowling’s UH 155: Public Service Post-Production course created a video called “10 Ways to Make The University of Alabama More Accessible.” After receiving guidance from the Technology Accessibility team, the class was presented with the challenge of creating a video based on a script we provided. The class’s groups created a total of five versions of the video, and we are happy to share our favorite here.

Heading to the Faculty Technology Showcase? Rick will discuss the video collaboration during the 11:00 a.m. hour. We hope to see you there!

Happy New Year from the Technology Accessibility Team

Happy New Year! We’re excited to share some news with you as we start a new year and a new semester.

Faculty Resource Center Spring 2019 Workshop Registration is now open! This semester, the Technology Accessibility team will offer workshops and webinars on web accessibility; best practices for creating accessible documents, presentations, spreadsheets, emails, and social media content; and Universal Design for Learning, a set of curriculum development principles that give all individuals equal opportunities to learn. New this semester are Accessibility Testing with NVDA (2/27) and Accessibility Testing with VoiceOver (3/21), workshops in which participants will learn how to use free screen reader programs to test the accessibility of digital content.

We are especially looking forward to our Texthelp expert trainer visit on Wednesday, February 13. Texthelper Kimberly Nix will provide comprehensive introductions to Read&Write for Google Chrome and Read&Write for Windows, literacy support solutions with tools for reading, writing, research, and studying. Read&Write is freely available to all UA students, faculty, and staff on campus and personal machines, as are two additional Texthelp tools: EquatIO, an application you can use to type, handwrite, or speak to create equations, formulas, and other math and chemistry expressions; and Snapverter, an easy to use add-on for Read&Write for Google Chrome and iOS app that transforms papers and files into readable PDF documents. Register online for these and other technology accessibility workshops and other workshops offered by the Faculty Resource Center.

A couple of additional learning opportunities in which you may be interested:

  • Microsoft is offering a new series of free Accessibility Learning Webinars, the goal of which is to share the latest technology and accessibility features across Microsoft products and help answer common accessibility questions. Upcoming webinars include Narrator 101 (1/16), Magnifier and Low Vision Features in Windows 10 (2/20), and Navigating the New Office Ribbon (3/20).
  • Also from Microsoft, the newly-created Empower every student with an inclusive classroom course enables educators of all subject areas to learn about Microsoft Learning Tools and practice creating accessible learning environments Windows 10 and Office 365. The course is free and is part of Microsoft’s Inclusive Classroom Learning Path.

Keep up with us throughout the semester by following our UA11y News blog, the Technology Accessibility Facebook page, and the UATechAccess Twitter account.

As always, thanks for your efforts in making UA a more inclusive and accessible campus! Best wishes for a great semester, and please contact us if we can help with your technology accessibility needs.