Accessibility Starts at the Syllabus
A syllabus can be many things: an explainer, an itinerary, a calendar. Depending on how it’s written, a syllabus can help students feel not just included, but welcomed. Why not spend a bit more time making sure all students feel welcome?
Accessibility helps everyone. For example, adding headings not only helps students who need screen readers, it also makes things easier to skim. Making sure that PDFs are documents and not just scanned images will help you if you need to copy and paste text elsewhere.
Ultimately, accessibility shows that you care. It’s one thing to include a statement as such on your syllabus; it’s another to prove that through an accessible document, image or video. Here are some tips on making your syllabus — even a nontraditional one — more accessible.
Use Headings and Lists
Whether your syllabus is a Word document, a PDF or a “living” Google doc, there are ways to add headings. When written, a heading might just look like slightly bigger text, a visual cue to set it apart from the rest of the text. Just making the font bigger doesn’t help with accessibility, though.
In your word processor, highlight your heading text and change it to a heading style. There are several heading types, each with a number. Heading 1, or h1, is the biggest and should be used for your title. Heading 2, or h2, is used for subheadings.
If you don’t want headings to look different from the rest of the text, you can sometimes change the style to reflect that. Keeping your headings visually different will help with quick browsing, but it’s the underlying code that’s important for your students using screen readers. Without the heading style, they won’t be able to navigate your syllabus.
Headings aren’t the only way text is set apart by code. Lists, for example, aren’t just nice to look at. When you use bullets to create an unnumbered list or numbers to create a numbered list, a computer will recognize that those items should be grouped together. Using emoji for lists can be cute, but it’s unfortunately inaccessible.
Use Alt Text
Alt text, or alternative text, describes what an image or table looks like. A screen reader will let students know if there’s an image, but without alt text it won’t be able to say what’s in it. This is true whether your syllabus is in a file or on a website.
To write alt text, describe the image as if you were telling someone in another room about it. Don’t add anything unnecessary, or any information that someone wouldn’t get if they didn’t see the alt text. You want the experience for all your students to be the same.
Alt text isn’t just for pictures, either. If you use a table — and syllabi are often filled with tables, as they are a great way to organize assignments and due dates — you’ll want to make sure the table has alt text and specific header information. This will ensure that screen readers can navigate the data.
Use Accessible Fonts and Colors
Some fonts are more accessible than others. It’s true that in some cases, like with a learning management system, you might be stuck with a default font. Even so, you can use certain types of fonts to make things easier to read. For example, Arial and other sans serif fonts may be helpful for dyslexic readers.
For students with colorblindness, some color schemes make things hard to read. Like emoji lists, color palettes can be a fun way to liven up an otherwise boring document. Just consider how you’re using color. Color shouldn’t be a sole means of conveying information. Font styles like boldface or italics should be used as well, giving students different means of accessing the same information.
Are you using green and red to let students know what and what not to do? Are you using lots of pastel colors? Do you have banner images that are low contrast? If you’ve answered yes to any of these questions, your syllabus might be inaccessible.
Caption (and Describe) Any Videos
Some syllabi include more than just text and images. Some syllabi have videos, either linked or embedded. These videos can be greetings, classroom tours or even teasers for course content.
While fun, videos need to be accessible for all students. At minimum, they need captions. The captions can be burned in (open captions) or toggleable (closed captions). This makes video accessible to everyone, from deaf and hard-of-hearing students to non-native English speakers and more.
You should also consider audio description, particularly if your videos include a lot of imagery. Audio description, as the name suggests, provides a description of what’s in the video, similar to alt text. This can be difficult to implement due to the need for an extra audio track, but in some cases, just including a different video might help. There are also specialized tools you can use.
Further Resources
If you only include the above (headings, alt text and captions), then you’ll be able to reach most of your students. If you want to go further, however, there are lots of resources available online. Here are some sites to check out:
- Posts on Tech-Based Teaching under the “Accessibility” tag have more details about all of the above.
- Accessible Syllabus is a page that looks at syllabus accessibility not only from technological accessibility, but accessible language as well.
- Resources like the Duke Accessible Syllabus Project show accessibility principles in practice, including rhetorical strategies and inclusive policies.
Jesika Brooks
Jesika Brooks is an editor and bookworm with a Master of Library and Information Science degree. She works in the field of higher education as an educational technology librarian, assisting with everything from setting up Learning Management Systems to teaching students how to use edtech tools. A lifelong learner herself, she has always been fascinated by the intersection of education and technology. She edits the Tech-Based Teaching blog (and always wants to hear from new voices!).
