Posted on No Comments on Zoom Live Captions Are Here!

Zoom Live Captions Are Here!

Just in time for the spring ’21 semester, Zoom has released live automatic speech recognition (ASR) captions for meetings and webinars! That means you no longer have to rely on workaround solutions like Google Slides or PowerPoint 365 as we previously recommended.

To start using live ASR captions in Zoom meetings and webinars, you’ll first need to go to the settings page of your Zoom account.

On the Settings page, select ‘In Meeting (Advanced)‘ in the menubar.

Find the setting labeled ‘Closed captioning‘ and make sure it’s toggled ON.

Next, select the checkbox labeled ‘Enable live transcription service to show transcript on the side panel in-meeting.’ Be sure to select the ‘Save‘ button after making the change.

Zoom live captions setting.

Note that any changes you make to your Zoom account won’t take effect until the next time you start a meeting or webinar. Any in-progress meetings need to be ended and restarted before the changes are available.

The next time you start a Zoom meeting or webinar you will see a button labeled ‘Live Transcript.’

Enable Auto-Transcription setting.

IMPORTANT: You must manually ‘Enable Auto-Transcription‘ each time you start a meeting to ensure that your meeting participants can use the closed captions.

Once the host enables auto-transcription, each attendee can choose to show or hide the closed captions. Everyone can customize the size of caption text by selecting ‘Subtitle settings.’ Each attendee can also drag the caption box to reposition it anywhere in the meeting window.

Floating caption box is moveable.

Live captions are included in cloud recordings and are fully editable too. See our KB article about editing Zoom captions for more information.

 

 

Posted on No Comments on Recap: October ’20 Workshops, Better Late Than Never.

Recap: October ’20 Workshops, Better Late Than Never.

Website Update

I’ll lead with some really BIG NEWS. We finally launched phase one of the Access @ Rice website. It’s still very much a work in progress, but I’d love for you to check it out and send me your feedback!

We are trying to model accessible best practices that anyone can adopt. For the sake of transparency, we’re still working on a couple of important issues:

  • Adding Skip Nav links (to bypass the hamburger menu for keyboard-only users).
  • Responsive containers and images (resizing on smaller screens).

October Workshops Recap

Thanks to everyone who helped make the October accessibility workshop series a smashing success 🎉 <party popper>! I’m already planning the next series of workshops after the Thanksgiving holiday.

In the meantime, here are some numbers from the October series:

  • 5 workshop topics.
  • 19 sessions from October 5 to October 30.
  • About 100 total attendees in all workshops.
  • About 50 unique attendees.

I’m so impressed by your dedication to making Rice a more inclusive place for all!

Shareable Resources

Feel free to share the following workshop links with anyone and everyone! Unfortunately, I didn’t record every session and I haven’t had a chance to clean up all of the captions yet 🙁 <frown>.

  1. Intro to Digital Accessibility
  2. Designing with WCAG
  3. Accessible Docs & PDFs
  4. Better Captions
  5. What to Expect from Policy 851

Please let me know if you have trouble accessing anything, or if you find any accessibility barriers and I will take care of them.

Upcoming Workshops

I’m planning a new round of training events starting in December, which will most likely include active workshops/discussions on Drupal 8 and STE M accessibility.

Look at for those new sessions here, on the Canvas Workshop Calendars, and on Twitter @RiceA11y. In the meantime, feel free to setup a consultation at calendly.com/rice-a11y.

Posted on No Comments on October Accessibility Workshops & Events

October Accessibility Workshops & Events

It’s hard to believe it’s already October. It seems like only yesterday we were kicking off our inaugural accessibility workshops. Here we are, one year later, and we’ve got a new month of awesome workshops lined up for you.

Change can be difficult, but…

It would be an understatement to say A LOT has changed over the past year. One of the changes we’re most excited about is the new Digital Information Accessibility Policy (#851). We totally get it if you don’t share our enthusiasm at the phrase “new policy.” It probably just sounds like one more thing you have to do. But what if we told you that with just a little more attention to a few simple techniques, you can do your part to make Rice a more inclusive community for everyone. We think that’s worth getting excited about.

We’re gonna rock this!

One thing that hasn’t changed is that October is still National Disability Employment Awareness Month and October 10 is World Sight Day, so we’re in celebration mode. We can’t treat you to delicious pizza and salad this time around (thanks COVID 🙄 <eyeroll>). But, you can join us remotely at any of the workshops with your own slice 🍕 or anything else you want to eat or drink 🍹 (we won’t tell 🤐).

Sign up here.

We hope to see you at one (or ALL) of these exciting workshops.

Intro to Digital Accessibility

This 1 hour workshop is designed to give you an overview of digital accessibility at Rice, including what the law says you must do, what Rice wants you to do, Rice’s standards for accessible digital information and online courses, “Low-hanging fruit” of digital accessibility, and more. Join us for one of the following sessions:

Click here to register for one of the following Intro sessions. On the following Zoom registration page, select your preferred date from the dropdown menu.

  • Monday, October 5, 3:00 p.m.
  • Monday, October 19, 3:00 p.m.
  • Monday, October 26, 10:00 a.m.

Design With WCAG

This 1 hour workshop is designed to give you a high-level overview of the WCAG 2.1, A-AA standards.
Learn about 8 basic techniques that you can apply widely to digital content. These techniques cover all A and AA criteria relevant to Rice content authors/administrators, including Headings, Forms, Tables, Alt Text, Using color, Readable text, Purposeful links, Closed captions and transcripts. Join us for one of the following sessions:

Click here to register for one of the following WCAG sessions. On the following Zoom registration page, select your preferred date from the dropdown menu.

  • Wednesday, October 7, 3:00 p.m.
  • Monday, October 12, 10:00 a.m.
  • Friday, October 23, 3:00 p.m.
  • Tuesday, October 27, 3:00 p.m.

Accessible Docs & PDFs

Learn the best practices for designing accessible Word documents and a workflow for converting them into accessible PDFs. Also learn techniques for remediating existing PDFs. Join us for one of the following sessions:

Click here to register for one of the following PDF sessions. On the following Zoom registration page, select your preferred date from the dropdown menu.

  • Friday, October 9, 3:00 p.m.
  • Friday, October 16, 10:00 a.m.
  • Wednesday, October 21, 3:00 p.m.
  • Wednesday, October 28, 10:00 a.m.

Better Captions & Transcripts

This 1-hour workshop is designed to give you an overview of options for live (synchronous) and recorded (asynchronous) closed captions using Zoom, Google Meet, and Kaltura, as well as other applications like PowerPoint 365 and Google Slides. Learn more about the best practices of using automatic speech recognition (ASR) captions and caption editing. Join us for one of the following sessions:

Click here to register for one of the following Caption sessions. On the following Zoom registration page, select your preferred date from the dropdown menu.

  • Wednesday, October 14, 10:00 a.m.
  • Thursday, October 29, 3:00 p.m.

What to Expect from Rice’s New Digital Accessibility Policy

We will discuss the details of Rice’s new Digital Information Accessibility Policy, 851. In this Q & A session, some topics include:

What “digital information accessibility” means. Who is responsible for accessible digital information at Rice. Priority areas where digital information should be made accessible ASAP. A timetable for remediating digital information. What to do if you receive an email and accessibility report from Public Affairs. Any other questions or clarifications you may have. Join us for one of the following sessions:

Click here to register for one of the morning Policy sessions. On the following Zoom registration page, select your preferred date from the dropdown menu.

  • Tuesday, October 27, 10:00 a.m.
  • Thursday, October 29, 10:00 a.m.
  • Friday, October 30, 10:00 a.m.

Click here to register for one of the afternoon Policy sessions. On the following Zoom registration page, select your preferred date from the dropdown menu.

  • Monday, October 26, 3:00 p.m.
  • Wednesday, October 28, 3:00 p.m.
  • Friday, October 30, 3:00 p.m.
Posted on No Comments on Blackboard Ally File Transformer Free During COVID-19

Blackboard Ally File Transformer Free During COVID-19

The Blackboard Ally File Transformer enables you and your students to convert course files into a variety of different formats including:

  • PDFs with Tags and OCR
  • Audio
  • HTML
  • Electronic braille
  • ePub
  • Beeline Reader

The file transformer has been free to use since April 1, 2020. For more information, see Blackboard’s press release.

Universal Design for Learning

Providing course files in multiple formats gives students more flexibility to choose how they engage with your content and learn.

For example, imagine you have a text-heavy document or article that you need your students to read. With Ally, students can convert the document into an MP3 that they can play in their earbuds while they walk around campus or while they travel home for the weekend. Or, they can convert the same document into an ePub format for easier reading and note taking on their iPad.

Example, PDF to MP3

In this example, I uploaded a tagged PDF to the Blackboard Ally File Transformer and selected Audio as my output, then I downloaded an MP3 file.

Select a File to Upload Select an Alternative Format
Drag and drop or use the 'Browse' button to select a file to upload. Select an alternative format including HTML, ePub, Electronic Braille, Audio, and BeeLine, then select 'Download.'

Check out the MP3 Version and original PDF embedded below.

MP3 Version Converted from Ally

Original PDF uploaded to Ally

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Download

Posted on No Comments on Use the Check Accessibility Tool in Canvas

Use the Check Accessibility Tool in Canvas

What is the Check Accessibility Tool?

The Canvas Rich Content Editor (RCE) has a handy button to help you check for and fix common accessibility issues. It’s the button that looks like a person with their arms out.

Canvas 'Check Accessibility' tool icon in the RCE.

You’ll find the RCE and Check Accessibility tool anywhere you create content in Canvas, including:

  • Announcements
  • Assignments
  • Discussions
  • Pages
  • Quizzes
  • Syllabus

What Does it Actually Check?

The Accessibility Checker does a decent job of catching several common accessibility barriers, or what we like to refer to as the “low-hanging fruit.” Although it’s fairly consistent about catching some of the low-hanging fruit, it has it’s limits. It’s a good idea to know a little bit more about what to look for and how to fix it.

It’s good at catching:

  • Missing alternative text (alt text) on images
  • Low color contrast ratios
  • Missing Table Headers and Captions
  • Skipped heading levels

It’s not good at catching:

  • Non-descriptive links
  • Missing headings

It can’t catch:

  • Missing closed captions in videos (Zoom, Kaltura, YouTube, etc.)
  • Files uploaded to Canvas (Word docs, PDFS, PowerPoints, etc.)

How does it work?

It’s pretty straight forward. Just create your content in the RCE, and before you select ‘Save and Publish,” click the Check Accessibility button to open a side panel.

Canvas 'Accessibility Checker' panel showing issue 1 of 6, which is a missing text description for an image .

Each issue is listed, one at a time and you can track the total number of issues. The content related to the issue is highlighted. Each issue contains a brief description and a help link to more resources. Sometimes, the tools needed for fixing the issue are included. Apply your changes, then select ‘Next’ to move to the next issue.

Canvas 'Accessibility Checker' panel with no issues. It contains a graphic of three balloons and confetti.Once you’ve fixed all the issues, you should receive a celebratory message indicating that “no accessibility issues were detected.”

Once you get the hang of it, you’ll be able to avoid these common issues in the first place. You’ll have fewer issues to fix until eventually, you’re designing with accessibility in mind.

But what if I still can’t fix everything?

Don’t sweat it! Just do your best. We’re not looking for perfection, just progress. With that said, please contact the Digital Accessibility Coordinator to set up a brief 30 minute consultation and learn more about accessible design.

Contact

Additional Resources