Broadened participation

• Let students know that they are welcome to contact you if they have approved/recommended adaptations for their study situation.
• Create a clear structure in Canvas and present it at the start of the course.
• Create a course guide with instructions for the course sessions.
• Publish the course literature at least 10 weeks before the start of the course. Production of audiobook versions of the course literature takes at least 8 weeks.
• Work towards openness within the teaching team, so that adaptations can be put in place quickly based on the resources available/offered.
  

• Provide essential information orally and in writing.
• Avoid unnecessary schedule changes and late changes of venue. If unavoidable, check how the change works from an accessibility perspective (wheelchair users, hearing impaired, etc.).
• Advise that all students can book support for academic writing at the Study Workshop and for mathematics support via Mattestugan.
  

Before lecture

• Make sure the sound and light in the lecture room is good. This is especially helpful for students with hearing/vision impairments
• Provide lecture materials in advance. Subtitle pre-recorded films if you have possiblity.
• Share lecture material in advance with training interpreters and student (in case of sign language interpretation and written interpretation)
• Encourage course participants to share notes with each other. A good idea might be to create a dedicated place for this in Canvas.
  

During the lecture

• Use a microphone in the rooms where it is available.
• Repeat questions and comments from the audience so that everyone can hear, or use a hand-held microphone passed around the room.
• Always speak facing the group so that mouth movements and facial expressions can be read.
• Read out text and give oral explanations of pictures, tables and figures.
• Plan breaks, inform about them and keep them. Those with concentration difficulties, gastrointestinal disorders, etc. must be given breaks to maintain focus during lectures.
• Be in favour of students recording lectures (in audio format) for their own use.
• Use high-contrast pens when writing on the board (not red pen).
• Post PowerPoints and other materials in advance so that students can prepare for the content and to facilitate note-taking during lectures.
• Make a summary of new words and concepts.
• Do not change course literature unnecessarily and too close to the start of the course.
  

Course literature

• Give reading instructions before lectures.
• Remind students to read the course literature before lectures.
• Include opportunities for discussion of the course literature during the course.
• Provide compendia and similar materials in digital form, so that they can be listened to using speech synthesis.
• Ensure that slide descriptions are available for students who need them.
• Ensure that PDFs are available so that they can be read with speech synthesis.
• Manual showing how to check whether a PDF is accessible and how to fix any accessibility problems (from Umeå University, Swedish).
  

• Present the data consistently, logically and clearly.
• Use simple and understandable language (sprakochfolkminnen.se/klarsprak).
• Avoid long sentences with one or more negations.
• Could it be possible to offer different types of examinations from the outset?
  

• Students with hearing impairment need to be in a hearing room with microphones.
• People with speech impediments may need to present in a smaller group, only for the teacher or be allowed to start the seminar.
• Take notes of supporting words during the seminar, this gives structure and helps memory.
  

• Decide on the group structure and appoint partners.
• Be observant if any student has great difficulty in joining a group; not being selected often affects students with disabilities.
• Important to have a clear start and clear instructions for group work.
• Prepare students by giving concrete examples of constructive criticism.
• Offer variety in how group work can be presented.
• Design the lab so that it can be done both sitting and standing.
  

• Write on a separate sheet of paper early in the study guide who the student should contact in case of questions (education administrator, study counsellor, etc. Give examples of questions that are not of a pedagogical nature).
• Inform about the pedagogical approach of the course both orally and in writing.
• Be clear about the communication channel you and the student will use is it via the learning platform, email or other?
  

• Use short paragraphs and bulleted lists.
• Do not have too many paragraphs per PowerPoint page (2-3).
• Do not show all the content of the page at the same time. present paragraphs, text and images step by step.
• Avoid placing text on top of an image or within an image.
• Let patterns, not colours, be the key in diagrams, for example.
• Use sufficiently large text with good contrast in colours.
• Make sure that everything in the PowerPoint presentation is made clear orally during the lecture. Describe significant images orally.
  

Accessibility checker

In the Canvas learning platform, the accessibility checker tool is linked to the content editor. The tool checks all content created in Canvas and flags if there are accessibility issues. Read more about the accessibility checker (information page in Canvas).

Microsoft Immersive Reader

All users in Canvas can activate Microsoft Immersive Reader. This feature allows you to read and listen to content with some customization. Read more about Immersive Reader (information page in Canvas, Gothenburg University)

Accessibility in the digital learning environment

"Accessibility in the digital learning environment" is a self-study course created at Karolinska Institutet. In the course you can learn how to make digital classrooms accessible and how to create accessible documents in Word and Powerpoint. To the self-study course (in Canvas, Gothenburg University)