Authoring Accessible Content using WebCT 3.6

from ATAG report:

Note: WebCT tries to encourage accessible authoring practices through the placement of related controls in the interface. - so use them!!!!!! Note also: The WebCT documentation includes an "Accessibility" section that documents features of the tool related to the production of accessible content. This section also includes prominent links to W3C WAI.

Do Not:

use the chat or whiteboard facilities
cause pop-ups or other windows to appear or change the current window without informing the user
accept FONT element (generated in a number of instances, including the course homepage)being used to apply style to text. Instead use CSS.

In general:

remember that WebCT is a dynamic, Javascript-based tool that does not operate when Javascript is turned off or not supported. many users of assistive technologies cannot use javascripts and many users of more common browsers have javascript disabled 9for a variety of reasons). In addition, the chat and whiteboard functions are applets, so avoid them.
use only Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to control text color and size: do not specify these on the web page.
add the "lang" attribute to the opening HTML tag (i.e. Lang=en). By identifying a document's primary language, clients can automatically retrieve web pages in the language of their own choosing. This attribute also assists the browser when checking a document's syntax.
Ensure that pages are usable when scripts, applets, or other programmatic objects are turned off or not supported. If this is not possible, provide equivalent information on an alternative accessible page
Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element
Ensure that dynamic content is accessible or provide an alternative presentation or page.
Ensure that equivalents for dynamic content are updated when the dynamic content changes.
Specify the expansion of each abbreviation or acronym in a document where it first occurs.

Be aware that

WebCT does not include any facility for the author to transform presentation markup that is misused to convey structure into structural markup and to transform presentation markup for style into style sheets. This means that if bold is used to designate a heading instead of H1, eg, the user who is dependent upon a device that is looking for a heading, will not find it.

For content structure:

Mark up quotations as such. Do not use quotation markup for formatting effects such as indentation. To indent objects, use an indenting style within a stylesheet.
Do not use tables for layout unless the table makes sense when linearized. Otherwise, if the table does not make sense, provide an alternative equivalent (which may be a linearized version).
If a table is used for layout, do not use any structural markup for the purpose of visual formatting.
Use header elements to convey document structure and use them according to specification.
Ensure that all information conveyed with color is also available without color, for example from context or markup.
Clearly identify changes in the natural language of a document's text and any text equivalents (e.g., captions).
Organize documents so they may be read without style sheets. For example, when an HTML document is rendered without associated style sheets, it must still be possible to read the document.
When an appropriate markup language exists, use markup rather than images to convey information.
Use relative rather than absolute units in markup language attribute values and style sheet property values.
Place distinguishing information at the beginning of headings, paragraphs, lists, etc.
Provide information so that users may receive documents according to their preferences (e.g., language, content type, etc.)
Provide information about document collections (i.e., documents comprising multiple pages.).
Divide large blocks of information into more manageable groups where natural and appropriate.
Provide metadata to add semantic information to pages and sites.
Provide information about the general layout of a site (e.g., a site map or table of contents).
Create a logical tab order through links, form controls, and objects.
Identify the primary natural language of a document.

For lists:

Mark up lists and list items properly

For tables:

Provide summaries for tables.
add summary tag information to all tables including those in WebCT's generated content ("Home Page", "Calendar", "Mail", etc.). If a table is used for layout purposes, the summary might simply state "layout table." For tables that contain data, the layout of the table and a summary of the data should be described in the summary attribute.
For data tables, identify row and column headers.
For data tables that have two or more logical levels of row or column headers, use markup to associate data cells and header cells.

For frames and pop-up windows:

inform users that pop-up windows ("Help", "Take Guided Tour", etc.) will cause new windows to be opened
Title each frame to facilitate frame identification and navigation.
Describe the purpose of frames and how frames relate to each other if it is not obvious by frame titles alone.

For images:

fill in the "alt" attribute for all images (including those provided by WebCT)
add long text descriptions (using D-tags or LONGDESC) to screen shots in the Guided Tour in the Student Interface
add any necessary long description tags to content produced by using the built-in templates
Provide redundant text links for each active region of a server-side image map
add equivalent alternatives for WebCT's many pre-packaged images.

For multimedia objects:

For any time-based multimedia presentation (e.g., a movie or animation), synchronize equivalent alternatives (e.g., captions or auditory descriptions of the visual track) with the presentation
provide an auditory description of the important information of the visual track of a multimedia presentation.
take care when managing, editing, or reusing alternative equivalents for multimedia objects. An "Image Database" is included, but this is a image gallery builder for a specific course, rather than a general purpose tool for reusing alternative equivalents in different contexts.

For forms:

include default, place-holding characters in edit boxes and text areas: WebCT includes empty edit boxes and text controls ("Compose Mail Message", etc.)
Associate labels explicitly with their controls.
Until user agents support explicit associations between labels and form controls, for all form controls with implicitly associated labels, ensure that the label is properly positioned.

When adding or linking content:

if adding a non-text element by way of the "edit page" function, check its accessibility
check all content to be added to WebCT for accessibility compliance. For example, in the Assignments tool, word processor, spreadsheet or image files may be added so that they are displayed within the WebCT user interface (with a sidebar listing the documents in the assignment).
take care if linking in external content. The preferred method for linking is to provide a link that launches an external viewer with the proviso that external documents have not been checked for accessibility

When testing:

validate to published formal grammars
check all WebCT markup with the W3C validator (http://validator.w3.org) and watch for problems related to Javascript, the DOCTYPE, use of the HTML element, deprecated elements, etc.

For navigation:

Provide keyboard shortcuts to important links (including those in client-side image maps), form controls, and groups of form controls.
Use navigation mechanisms in a consistent manner.
Provide navigation bars to highlight and give access to the navigation mechanism.
Group related links, identify the group (for user agents), and, until user agents do so, provide a way to bypass the group.

Note

WebCT provides no means of navigating via the structure (such as next element, previous element, etc.) - and so this needs to be done explicitly

WebCT is a content management tool, but it does include the ability to author markup directly into a text boxes so It is possible for informed authors to add structural markup.

WebCT is a content management tool, but it does include the ability to author markup directly into text boxes so. It is possible to search the content of these boxes using the built-in "Find" feature of the browser. - good for authors with special needs.

Details for Designing a more accessible WebCT course

(from http://webct.bu.edu/web-ct/help/access/accessibility.html#design_access)

Images and animation
To describe the function of all images for users who cannot access visual elements, use the ALT attribute. An ALT text equivalent describes the function or purpose of content. A good test to determine if a text equivalent is useful is to imagine reading the document aloud over the telephone. What would you say upon encountering this HTML code reference to an image to make it comprehensible to the listener?

Example: <IMG src="bookshelf.gif" alt="Resource Materials">

WebCT will automatically use the text description of icons provided by ALT tags on the course Homepage and Tool pages. HTML documents that you upload to the WebCT Manage Files utility should include ALT text for all images.
Multimedia
When including multimedia components such as video clips or audio files, provide alternative formats for users who cannot use movies, sounds, or audio enhancements directly. For example:
- QuickTime authoring tools allow easy addition of captioning to video clips.
- Supplementary text can be added as an alternative to video clips or animation.
- Transcripts of audio files can be included.

Note: Embed multimedia components as well as any of the text equivalents of the multimedia content in a single HTML document to be added to a Content Module.

Hypertext links
Users who access web content with audio output use the Tab key to move from link to link. To improve accessibility for these users, ensure that link text is meaningful and make sense when read out of context.
Page organization
To allow content to be effectively interpreted by non-visual browsers, use consistent course page structure and correct use of HTML markup. Use outlines at the beginning of long documents, and label and structure lists carefully. When creating web pages to be uploaded to a Content Module, use standardized HTML markup. Example: Sections should be introduced with the HTML header elements (H1-H6) headings:

<H1>Cooking techniques</H1>
... introductory text here ...

<H2>Part 1: Cooking with oil</H2>
... text of the section ...

<H2>Part 2: Cooking with butter</H2>
... text of the section ...

Graphs and charts

It is helpful to summarize the information in text form when ALT text does not adequately convey the function or role of an image presented in the WebCT course content.

Additional supporting text may be included within content pages, or may be uploaded as a separate file and linked to the page.

Example:

As part of the "Information Highway," the Internet provides the following tools:

E-mail
World Wide Web
Telnet
FTP

Tables

Unless line-by-line reading is possible, avoid using tables for column or page layout. Tables with text-wrapping can present problems for for browsers that do not allow navigation of individual table cells. These screen readers will read across the page, presenting text on the same row from different columns as one sentence.