Accessibility and Usability

The course design reflects a commitment to accessibility and usability for all learners.

Course navigation facilitates ease of use

Evidence

• The module structure of the course is consistent and ordered as laid out in LMS as described in the Course Structure page
• All longer Canvas pages use heading styles
• Syllabus pages have Next and Back to syllabus links to compensate for LMS navigation weaknesses

Suggestions for Improvement

• Perhaps the Reading links could be more clearly labeled to indicate the kind of source students will encounter when they follow the link
• Perhaps the modules could be numbered to further emphasize their order

The course design facilitates readability

Evidence

• Pages with content (syllabus and page-build instructions) are formatted using headings and paragraphs to break up any long blocks of text.
• Default LMS font is used throughout to maximize transferability among platforms.
• Grammar and spelling appear generally conventional.

Suggestions for Improvement

• Certain words in the How To Succeed In This Course page are highlighted with a colored box that makes them unreadable when viewed in Dark Mode. This formatting should likely be removed.

The course provides accessible text and images in files, documents, LMS pages, and web pages to meet the needs of diverse learners

Evidence

• Tables generally are not used for formatting
• HTML heading styles are used in Canvas pages
• Archaeoastronomy Module PDF files have selectable, searchable text

Suggestions for Improvement

• Table in Horizontal Corodinates of Build Sun Pages Instructions should be replaced with subsequent images (not used for formatting)
• Alt tags for horizontal coordinate diagrams and asterism images could be more descriptive for visually impaired
• Versions of the Calendars Module PDF files should be found that have selectable, searchable text

The course provides alternative means of access to multimedia content in formats that meet the needs of diverse learners

Evidence

• Course content videos (those other than the module introduction videos) contain no spoken words
• Introductory videos contain the text in the page directly below the embedded video

Suggestions for Improvement

• Introductory video script should be captioned into the video
• Perhaps a future design of the course could consider how all of the course’s visual elements could be made accessible to a learner with no vision

Course multimedia facilitate ease of use

Evidence

• Course videos are all relatively short (except eclipse videos)
• Course images are all relatively small

Suggestions for Improvement

• Eclipse videos could be processed into segments based on crucial points during the eclipse

Vendor accessibility statements are provided for all technologies required in the course

Evidence

No evidence of vendor accessibility statements linked from the course were found.

Suggestions for Improvement

Perhaps the accessibility statements could be linked in a Technologies Used page.

---

Return to main QM rubric