Moodle accessibility tools
Blackboard Ally
Blackboard Ally assesses course materials’ accessibility in Moodle and provides
- alternative formats for your files
- recommendations on how to improve them
Moodle in-built accessibility tool
The Moodle accessibility tools, developed by the University of Glasgow, allow users to adjust the contrast of the colour scheme, font size, style, and spacing and enable 'Read-to-me', a text-to-speech tool.
The accessibility tools are accessed using the menu at the top of the Moodle page.
Accessibility tips
Structure
- Use the ‘Collapsed’ format to reduce vertical scrolling
- Ensure your course has a consistent layout of text and non-text elements
- Use informative headings
- Use short, concise descriptions
- Use your Moodle course as a ‘launchpad’ to internal and external resources; don’t display lengthy paragraphs of text and images in it
- Do not use images in a decorative fashion on a Moodle course front page
- Enable the completion tracking as this lets students see what resources they’ve previously viewed
Course accessibility
- Ensure your course, links and files can also be navigated by using keystrokes only
- Don’t use colour or sound to convey information, e.g., warnings in red
- Avoid moving and flashing text
- Use headings within your course
Course content
- Consider using Moodle Books when you intend to upload lengthy content and Moodle Pages for shorter content
- Whenever possible, content should be created in HTML using the in-built editor but if you upload Word, Powerpoint, Excel or PDF content, make sure it is accessible documents
- Ensure your images have alt text
- Videos must be accessible – more information on Audio and video accessibility