Making an Online Statistics Course Accessible through ePub
Skip the Table of ContentPresentation Outline
Background Context
iMBA & iMSA at Univ of Illinois - Slide 1
eLearning Office in the Gies College of Business, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Support for online & blended courses
Fully online graduate degree program: iMBA and iMSA
LMS: Blackboard and Coursera (~60 MOOC)
Online Student Support (½) - Slide 2
On-Campus Students with disabilities: Disability Resources & Educational Services
Online students with disabilities?
Accessibility Task Force in eLearning Office
- eLearning staff (ID & media director)
- Accessibility experts/consultants
- Academic advisor
- DRES correspondent
Online Student Support (2/2) - Slide 3
Documents and Files in Word, PDF, PPT
- Syllabus, assignment, and quiz/exam
- Alt-text for images
- Headings
- Tables
LMS check with screen readers (JAWS)
Video lectures: captions
Video Lectures - Slide 4
3~20 videos with about 45 ~90 minutes total per week
Cleaned captions in the video player
Transcript in word
Accessibility checked PPT with alt-text added
Accessibility checked word or pdf documents with alt-text added
Non-standard Accommodations - Slide 5
“Screen reader users may also prefer the transcript over listening to the audio of the web multimedia. Most proficient screen reader users set their assistive technology to read at a rate much faster than most humans speak. This allows the screen reader user to access the transcript of the video and get the same content in less time than listening to the actual audio content.”
MOOC Scale Accommodations
MOOC Scale Accommodations - Slide 6
Targeted individual accommodations
At-scale accommodations in MOOC learning environments
Extended Transcript: Usability - Slide 7
Replaces the less than adequate transcript, and lecture support files with a single document
- easily converted to other formats
- not a different “accessible” page
- modifiable by learners to fit their personal preferences
Extended Transcript: Goals - Slide 8
Single document (module by module)
Downloadable
Combines all module content to meet accessibility and, more importantly, usability needs
Extended Transcript
Extended Transcript Specifics - Slide 9
TOC
Link to the video
Slide images from PPT/Important scenes
PPT/Important text
Visual description for images
Transcript
Tables, MathML, links to external files, citations, etc.
HTML - ePub
General Layout of a Lesson - Slide 10

Lesson title, Link to a video, Slide title and number, Image of the scene, Text from the scene, Transcript
Access Support Team - Slide 11
Media director (John Tubbs)
ID (Jin Choo)
Accessibility consultants (Siri Bal and Knowbility)
HTML support
Copyedit/QC support
Extended Transcript Creation Process - Slide 12
- Text/Image Extraction
- Copy Editing
- HTML Creation
- HTML Review
- ePub/PDF Conversion
Text Extraction - Slide 13
Extract text from PPT or scenes
Provide descriptions for images in the presentation
Copy Editing - Slide 14
Review video transcripts (verbatim) and presentations for clarity and grammatical accuracy
Edit supplemental materials following APA (i.e., citations, copyright check)
HTML Creation - Slide 15
Markup headings, tables, list, etc. with HTML
Add slides/ screenshots of videos with visual descriptions and transcripts)
HTML Review - Slide 16
Inspect HTML with the Axe testing engine
Check HTML against a review checklist for accessibility and QC check
Test links to ensure that they lead to the correct local or external source
Use spell check to check for typos and spacing issues
ePub Conversion - Slide 17
Clean HTML to prepare for conversion
Convert HTML to ePub using an ePub editor (Sigil)
Create a PDF version (Calibre)
Tools - Slide 18
Axe: an accessibility testing engine from Deque Systems
Image compressor
MathML: a tool for scripting math expressions in XML from Wiris
Sigil: ePub editor
WebMAP: a tool used to help build HTML documents
Calibre: a tool to convert ePub to PDF
Challenges with a Stat Course
Statistics for Management Decision Making - Slide 19
Module 1: Introduction and Summarizing Data
Module 2: Descriptive Statistics and Probability Distributions
Module 3: Sampling and Central Limit Theorem
Module 4: Inference
Module 5: Hypothesis Testing
Module 6: Statistical Inference Based on Two Samples
Module 7: Simple Linear Regression
Module 8: Multiple Linear Regression
Challenges - Slide 20
Math expressions in HTML
Visual description
Excel
Math Expressions in HTML - Slide 21
Simple math symbols in HTML
Math expressions in HTML
Math expressions on Coursera
Math expressions on Blackboard
MathML Example - Slide 22

Visual Description - Slide 23
No Alt-Text
Balancing details and general ideas
Instructors, TAs, student workers, paid service
Training
- Diagramcenter.org
- eLearning training: What and how to describe, Languages, Integrated Description for video recording
Visual Description Example 1 - Slide 24

The slide shows how to understand the margin of error in a normal distribution histogram. In the graph, there is a red line, which is the bell-shaped curve of a normal distribution with mean 0 and standard deviation 1. There are two blue vertical lines at one standard error away from the mean. It stands the confidence interval of 68.2%. Then, the vertical blue lines are changed to 2 standard errors away from the mean. This range is the confidence interval of 95.4%. Finally, the vertical blue lines are changed to 3 standard error away from the mean. This represents the confidence interval of 99.7%.
Visual Description Example 2 - Slide 25

The graph is a scatter plot with no title listed. The horizontal x-axis shows height in centimeters ranging from 130 to 180 in increments of ten. The vertical y-axis shows weight in kilograms ranging from 30 to 90 in increments of ten. The graph contains approximately 100 points that seem to be evenly spread along a linear trend that goes from the lower left corner, where weight and height are small, to the upper right corner, where both quantities are large.
Accessible Excel (1/2) - Slide 26
Courses handling a lot of data in Excel in the Gies College of Business
Accessible Excel tutorial (Presentation at CSUN 2019)
- Test with screen reader (JAWS)
- Easy navigation, identification of data, & clear instruction on any related activities for screen reader users
- No multiple versions
Accessible Excel (2/2) - Slide 27

ePub sample page with a download link to excel files
Final Notes - Slide 28
Extended transcript in ePub
- Meeting accessibility standards but “usable” wins
- The most flexible format to allow adaptability
- Best offline access
Faster creation – early in the course creation process