Accessibility issues for assessment

What is 'accessibility'?
Accessibility is not just about making online content accessible to students with disabilities, it also involves usability, universal design and best practice – in other words, implementing accessibility should ensure better access for all, regardless of any physical, environmental or hardware limitations.

Accessibility of assessment does not necessarily mean that all students have to receive the same experience, but they should all receive an equivalent experience (TechDis). Not all assessment content will be suitable for some students and, if used, may reflect the student’s disability rather than their knowledge or skills (Katzman & Hock, 2001). For example, a drag and drop exercise is unlikely to be performed successfully by a student who is blind, therefore an equivalent or alternative test will need to be designed.

What is the difference between alternative and equivalent assessments?

 * Alternative assessment – According to DEMOS (2002), an alternative assessment is different to that given to other students on the same course. For example, a student could be offered a viva instead of a written exam or could produce a video instead of an essay. However, both the original and the alternative assessment should assess the same learning outcomes.
 * Equivalent assessment – where the original assessment is offered in a different format. For example, if a student is unable to see an image in order to describe its components, that image may be offered as a tactile diagram. IMS (2002) recommend that the availability of equivalent formats should be notified to the student within the assessment content.

Are there any tips on making online assessment accessible?
Guidelines, such as the IMS Accessibility Guidelines for Developing Accessible Learning Applications and the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) give plenty of detail about how to make web-based content accessible and are also appropriate for making assessment accessible. Some of the basic considerations that need to be made include:

Navigation and layout
Consider how the student will navigate through the assessment – Depending on the form of the assessment, a list of questions through which the student can navigate should be included (note: this may not be appropriate for all designs of assessment, for example, where the student must complete one question before moving on to another). Regarding individual questions, large amounts of text should either be broken into smaller blocks or the question divided into several smaller pages, as students using screen magnifiers could find scrolling difficult (TechDis). If it is divided into several pages, then this should be identified at the start of the question and there should be some form of navigation between all the pages.

Ensure that the navigation menu is consistent and clear and that students using screen readers can skip the navigation menu if required. For example, before the navigation menu, insert:

and at the beginning of the main content, insert:

Use CSS for formatting – Properly structured CSS and HTML, instead of frames, which cannot be accessed by all screen readers, and tables should be used to control presentation of the content. Although students can design their own CSS so that the content can be presented to them according to their requirements (i.e. preferred background colour, font size, etc), it should be noted that not all students know how to design their own style sheets. If style sheets are used to format the content, ensure that the content can also be viewed logically without the style sheet present, as not all browsers are able to handle style sheets. The Lynx Viewer will show what content will look like as text only (i.e. what the screen reader will read).

Ensure that keyboard access is available – Not everyone can use a mouse, either because of physical or hardware limitations. Therefore, ensure that the assessment can be accessed by keyboard only, for example, by unplugging the mouse and using keyboard controls only. However, keyboard navigation may be a problem with certain formats, such as PDF (Portable Document File), Flash, etc (TechDis). In which case, different formats may have to be considered.

Drag and drop - Drag and drop should also be made available via the keyboard for students who do not use a mouse. However, it is unlikely that it will be accessible for most students with visual impairments; in which case, either an alternative question or an equivalent format should be provided (TechDis).

Show the total number of questions and choices – The total number of questions should be shown at the start of every online assessment (TechDis), so that students can plan their time accordingly. TechDis also suggest that the number of choices for each multiple-choice question should also be shown, so that students using screen readers will know how many choices they will hear. For example: “Which one of the five following possible answers correctly lists the five biggest cities in the United Kingdom?” or “Which are the five biggest cities in the United Kingdom? (Select one answer from the following five possible answers)”.

Indicate the time allowed and remaining – If the complete assessment or individual questions are timed, then the time allowed for completion, as well as the time remaining, should be indicated (TechDis). Transition times between questions should also be adjustable to allow for different student needs (Wiles, 2003) as students using screen readers, magnifiers, input devices other than a mouse or keyboard, etc will take longer to interact with the question. In other words, accommodations may need to be made to allow some students to have extra time to complete the assessment. However, Wiles (2003) also suggests that this extra time may also make the total assessment burden too strenuous.

Images, multimedia and colour
Provide equivalents to audio and visual content – Ensure that there are text equivalents for graphics and multimedia.

Static images should have an appropriate ALT tag description. For example, the image of the cat below has following HTML (HyperText Markup Language) code:



A screen reader will read out "Sooty the black cat", and this description will also be shown when a mouse cursor is moved over the image. Adding this tag will also allow people who have slow Internet connections, browsers that do not show images, a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) or other handheld device to obtain details of the image. For further information on ALT tags, see Use of ALT Tags in IMGs.

For multimedia content, such as a video or animation, an audio commentary of what is happening, along with text captioning for any sound should be provided for students who are unable either to see or to hear such content. If a commentary or captioning proves to be too difficult to implement, then TechDis suggest that it would be better to present the information in a different way.

Macromedia Flash - Whilst Flash is generally accessible, students will need to install Microsoft Internet Explorer and the latest version of Flash Player, whilst screen reader users will need to check that their screen reader can be used with Flash (Macromedia). Flash is also very bandwidth intensive, so students with low bandwidth may have to wait some time for the Flash images to load (Mardiros).

Ensure that there are alternatives or equivalents to scripts, applets, etc – Not everyone is able to access scripts or applets (such as JavaScript, Flash, etc) so alternative questions or different formats should be provided that do not rely on such programmable objects.

Avoid flickering or flashing – Try not to use objects that flicker or flash between 4 and 59 flashes per second (i.e. between 4 and 59 Hertz) or which change quickly from dark to light (like strobe lighting) as this can affect some people with photosensitive epilepsy. Further details are available from Guideline 7 of WCAG.

Do not use colour or images alone for identification – Colour alone should not be used to identify words, parts of a question or buttons, as students who are colour blind, have visual impairments, or viewing in monochrome will not be able to distinguish the colour. If buttons or other interactive controls are labelled with an image or identified by colour, then identifying text should also be included. For example, it is not advisable to use:



instead, ensure that buttons are also marked with text, e.g.:



Ensure sufficient colour contrast – For ideal readability, the difference between background colour and text colour should be around 70% (WebAIM, 2003):



A formula for working out contrast and further information can be found in the thread entitled “Numeric Contrast Checks” on the WebAIM (Web Accessibility In Mind) discussion forum.

TechDis suggest that either neutral colours should be used for backgrounds or an option provided for the student to select their preferred background colour.

Language
Identify changes in language – If there are phrases in languages other than the main language of the page, then the secondary language should be identified using the LANG tag, so that screen readers can correctly read the text (Note: this may only be suitable for the latest version of certain screen readers and may not include all languages). For example, “What does au clair de la lune mean?” should be rendered as follows:

Expand acronyms and abbreviations – Expand acronyms by using the ACRONYM tag and abbreviations by using the ABBR tag (Belton & Knopf, 2002), especially as screen readers may read acronyms incorrectly. For example, IMS may be read as “ims” rather than as “I” “M” “S”, therefore some acronyms may require the individual letters to be separated by spaces to ensure that it is correctly pronounced (IMS, 2002).

Checking for accessibility
Check the content for accessibility – If the assessment content is web-based, and has a web page address, then there are many accessibility checkers, which will check content for conformance to W3C WCAG. For example: Bobby, WAVE, and Vischeck to name only a few. A wider list is available from the CETIS Accessibility Testers and Tools page.

Ask the advice of students - The best way to ensure that an assessment is accessible is ask students to test it. A comparison should be made between the amount of time needed to complete the assessment by both disabled and non-disabled students, as well as determining whether there are any particular difficulties with the design or assistive technologies being used (TechDis).

Are there any special factors for multiple-choice questions?
Multiple-choice questions are often used for online assessment. However, they will need to be carefully designed in order to ensure that they are accessible as possible.

Avoid lists containing similar combinations – When designing multiple-choice questions, avoid lists of possible answers that are similar in their content (Wiles, 2003), as students using screen readers may need to memorize each option before attempting to answer the question. The example below shows a set of possible answers, which are in no particular order and are quite similar:



Therefore, it may be necessary to completely redesign a question, if a number of complicated choices need to be made from a list of multiple-choice options.

Place the answer box at the end - In multiple-choice questions, the answer box should always appear after, and preferably underneath, the question choices, rather than as a tick box at the end of each option. For example, the question below could be set out as follows:



Rather than as:



If the layout with the tick boxes is used, a student using a screen reader will have to read through all the options before somehow moving to the top of the tick boxes to select the correct answer (TechDis).