Universal Design, Accessibility, and Usability

Penn State Altoona is committed to providing a welcoming, encouraging, and empowering environment for students with disabilities to ensure equal access, full participation, and reasonable accommodations for their academic pursuits.

Did you know, though, that the efforts made by faculty and staff to make course content and instruction, online materials, and the learning environment accessible and usable can benefit all students? This adoption of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) should be a pursuit of all those that assist students reach their academic, personal, and professional goals.

For help with all things Universal Design and accessibility, reach out to our office!

Anthology Ally

Anthology Ally is a Canvas LTI plugin designed to enhance the accessibility and usability of a course for learners of different abilities and backgrounds. Download alternative formats to course resources or view accessibility reports to improve the design of course components.

For more information, review the Anthology Ally Instructor Quickstart.

Captioning and Transcription

When creating videos for students or colleagues, be sure to request captions and transcription. These provide benefits for all viewers! Both can be generated in Zoom and Kaltura.

Captioning is a text alternative for the audio within the bottom of the screen, essential for those unable to hear the audio. Captions are also beneficial for many others, providing multiple ways to consume video dialogue and aiding in comprehension.

Transcripts are also a text alternative for audio, however they are provided often in a separate document. These also provide an alternative for those in an environment where they can’t listen to a video or need to skim through content for keywords and concepts.

For instructions about generating closed captions and transcripts, visit the Adding Live and Closed Captioning to Your Videos and Events site.

Read and Write Toolbar

Read and Write is a software toolbar that helps users to complete tasks by reading text aloud, proofreading text, and supporting writing. It is free for students, faculty, and staff.

• The text-to-speech feature highlights text as it reads it out loud.
• Users can speak text and the toolbar will translate the audio into text. The tool can also convert written text into an audio file for users.
• It provides definitions and visuals for words that are difficult to understand. Users can generate vocabulary lists with the ability to add personal notes.
• It also includes an embedded grammar checker.

To gain access to the tool, email AltoonaIT@psu.edu for it to be pushed to your University-issued computer or follow online instructions for installing Read and Write on your device using your PSU Google ID.

Training Registration and Recordings

Created and hosted by Penn State Altoona instructional designer, Jennifer Wagner, the Top 5 Universal Design for Learning Series is a set of workshops that will help you design content that supports all learners in a proactive way, increases retention, and makes it easier to adapt if accommodations are needed.

Register for an upcoming training or watch recordings from past workshops!