The way you create the material on Blackboard, and the files you upload, can have an impact on your students and their ability to engage with your content.
Providing your students with a variety of materials to engage with content, such as multimedia like videos or audio files or further reading, helps to diversify access and maintain engagement.
Use this page as a checklist to help you design resources.
Design for accessibility
- Apply S.C.U.L.P.T – these 6 principles will help ensure that your documents and resources are as accessible as possible
- Upload video to Stream – uploading video content to Stream provides captioning, which can benefit students with auditory disabilities and students for whom English is a second language. You may not have permission to upload third-party content to Stream (see Using Third Party Content)
- Include summary notes with your slides – students will benefit more fully by receiving slides with notes in advance
- Provide alt text, or an accessible alternative, for images, charts & graphs – describing complex images aids students with visual disabilities and offers alternative ways to engage with content
- Avoid using images, bold text, or text colour to convey meaning – ensure that your meaning can be understood without visual indicators
- Use accessibility checkers – checkers like Blackboard Ally & the Microsoft Accessibility Checker offer guidance on accessibility issues in your resources
Fonts & styles
- Consider fonts & spacing – using clear, sans-serif fonts helps students with dyslexia; avoid narrow spacing on lines and paragraphs; avoid large blocks of italic or underlined text
- Printed material – print in at least 12pt; consider background colours
- Online material – use the default font and font size in the Blackboard text editor
Give students control
- Provide original filetypes for students – original filetypes allow students to convert them to their preferred format
- Diversify content – offer multiple routes of engagement with material through video, text and other media
- Provide full references for linked resources – providing references helps students in their assessments
Reading Lists
- Use the Reading Lists tool – the Reading Lists tool allows you to link to Talis Aspire and provide students with a single point of access to library resources
Using Third Party Content
- Check Copyright – the Library team offer a wide range of guidance for using third-party and copyright content in your module. If you are unsure, refer to their guidance or contact IMPS.