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Ideas and reflections from UCL's Digital Education team
By Michele Farmer, on 5 September 2018
As PDF Converter will no longer be available via the software database, the option for converting PDF into Word can now be accessed via Word itself.
Just go to the ‘Open’ file option and in the drop down menu in the bottom right of the window select ‘PDF’ and browse to and open your file.
Word will then convert it to a copy you can then edit.
By Jessica Gramp, on 12 May 2018
Following the University of London’s successful conference Demystifying User Experience Design & Testing last year, the Bloomsbury Learning Environment (BLE) in partnership with the University of London (UoL) is holding a free, two-day event for staff based at UoL member institutions on Thursday 28th and Friday 29th June.
On these two days, we are offering three distinct workshops, which are each focused on different applications of UX. Come along to all three or select those that interest you. Places are limited, so don’t delay registering your place!
am: User Research: focus groups, user testing and user feedback
pm: User Centred Content
A practical session with guest speakers sharing their insights into user research and associated applications.
Led by Naomi Bain, Web Officer (Training and User Experience) – Birkbeck, University of London
0930 Coffee & Registration
• Introduction (Naomi Bain)
• Keynote: conducting f2f user testing (Jane Lessiter, Goldsmiths)
• Case studies: sharing experiences of user research
• Practical session: how to conduct a web user testing session. This session will include tips, discussion, sharing experiences, questions and trying out the roles of tester and testee (Naomi)
End by 1300
An overview of the online tools available to help you to plan and review your own content. Mapping users against online content – bring along a piece of your own content to review! Finishing with a panel Q&A discussion around content strategy and governance.
Led by Melanie Read, Head of Digital – University of London
1345 Registration, with a prompt start at 1400
• Welcome, Introductions and icebreaker
• Content planning – what tools do you use for planning content.
• Content mapping – against the difference users types and then creating content suitable to that user.
• Content strategy and governance
• Panel discussion: how to manage governance
End by 1630
am: Moodle and Accessibility
This workshop will focus specifically on Moodle and the considerations and requirements to ensure courses are accessible to all users.
Led by Sarah Sherman, Service Manager – Bloomsbury Learning Environment
0930 Coffee and registration
• Welcome & Introductions (Sarah Sherman, BLE)
• Presentation 1: Birkbeck For All (Leo Havemann, Birkbeck)
• Presentation 2: Policy for Accessibility (Nic Charlton, University of London)
• Presentation 3: Working with Moodle (Nic Christodoulou, SOAS)
• Presentation 4: Accessibility initiatives at UCL (Jess Gramp & Paul Thompson, UCL)
• Presentation 5: Checking for accessibility in Moodle (Herve Didiot-Cook, Blackboard)
• Panel discussion
• Workshop activity: developing Moodle accessibility guidelines for practitioners
End by 1300
For further details about the event, please contact Sarah Sherman or Melanie Read
By Jessica Gramp, on 9 October 2017
As part of a wider Accessible Moodle project, a new UCL Moodle theme is being designed to make it more accessible for those with disabilities. The theme is like a skin (or a wallpaper) that changes the way the text and colours are displayed, without changing any of the content that exists on each Moodle page. As well as changing the look and feel of all Moodle pages, it will provide additional navigation aids in the form of menus, blocks that can be hidden and potentially also docked blocks, which sit to the left of the page for easy access.
The new theme will be rolled out to all staff and students in the next major upgrade of UCL Moodle in summer 2018. The Moodle theme is applied to a user account and in Summer 2018 everyone will be switched to the new theme automatically as part of the UCL Moodle Summer Upgrade. The theme is not to be confused with Moodle course formats, which allow you to change the way a Moodle course is laid out.
I wrote earlier on how the new theme will address accessibility issues. A number of staff across UCL provided feedback on the proposed theme and after a number if iterations, we have now agreed on a design that foremost meets the needs of staff with particular disabilities, as well as being more usable for everyone. As well as working with individuals who participated in the project’s initial focus groups, the E-Learning Champions were also given the opportunity to feed in their comments on the proposed theme and forward this to interested colleagues.
The proposed new UCL Moodle theme showing collapsed topics format. Click to enlarge.
We had contemplated a pink theme, however, blue proved to be a better option for a number of staff with particular disabilities. The blue version was also more popular with those staff without disabilities. The below design shows how the tabbed course format will look, but with blue, instead of pink tabs, menus and links.
Tabbed course format but the pink tabs, menus and links will be blue. Click to enlarge.
The UCL Moodle homepage will be simplified and will provide more space for news relating to teaching and learning at UCL. The menus will be blue instead of the pink shown in the design below.
UCL Moodle homepage, but with blue instead of pink menus. Click to enlarge.
The Accessible Moodle project team at UCL worked closely with designer Ralph Bartholomew from St Albans Web Design and developer Pat Lockley from Pgogy Webstuff to implement the new theme.
If you have any questions or comments about the new theme, or would like to be involved in the pilot, please contact Jessica Gramp.
[Edited to remove reference to the theme pilot, which was not able to go ahead as planned].
By Michele Farmer, on 18 July 2017
Live Captioning for Lectures and Events
121 Captions is now available to use for these services – they have been added to MyFinance as a service provider.
For live captioning the process is as follows:
Book the number of hours you wish from the company – they will only charge you for these hours.
You will need a laptop set up with a Skype account to connect to their system (the Skype to Skype call is free) along with a Skype Mic (the Disability IT Support Analyst has one for loan if needed). The laptop would preferably be hardwired (via an Ethernet port) to our network – you may need to get a port patched for this, but ISD Network Services will be able to help – please book a job through the Service Desk. Client Platform Services can also help with setting this up – if needed though, please give both services advance warning and log a job through the Service Desk to make sure they are available. However, in many cases, wireless internet connections should work, but it is best to run a test beforehand to make sure the signal is strong enough.
The speaker will need to be informed of the setup so they do not wander too far away from the mic whilst giving their speech.
The end user(s) will need a device (laptop, tablet) and the link (which the company will provide) to be able to view the captions.
The end user’s screen can be modified (font, colour, etc) and will also have a chat window to feed back to the typist if there are any issues.
Captioning screen before any font or colour changes.
The image above shows an example of basic layout before colour and font modifications.
The company will also provide you with a transcript afterwards.
*They also have a new service called 1Fuzion which allows display of captions and PowerPoint slides on the same screen.
Subtitle your videos for YouTube, Vimeo, staff / college / university intranet
Upload your video to YouTube (using a private or unlisted setting if necessary). They will download the video directly, subtitle it and email a professional subtitle format file back (with colours / positioning / emphasis / sound effects etc). They just charge for the subtitling and email the subtitle file, which you upload to YouTube in your Video Manager (it takes 30 seconds!). They can send instructions on how to upload to YouTube or Vimeo. Your video can also be embedded on an internal intranet site. The viewer can turn closed caption subtitles on and off as needed without any burning process.
You would just need to tell them whether you need a closed caption file or a video file with open captions burnt in, whether you want them to use UK or US English spellings, or if you’d like a version with each.
For an example of how it works in practice, take a look at the RSA shorts on YouTube, switching on the “English captions” using the icon third from right on the toolbar.
They will email your file usually within 24 hours, Monday to Friday. Orders received after midday on Friday will be delivered by midday on Monday. Weekend delivery can often be arranged, so please contact them if you’re in a rush: bookings@121captions.com
Closed Captions
By Jessica Gramp, on 16 July 2017
To learn more, click on one of the Guidelines in the boxes below.
Physical actionExpression and communication
Executive function
Recruiting interestSustaining effort and persistence
Self-regulation
UDL Principle 1 aims to ‘provide multiple means of representation’ by ‘providing options for perception’, which includes ‘offer[ing] ways of customizing the display of information’ (CAST 2011). This means the VLE should offer the ability to do things like resize text and enable screen-readers to read aloud text to those who have visual impairments or dyslexia.
By Jessica Gramp, on 10 July 2017
As part of a wider Accessible Moodle project, a new UCL Moodle theme is being designed to make it more accessible for those with particular disabilities.
The new theme will address some accessibility concerns by using:
• Larger fonts and icons.
• Off-white backgrounds to reduce glare.
• High contrasting and brighter colours.
• Making the main content areas more prominent.
• Using icons, alongside or in place of text, to de-clutter the screen and make it easier to identify important links and information.
If you work or study at UCL and would like to provide feedback on the initial designs, please contact j.gramp@ucl.ac.uk as soon as possible, using your UCL email account.
