Use of the Quality Matters Rubric and annotations are restricted to institutions that subscribe to Quality Matters. Risepoint is an Academic Service Company subscriber and has the right to use the rubric and annotations on behalf of its subscribing partners. For more information visit www.qualitymatters.org or contact [email protected].

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Quality Matters Standard 8

Accessibility and Usability

The course design reflects a commitment to accessibility and usability for diverse learners.

The Anatomy of a Quality Course
Quality Review Resources

Select an image or video below to see examples and gather ideas about how to meet specific review standards.

Specific Review Standard 8.1 | Specific Review Standard 8.2 | Specific Review Standard 8.3 | Specific Review Standard 8.4 | Specific Review Standard 8.5| Specific Review Standard 8.6 | Specific Review Standard 8.7

QM Specific Review Standard 8.1

Course navigation facilitates ease of use.

A consistent navigational structure in your course allows your students to easily access course components and helps prevent them from getting lost in the course. For example, keeping navigation menus succinct and course components organized in a modular format will help decrease the number of incorrect clicks and keep students focused on their learning.
Utilize consistent navigation strategiesthroughout your course like content headings,navigation buttons, and self-describing hyperlinks. Provide coursecontent in a clear, consistentformat like modules sothat students know whereto navigate next.

QM Specific Review Standard 8.2

The course design facilitates readability.

Using a consistent style across course content will help reduce cognitive load for your learners and help reduce distractions. For example, using consistent fonts and colors across documents and the LMS will help students not only focus on the content but will also help communicate the brand identity of your university.
Course content shouldclean, clear, and consistent across thecourse. Increase thereadability of your courseby strategically usingwhite space and minimizing distractingcontent that is purelydecorative. Remove the use of colorfultext to convey meaning. On course pages and in documents, group related content togetherto help students focuson their learning.

QM Specific Review Standard 8.3

Text in the course is accessible.

Text in your course pages, course documents, and instructional materials should be accessible for all populations of learners. Running scans on your documents and course pages can help identify accessibility concerns such as inaccessible tables or inaccurate or missing heading structures.

QM Specific Review Standard 8.4

Images in the course are accessible.

Images in your course pages, course documents, and instructional materials should be accessible for all populations of learners. Be sure to check for image alternative text, so all students have access to equivalent information. Running scans on your documents and course pages may help identify additional image accessibility concerns.
Images provided in yourcourse like photos, diagrams,and infographics should be reviewed for accessibility. Images should be clear andsized appropriatelyfor easy viewing. All imagesshould have associatedalternative text that accurately describes the content of the image.

QM Specific Review Standard 8.5

Video and audio content in the course is accessible.

Multimedia content like videos, audio clips, and podcasts should be accessible for all populations of learners. To begin, provide an accurate text transcript for audio content and edited closed captions for videos within the course. Materials that cannot be made accessible should be replaced by accessible content in your course.
Provide edited transcripts for audio files like music, podcasts, and other recordings. Provide edited closed captions on video content offered in yourcourse. Transcriptsmay also be providedin addition to captions.

QM Specific Review Standard 8.6

Multimedia in the course is easy to use.

Multimedia in your course should be easy to use for all students. Consider revisions like removing images or multimedia materials that do not serve an educational purpose and replacing content with poor audio or video quality with newer versions.  Videos longer than twenty minutes should be split into smaller segments or should have a provided table of contents with timestamps.

QM Specific Review Standard 8.7

Vendor accessibility statements are provided for the technologies used in the course.

In either your course syllabus or within your course, provide links to accessibility statements for all required technologies in the course. If an accessibility statement is not available for a tool or technology in your course, note this for students.

© 2023 MarylandOnline, Inc. All rights reserved. This document may not be copied or duplicated without written permission from Quality Matters. For more information or access to the fully annotated QM Rubric, visit www.qualitymatters.org.

Meeting QM’s accessibility standards does not guarantee or imply that specific country/federal/state/local accessibility regulations are met. Please consult with an accessibility specialist to ensure that accessibility regulations are met in your area.

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