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Digital accessibility guide

Explore how to create, design and structure your content to ensure that is is accessible.

Accessible maths

We are currently testing and exploring options for the complex task of making equations more accessible to screen reader users. 

You may have noticed low accessibility scores on your Moodle modules if you are exporting LaTeX to PDF. This is because the PDF is "untagged". Tags provide structure by identifying different types of content such as Headings, Tables and Links. Tagged PDFs should be available by default in 2024. You can improve the accessibility of your PDFs using the LaTeX template available from The University of York.

Our initial tests of LaTeX outputs from different modules have shown that the HTML format from bookdown has performed the best for accessibility e.g. MA3662 Lecture 2 (city.ac.uk). It is worth considering RMarkdown/bookdown (University of Bath) as an alternative to LaTeX as HTML works well with assistive technologies.

If you have handwritten maths notation, we recommend using Mathpix to digitise your notes to machine-readable text. It will export to a variety of formats including LaTeX. Select."Go to Snip Web" from the top bar menu once you log in to upload your notes.  

You can also use Pandoc to convert to another format, such as TeX to HTML. You can then upload the webfolder to display as a HMTL page on Moodle. To do this:

  • Add a File resource on your Moodle module
  • Drag the zipped webfolder into the Select files section
  • Right-click the folder and select Unzip
  • Right-click on the HTML file and select Set main file
  • In the Appearance section select Embed

If you need support improving or testing the accessibility of your materials, or you have discovered any tools and techniques that make the production of accessible maths materials easier, please get in touch via the Digital Accessibility - IT Self-Service Portal (service-now.com).

Equations

Equations must be added in the maths environment available in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, to ensure that mathematical characters and symbols accessible to screen readers.

  • Do add an equation, by selecting the Insert tab and choosing the Equation tool (characterised with the pi symbol) under the Symbols section. The keyboard shortcut is "Alt"+ "=" on a Windows system and control + "=" on a Mac system.
  • Do not use the Insert Symbol characters or super or subscripts fonts which will not be read out accurately by a screen reader.
  • Do not insert images of equations as these will require accurate text descriptions.

equation options in the microsoft maths environment

There are three ways to add an equation:

  1. Choose from the editable Built-in equations.
  2. Insert New Equation.
  3. Convert handwritten equations to editable text using Ink to Math.

The Built-in, Insert new equation and Ink equation options from the Equation button on Word

Equations can be typed in using Unicode or LaTex (Word only) input and displayed in Professional 2-dimensional form or Linear 1-dimensional form.

Please refer to Microsoft’s guidance on writing equations or formulas and linear format equations using UnicodeMath and LaTeX in Word.

Frequently asked questions

No. Even if you have an accessibility solution created, Ally's score for the inaccessible resource will remain low. Please disable alternative formats for the PDF and that will ensure student don't try to convert them.

Usually as images, requiring alt text to be accessible.

The University has consulted with copyright specialists, and we understand that making copies in an alternative format using Ally is covered by what the law permits for educational purposes, or by what relevant licences permit. This might be desirable for ease of accessibility, for example. These copies should not be shared with anyone else; they are for personal use only.

If you have queries regarding copyright please contact the Copyright Librarian, Stephen Penton, stephen.penton@city.ac.uk.

Staff might be worried about meeting a certain accessibility score on their modules.

Ally helpfully guides users on how to create more accessible content and learn how to remediate their resources. However, there are certain accessibility issues that it currently does not check for yet, or some accessibility issues may need a fix on a wider scale. This could be the case if your resource is produced using a template or it belongs to a 3rd party. Therefore, while it is a powerful tool, it should not be taken as the single source of truth for the accessibility of your course content. It may not be possible to have 100% accessibility score on some resources, but anything above 90% is excellent.

You may wish to flag to your students known accessibility issues you cannot remediate yet to manage expectations while you consider alternative solutions.

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