Support and Guidance

Back by popular demand this summer is our new micro-credential short course, the four, 1 hour session topics include:

• Active learning
• Authentic & alternative assessments
• Inclusive learning environments
• Providing meaningful feedback

All session topics align with the University’s new Principles for the Delivery of Education for 2022/23. These Principles build upon our successes and achievements during the global health pandemic, and will underpin our approaches to the delivery of education in the coming academic year. Successful participation in all four topics will gain staff a digital certificate of completion. Sessions will be delivered online in August and then repeated in September.

Further information about our summer micro-credential, the session dates/times and course booking is available here.

Video Captions 

Audio and video must be accessible.  This means you should add accurate captions for videos with speech, audio description for visual aids (where these are not described verbally) and a full transcript of the same content.  However, it may not be feasible to do this immediately for all your audio and video content. Therefore, please continue to prioritise content in courses where these changes will have the biggest impact. 

Closed captions for pre-recorded video can be generated manually or by using the automatic captions within Panopto. Automatic captions can be edited by staff. The accuracy of these systems is up to 70-75% based on the clarity of the audio, however there are functions to allow you to correct errors in captioning.

Live video is exempt from the legislation, but students may wish to enable Google Chrome captions for use in Collaborate, or captions within MS Teams. Recordings of live sessions should be captioned if they are shared online for longer than 14 days - recordings can be moved to Panopto for captioning. The university has generated guidance on the accessibility of video for staff, as well as a guide on in-house captioning.

Mathematics in LaTex Documents 

Making mathematical content fully accessible for all user and devices is not yet possible, however colleagues across the university have put together a guide for staff outlining straightforward advice on making learning materials more accessible. The guide will be revised when further options become available. 

Accessibility Tools 

Accessibility of documents can be checked and improved by using the Accessibility Checker in MS Word/PowerPoint or by using Blackboard Ally within MyAberdeen. These tools provide guidance and instructions for staff if helpful. Changes are often not complicated for staff, but can make a big difference to students. 

Staff can direct students to the Student Learning Service and the Student Support Team. There are also Learning and Teaching Policies in place to support students.

The University is fully committed to equality, diversity, and inclusion. Our vision is to strive to create an inclusive environment for work and study which celebrates the diversity of our staff and students. 

Please see here for guidance on allowing extra time for timed assessments. 

The eLearning team offer a Course Accessibility Service to support teaching teams improve the accessibility of learning materials.