Creating and Recording Accessible Lectures and Presentations

Course content is often delivered through lectures and presentations. Recorded lectures and lecture slides may be shared through Moodle or by other digital means. Regardless of whether a lecture or presentation is delivered live or asynchronously, it is important that learners do not encounter barriers to the content that prevents them from being able to perceive and comprehend what is being shared. This article will offer tips to help reduce and remove barriers to lecture and presentation content.

Preparing your slides

A lecture or presentation audience may include individuals with low vision, who are blind and/or who are a long distance from the screen. The University of Washington offers these recommendations for creating an accessible slide deck so that it is most accessible to everyone.

  • Use high contrast colors (use WebAIM’s Color Contrast Checker)
  • Do not rely solely on color or text or graphics to convey meaning, which is lost on those with colorblindness
  • Use large (24 point+) sans serif fonts
  • Minimize the amount of text on a slide and the number of visuals on a slide
  • Make graphics as simple as possible
  • Minimize animations and movements

If your slide deck includes any draft slides or others that will not be presented, hide them so they will not be displayed during the presentation, making your presentation go more smoothly. (See how to hide or show a slide in PowerPoint and how to skip a slide in Google.

Sharing your slides as a file

If you choose to share your slides as a file, the file needs to be as accessible as possible. DELTA’s Digital Accessibility Guide outlines general guidelines for ensuring that all images and text are accessible, but some additional steps must be taken to make slides fully accessible.

  • Microsoft Office 365 has a built-in accessibility checker that can help you check all aspects of slide accessibility, including the order in which the components of the slide are read by a screen reader.
  • For Google Slides, use the Grackle Slides extension for Google to check the accessibility of your slides. Be sure to view not just the Accessibility tab of Grackle Slides, but also the “Slides Structure” tab, which allows you to indicate what order slide components should be read by a screen reader.
  • Be sure to remove any unused slides before sharing them.

Iif you create your slides in Microsoft PowerPoint and use its accessibility checker that you keep the slides out of the Google environment. Saving a PowerPoint presentation in Google Drive will not maintain the integrity of your PowerPoint accessibility features. Store PowerPoint files on your hard drive (not in Google Drive) and share them as an attachment or file upload to Moodle.

If you would like to share your PowerPoint slides as a PDF, make your slides fully accessible using Microsoft’s accessibility checker before converting to a PDF. This PowerPoint to PDF workflow will help you ensure that your PDF is fully accessible.

Presenting your slides

  • Use the Presenter View / Slideshow feature rather than showing your slides in editing mode. This will maximize the size of the slide and also help viewers focus only on the current slide.
  • Briefly describe any images or other relevant graphics on each slide for any viewer who is unable to fully see the image.
  • If there is text on the slide that you expect your viewers to read, then read it out loud so that any learner who cannot see the text is able to perceive the content.
  • If your presentation includes a video, ensure that the video is captioned for learners who cannot hear the audio.
  • If the audio portion of any multimedia used in your presentation does not fully describe the visual portion or if you include a animation that is not narrated, be sure to describe what is happening on the screen for those who are unable to see the presentation.
  • Avoid pointing to a projected presentation and saying, “you can see right here…” Instead, describe what you are pointing at for those who are unable to see it.
  • If using your own bodily movement or gestures to illustrate a point, ensure that the meaning of your movements is also shared verbally.

Recording your lecture / presentation in Panopto

Content considerations

  • Consider if your video lectures can be shortened and more focused than live lectures. Since students are able to rewatch your video lecture it might be possible to include fewer examples or separate out some content to present in a different format in Moodle.
  • Make your videos “evergreen” so you can use them in multiple semesters.
    • Do not include content like reminders and announcements
    • Remove any content with specific dates (exam dates, class meeting times, holidays, etc.)
    • Share any semester-specific information in Moodle instead, perhaps through the Moodle Announcements forum.
  • If recording a lecture you are presenting to live audience
    • Be sure to repeat any audience questions so that video viewers can hear it.
    • Do not identify any student who is speaking, in order to protect their privacy.

Technical considerations

  • Position your camera so that it is level with your line of vision when looking straight ahead.
    • Record directly in Panopto instead of Panopto-via-Moodle.
    • An external webcam that is compatible with a laptop, desktop, and/or a tripod will give you the greatest flexibility.
    • When using a built-in webcam on a laptop, elevate your computer to provide the best angle. Use a laptop stand or a lap desk (the latter is available from the NC State Libraries)
  • If you want to include both webcam output (i.e. video of you speaking) and your slides in the final Panopto video, be sure that in Panopto capture, you go to the Settings > Stream Output > capture streams separately. This will prevent your webcam capture from being an overlay on top of and obscuring a portion of your slides.

Location considerations

Recording in a DELTA mini-studio or your office can be more effective than recording a live lecture.

  • Questions and other distractions in a classroom will not impact your online viewers’ experience
  • Webcam placement can be optimized for recording / viewing.
  • Audio is likely to be clearer, especially if you use headphones with a microphone
  • Capturing physical demonstrations is easier.
  • It eliminates privacy concerns that exist when students in your live class are captured
  • It makes for a less stressful in-class lecturing experience for you since you don’t have to think about both your live audience and the recording.

Editing lecture / presentation recordings

For multimedia accessibility (critical)

  • Add audio descriptions in the Panopto editing tool if your shared screen contains information that you do not describe verbally. When viewing, the video will pause when it gets to a frame where you’ve added an audio description and it will read out the description during video play-back. This is necessary for visually impaired students, and helpful for all.
  • Edit your captions for accuracy. Automatically generated captions must be reviewed and fixed…especially when your video contains technical terms.
  • See WebAIM: Captions, Transcripts, and Audio Descriptions for more information.

For optimum usability

  • Add a table of contents so that students can easily locate different sections of the lecture if they need to review singular topics.
  • Edit which stream is showing at any given time. When learners need to see the presenter’s face, you can show the speaker camera. If not you can choose to show only slides. If you want to show an in-class demonstration, you can switch to the demonstration camera for that portion of the lecture.
  • See How to edit a video in Panopto to learn how to cut out pieces of a video if necessary.

Recommended cameras and equipment

The library has a large number of devices to borrow, including many cameras and tripods. These could be borrowed for a single use, for example if you need a second camera to capture an in-class demonstration or activity in addition to a speaker-view camera, or you can borrow some devices to test them out to decide which one you prefer or which is most compatible before purchasing your own.

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