Helpful links recommended by EMG

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RMIT resources | Accessibility and Usability

RMIT resources

Copyright Management Service
The main focus of the service is to seek permission for the use of 3rd party copyright works within RMIT’s electronic program and course environments. The Copyright Service also provides authoritative advice through individual discussions, school and department seminars/workshops and educational resources, to enhance understandings of Copyright Law in the development of online learning environments.

Accessibility Guides (staff access - you will need to be logged in)
User guidelines which are relevant for academics and general staff who are creating documents, video and audio clips to be uploaded for online delivery.

RMIT Images
RMIT Images is a collection of around 10,000 still photographs that can be used for the development of RMIT courseware and promotional material. The images are distributed on CD or DVD and are available to staff for RMIT purposes without copyright restrictions.

Design and Production Network (DPN)
The RMIT Design Production Network's aim is to form a community of practice in the area of production including graphic design, web design, video, animation and other multimedia for RMIT.

Learning Objects Resources
Information to assist RMIT staff to find learning materials for use in their courses and to understand RMIT initiatives around learning objects (LO).

Online Learning Hub
The online Learning Hub provides students and staff with access to a variety of learning tools and activities, including program/course reading material/lectures, quizzes, conferences, chat sessions and other interactive activities.

RMIT Online Publishing Standards – The Guidelines (staff access - you will need to be logged in)
The Online Publishing Guide enables web publishers to produce web pages of a consistent, high-quality standard aligned with the graphic identity of RMIT University.

RMIT Writing Style Guide (staff access - you will need to be logged in)
The Writing Style Guide aims to establish a consistent written style for the diverse range of content produced for RMIT publications and the RMIT website.

RMIT Brand policy (staff access - you will need to be logged in)
The RMIT Brand policy aims to establish a consistent visual identity for RMIT in its promotional activities, business correspondence, online presence and other forms of communication.

RMIT Web Publishing Templates (staff access - you will need to be logged in)
Download MS Word enabling template (RMIT_Web.dot) and starter documents which.are essential to creating webpages on the RMIT web system.

Web Site Development Process (staff access - you will need to be logged in)
The RMIT website development process guides staff step-by-step through the creation/migration of websites across the RMIT web system.

NetStorage – File Storage Service
NetStorage provides simple, Internet-based access to files stored on RMIT corporate file servers via a standard Web Browser. Files can be copied and moved between the internet based computer and the RMIT network.

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Accessibility and Usability

The following external links provide a range of useful information and tools relating to accessibility and usability.

Guidelines & General Information

WebAIM – Introduction to Web Accessibility
Or search on http://www.webaim.org for ‘accessibility’.
An introduction to web accessibility, focusing on the challenges that individuals with disabilities face when trying to access web content.

W3C – Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0
This document outlines design principles for creating accessible web content. When these principles are ignored, individuals with disabilities may not be able to access the content at all, or they may be able to do so only with great difficulty.

Apple – Accessibility in Education
Or search on http://www.apple.com for ‘accessibility’.
Apple provides various technology tools to support the best learning environment for all students regardless of their learning differences.

Web Accessibility Network for Australian Universities
The Web Accessibility Network for Australian Universities is an informal group of university staff who share a common interest in raising awareness within our organisations of the problems encountered by people with disabilities that affect their use of the web.

Web Standards Group – Melbourne
The Web Standards Group is a community of web designers & developers who are interested in web standards (HTML, XHTML, XML, CSS, XSLT etc.) and best practices (accessible websites using valid and semantically correct code).

Creating Accessible Adobe® PDF Files [PDF file size: 4.3Mb]
Or search on http://www.adobe.com for ‘accessibility’.
You can create accessible PDF documents using Microsoft® Office applications. Page 26 onwards (in the PDF) describes how to convert Microsoft® Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents to accessible PDF documents.

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Accessibility Tools & Validators

Wave Accessibility Toolbar
The WAVE Accessibility Toolbar is free to download and install in browsers. It aids manual examination of web pages for a variety of accessibility issues. URLs or webpages can be submitted/uploaded for a free automated online web accessibility check.

AIS Accessibility Toolbar
The AIS Accessibility Toolbar (NILS) assists examination of web pages for a variety of accessibility issues. It is a free toolbar for Internet Explorer on PC.

Web Developer Toolbar
A free cross-platform browser extension to assist web developers. Includes a wide range of functions, eg turning off Javascript and styles, plus access to validation tools. Available for Firefox and Mozilla.

Watchfire® WebXACT™
WebXACT is a free online accessibility checker that lets you submit URLs and test webpages for quality, accessibility, and privacy issues.

Cynthia Says™ Portal
Cynthia Says is designed to identify errors in design related to Section 508 standards and the WCAG guidelines. URLs can be submitted for a free automated oline web accessibility check.

Juicy Studio – Link Analyser
The link analyser lists all links on a webpage with an icon to indicate whether or not the link resolved successfully.

Juicy Studio – Colour Contrast Analyser
The colour contrast analyser tests whether the contrast between the background and the foreground colour is sufficient for screen readability.

Vischeck
Vischeck is a way of showing you how things look like to someone who is color blind. You can test Vischeck online checker on your own image files, or on a web page. You can also download programs to let you run it on your own computer.

Illinois Accessible Web Publishing Wizard for Microsoft® Office
The Illinois Accessible Web Publishing Wizard for Microsoft® Office offers an alternative to the native web publishing features in Microsoft® Office for converting Word, Powerpoint and Excel documents to HTMLwebpages.

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Rich Media Technologies

Media Player Accessibility
A comparision on the accessibility of major media players, conducted by WebAIM.

Apple Quicktime Closed Captioning
Quicktime video or audio files can include an auxiliary text track for closed captioning. This feature is particularly helpful for people with learning or hearing disabilities.

Media Access Generator (MAGpie)
MAGpie tools are developed by the CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM), for creating captions and audio descriptions for rich media.

Streaming Media @ University of Wisconsin
An information resource for educational media and academic staff in using streaming media for teaching and learning purposes, developed by the Department of Academic Technology Solutions, Division of Information Technology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Apple Quicktime Streaming Technologies
QuickTime Player lets you receive streaming media delivered over the Internet. It currently supports several types of streaming. Understand more about Real-time Streaming Versus Progressive Download.

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