Teaching Public Health Topics Online

He documents some research stating length anywhere from 3-15 minutes.

Link to article from Quality Matters.

The Peralta Online Equity Rubric is an exciting tool that I learned about from a recent conference workshop I attended. As noted on their website, “The Peralta Equity Rubric is a research-based course (re)design evaluation instrument to help teachers make online course experiences more equitable for all students.”

Online Equity Rubric

We can consider the equity criteria when assessing courses based on the newly added PH Course Review Rubric criteria on “Course materials present examples of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion”.

If you are creating a new course and/or creating materials for an existing course, the following are some things to keep in mind to assure that any materials are accessible to all of our learners.

• Public Health Course Rubric – Faculty Self Assessment

This UVM Public Health Course Quality Rubric Tool is used to review all new and existing public health courses as part of the Public Health program. The rubric is adapted from the SUNY OSCQR rubric. All courses are reviewed on a regular basis as defined by the program. The review process is collaborative in nature. The faculty member and instructional designer independently review their course, come together to discuss, and identify any action items to be addressed prior to next offering of the course. This tool can also be used when designing and developing new courses.

• Blackboard ALLY Accessibility Tool

ALLY is a tool that is automatically integrated into all courses in Blackboard. It provides faculty with feedback about how accessible their files are and creates alternate versions of the files that are accessible to students with a variety of needs or preferences.

You may see small meter icons next to all of the documents in your course. Those meters are automatically generated by ALLY.

Tips and techniques for checking your course ALLY score and making documents accessible.

• Alternative Text (ALT text) for Images

Any time an image is added into your content materials it is required to have alternative text (ALT text). The ALT text serves as an image title or brief description of the image for visually impaired learners. What is written in the ALT text is what a screen reader will read for visually impaired learners.

Tips and techniques for writing Alternative Text.

• Accessibility Checker in MS Word

If you are creating PDF documents from MS Word documents, it is recommended to always run the accessibility checker on your MS Word document prior to saving it as a PDF.

Tips on how to run the MS Word accessibility checker

Tips on how to run the PowerPoint accessibility checker

• Captioning Video Files

Any video that is in a course needs to be captioned.

If it is a video that you created, the recommendation is to upload the video to the UVM streaming server where it will be housed. Once uploaded to streaming, you can obtain a URL link and/or the embed code to add into your course. The Caption Request Form can then be used to request a .SRT file only, that will be sent back to you for linking to the video.

If is a video from another source (YouTube or vimeo), if it is not captioned, you can submit the video to be captioned using the Caption Request Form.

• Link Text

When adding weblinks to your course, it is recommended to add the link via Link Text.

I recently attended a Blackboard Innovative Teaching Seminar (BITS) webinar on E-hybrid model: Service learning in a distance learning course.  The speaker, Dr. Amar Kanekar, from the University of Arkansas, Little Rock shared how he used Trello to create his course design documents.  I thought it was brilliant and a nice way to visulize the design and alignment of each course modules, especially because you can color code how each element aligns.

 

This Vocaroo tool is great if you want students to create a podcast or other audio resource. It is free, quick and simple to use.

https://vocaroo.com/