Are your teaching materials accessible?

Guidelines for the production and provision of academic materials in accessible formats

Students with a print disability or learning disability may find some academic material inaccessible. In developing and administering your course materials there are number of factors which can reduce the disadvantage faced by these students. Taking these into account will very often result in an improved learning experience for all of your students.

Some material will need to be reformatted for students with a print or learning disability registered with the Disability Liaison Unit (DLU). Students may require study material in a variety of formats such as Braille, e-text, audio or large print. The quality and early availability of material greatly affects the DLU's ability to provide timely delivery of alternative formats to registered students.

Accessibility guidelines for course materials

The most important factors affecting access to academic materials are:

• selection of course readings or texts which are available from publishers in electronic format where possible.
  
• creation of handouts and readers in an electronic text format such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Powerpoint, accessible PDF, rtf or txt files, or accessible web pages where possible.
  
• early availability of readings and reading lists prioritised in week order. Teaching material should be available to all students at least four weeks prior to the beginning of semester.
  

Course material should:

• be first generation photocopies
• be black print on white background
• be aligned correctly
• have clear page numbers
• use a sans serif font such as Arial
• be appropriate text size,12pt for Monash produced materials
• be not more than one page of text per photocopied page nor reduced photocopies or scans
• have complete bibliographic details for all books and articles
  

 For further information contact the Disability Liaison Unit