“Who watches the watchmen?” is a famous question. Less well known but also worth considering is “How accessible is accessibility training?”. To improve digital accessibility in society, we need as many people as possible to engage positively with training and adopt more inclusive habits and accessible practice. Therefore accessibility training needs to be accessible in the widest sense of the word – not just in terms of accessible materials and formats, but engaging content which makes the user feel able to adopt better practice and apply this to their work. It needs to feel achievable and relevant, to help persuade people to improve the accessibility of their digital practice. But how to achieve this?
Over the last two years, I’ve worked with John Downing from the Academic and Digital Skills team, the staff digital skills training lead, to co-create and deliver a programme of digital accessibility training at the University of York. Prior to this, Lilian Joy delivered the Accessible Documents training online on a monthly basis for 3 years. Before that, our training was face to face in computer labs! We’ve trained over 2000 staff over the years on creating accessible documents. In this blog post, I explain the approach we’ve taken with Digital Accessibility staff training, looking at the challenges this type of online training presents and how we’ve tried to address these.
General challenges to staff training
Although there are challenges specific to accessibility training, there are some general challenges applicable to most (if not all) staff digital training to contend with in Higher Education.
The first two of these are heavily linked – time and workload. Finding time to attend training is a persistent problem – it can be difficult to prioritise professional development when you struggle for time to complete more pressing tasks. Short term demands can block long term development. This situation is becoming more pronounced for colleagues across Higher Education institutions across the UK, as cuts to the sector and efforts to save costs see a reduction in staffing for many teams and departments. For many staff, this has seen increased workload or taking on new roles, which can make setting aside time to attend training more difficult. There is a mandatory digital accessibility training package (completed by over 4000 staff annually), but all training sessions beyond this are optional. They are encouraged by some line managers and recommended for roles where a computer is used, but the sessions we provide need to be something that staff see as manageable whilst time-poor and something they can fit into what may already be a stretched workload.
The next challenge is the range of digital systems used at the University of York – a problem also faced in other institutions. Whilst the range of different roles, types of teaching and areas of research at the university is exciting, the number of different pieces of software and platform used to achieve this presents a challenge to offering digital training. Even when approaching something relatively generic, as a minimum we need to cover two workspaces, Microsoft Office and Google Workspace. Having to duplicate information for the same tasks across multiple tools and platforms makes any training lengthier.
In planning any training, there is a tension between “light touch” and “heavy duty” approaches. Which is the better approach? It’s hard to say – and you can get criticised for either! Keeping it light helps keep sessions shorter, more manageable and less daunting, but may not provide enough depth for everyone’s needs. More detailed sessions cover more material and will likely meet more needs of a wider audience, but you risk some attendees zoning out as they feel sections don’t apply to them. It can feel more challenging to the attendee with more to remember and typically it would be longer, presenting more of a challenge in finding time to attend a longer session. Essentially, this can come down to the questions, “Does everyone need to know everything? Or can information be broken down and split across smaller, more focused sessions?”. The type of approach may dictate the length of the session, but with either approach, there are also other considerations in organising training. How often will training run and what staffing is needed for that? What resources will be needed to support taught content? What format will these take and where will they be kept? These all need consideration when developing new training.
Specific challenges to accessibility training
There are some specific challenges to accessibility training, most about overcoming popular misconceptions about digital accessibility and accessibility more widely. Whilst making training feel relevant to attendees is important for any topic, it is often a particular issue in accessibility training. There are widespread perceptions that the need for accessible formats only concerns a few people, that accessibility only encompasses some very specific forms of accommodations, that it doesn’t apply to their role. As such, it’s important to make it clear how it can benefit everyone and demonstrate the relevance of content. There is also a tendency for people to view accessibility as an afterthought, as extra work on top of their existing tasks, which is also important to dispel when running digital accessibility training. Similarly, accessible practice can be perceived as difficult, so again promoting how accessible habits can be easily adopted is important, so attendees feel confident in making their work more accessible, rather than daunted by the perceived difficulty of the task.
The common perception of accessibility as extra work rather than a necessary part of the work process presents another potential issue. Is it right to have accessibility training as separate? People often feel confident in other areas of their work but want specific guidance on accessibility – understandably they do not want to go through a whole topic again to check that their practice is accessible. On the other hand, by having separate targeted sessions on accessibility, do we risk perpetuating the view of accessibility as somehow separate? We’ve tried to take a dual approach to this. We do offer focused accessibility training sessions, so otherwise digitally confident staff wanting just to focus on improving their accessible skills set can do so, but accessibility is built in throughout the digital training offer. The digital skills team ensures that accessibility features are covered in all their training sessions. So for example, if you attend training on creating academic documents, you will have the importance of heading styles explained and accessibility checkers promoted to you. If you attend the training on creating presentations, issues around contrast, readability and so on will be covered in slide design, tips about accessible screen sharing and use of live captions are given in the discussion of presenting your materials. The VLE team, likewise, have built accessibility information into their training sessions and their guides and site templates. This approach means that accessibility is taught and presented as an inherent part of the digital creation process and workflows. This dual approach means that anyone undertaking training is shown accessibility as a standard part of the digital process, but those concerned specifically about accessibility can attend standalone sessions or access specific resources to enable them to more quickly find the accessibility information they need.
Staff Bitesize Training Programme
The Bitesize style and branding of training sessions was developed collaboratively by members of the digital skills team. Training is delivered in the form of concentrated 1 hour sessions filled with direct content featuring lots of live demos and Q&A. The training sessions move quickly but are recorded, for any staff who want to attend but are unable to, as well as to enable attendees to recap and consolidate as needed. The taught component is also supported by online resources and comprehensive guides to further learning available on the Skills Guides and Practical Guides. This concentrated style allows the sessions to be kept to a maximum of an hour of taught content, which is more manageable for staff to attend than longer sessions. This has been a successful approach, with the Staff Bitesize sessions becoming a recognisable program and sub brand within the university.
The sessions are also consciously designed to be accessible. Captions are made available, for the online sessions, cameras are never required to be switched on, all materials are shared after the session so participants can focus on the content and not worry about note taking and we can provide alternative formats if needed.
We decided to introduce digital accessibility sessions as part of this, beginning with the Creating Accessible Documents session. This enabled us to tap into the established nature and platform of the Staff Bitesize progressions, using a familiar format with existing channels for promotion. Following positive feedback, we’ve since added a Creating Accessible Presentations session and a Google Sites session, which combines the practicalities of building a Google site with advice on how to do so with accessibility in mind and introducing accessibility statements. We’re also trialling Reading Lists training in this format, again combining the practicalities of using a system with information about using it accessibly.
Striking the right tone
As mentioned in the discussion of the challenges of creating this training, there are a lot of popular perceptions about accessibility and finding the right tone for the training is critical in tackling these. This is especially important when delivering digital skills training to a mixed audience, where not all attendees are digitally confident. As such, it’s important to adopt an engaging and relaxed approach – although arguably that is true for delivering most training!
But in an area where people are often concerned about whether they are doing the right thing or feel embarrassed about not knowing, creating a “digital amnesty” kind of atmosphere where attendees feel comfortable asking any questions is important. As the sessions run very content packed, we encourage questions via the text chat through the taught part of the session, to help create a clean recording, but after stopping the recording, we welcome any questions and also give contact details for any follow up questions. This enables attendees to ask questions without any concern they will be recorded, as well as giving the option to ask questions outside the session altogether, if preferred. These training sessions are supplemented by Accessible Document meetups run every couple of months to allow people to consolidate their learning and ask questions specific to their area of work.
People who haven’t thought about accessibility before are often aware they may not have been working accessibly or are worried they haven’t been – there is also a belief that accessibility training is effectively going to be a session of nagging and telling off, focused on what people should not be doing and things they must stop. To counter this, we try to create a reassuring atmosphere and avoid being too didactic, offering practical suggestions and giving examples of things that can be easily adjusted and adopted. Although there are a few hardline do’s and don’t’s, we make sure there is no punitive tone and encourage people to have a go, rather than fear getting it wrong. This is really important to encourage people to implement the content covered and also to help with their accessibility journey more generally. Nobody wants to feel nagged – and if someone feels attacked for previous behaviour or mistakes made, they’re less likely to engage positively. If we create a positive experience where attendees are shown ways they can improve practice and they feel good about that, they are more likely to put these things into practice, share this knowledge with their peers and be more positive about attending further accessibility training, either to go into greater depth or to cover accessible practice in other areas. I’m aware this passage makes it sound very calculated – although there is strategy behind this approach, more broadly we want people to enjoy and feel good about attending our training sessions just because that’s nice!
Resources
Besides the training sessions themselves, there is the host of content designed to support these – as well as being usable as stand alone resources for those who have not attended the training. As mentioned before, the sessions are recorded. The recording is then shared with all staff who signed up to the session – so staff who are interested but cannot attend can sign up and receive the recording and materials after the session, whilst staff who attended have the recording to back through as a resource if needed. As the university is a Google institution, for sessions with slides, Google slides are used throughout the digital skills training program (although some sessions are taught entirely from live demonstrations and don’t have a supporting slide deck). Google slides are easily shared with colleagues, can be accessibly designed and can be easily downloaded and converted by users if required. We send the link to the slides to all who signed up after the session, along with the recording. John edits the recordings to have chapters, making it easier for staff returning to the resource to find the section they need, making this a practical and accessible resource. Given the varied demands on staff of different schedules and teaching commitments, having recordings and other resources which can be accessed asynchronously is really important, as well as being more inclusive for any staff working weekend shifts trying to engage with training opportunities.
The basis of our resources is the Digital Accessibility Practical Guide. This is part of a range of Skills Guides offered by the Academic and Digital Skills team, all of which are built in the Springshare LibGuides platform. This enabled us to tap into the established platform of Skills Guides at York, as well as this providing us with an open access and easily editable web presence for guidance and resources.
The guide is then divided into topic sections for users to find what they need more easily. We use the guide to offer overviews and guidance for each topic, as well as having the slides used in the training sessions. We also include any relevant links and any existing templates. We try to add easy starting points for accessibility for each topic, by creating checklists and top tips, to help users start adopting accessible habits without feeling daunted. For the more complex task of creating a Google site and the accessibility statement for it, we offer a checklist and a template statement, to offer more support for what can seem an intimidating undertaking. We’ve also created a Digital Accessibility at University of York A-Z, in the form of a Google doc. This partly acts as a glossary, partly as a directory of useful links and contacts for all kinds of accessibility support at the University of York. It’s currently in the form of a Google Doc – not the shiniest of solutions, but it’s something we can very quickly edit as terminology, tools and services change, so it’s easy to keep it accurate and up to date.
Besides the Skills Guide, we’re also trying to improve general awareness of digital accessibility and digital skills training across the university through the use of Slack. Slack is a digital messaging tool used in many businesses and institutions, which allows for the creation of channels for particular groups or interests. As well as using Slack channels as a way to promote training and resources to staff, we use the digital accessibility Slack channel at York as a means of encouraging staff to seek community support and ask questions around the creation of digitally accessible materials. Slack has been in use amongst some professional services teams for some years, although its adoption by academic departments has been more recent, with many academic staff still not really using the platform. Consequently the reach is better to professional than academic staff, but overall use of the platform is increasing, so we hope it becomes a useful space for more staff.
We’re looking at how we promote the training to different staff groups. The uptake is stronger amongst professional services staff (although this is true not just for digital accessibility training but digital skills training as a whole), so we need to consider how to reach more academic staff and how to encourage them to attend. Amongst academic staff, we have more engagement from teaching staff than researchers, so again, that’s another group we need to try to work with more. We’re trying promoting the training in different places to try to improve this and reviewing how we advertise it to different groups. We don’t have an answer yet but it’s something we’re trying to address!
What’s next?
The positive feedback we’ve received from the training suggests the Bitesize approach is a good one, so we’re keen to expand our offer. However, given the size of the training offer and the need to repeat each session at least once through the academic year, we’re having to temper this enthusiasm with making sure we don’t overextend ourselves and offer more than we can deliver. As part of our feedback form, we ask staff what else they would like to see training on – there has been an interest in web content and social media, so we’re looking at how we can develop a bitesize session around that as our next addition to the digital accessibility training offer. We’re pleased with the feedback so far and hope to build on this with more sessions.
Working collaboratively with departments and teams and supporting them to create and deliver their own bespoke training sessions is one way to build capacity that is distributed and more sustainable. It can help for various disciplines or teams to run their own training sessions to meet their needs as has been the case with the students’ union, online tutors and various departments. Specific training may also be needed for teams like Communications or Systems Developers and often the best trainers can be found from within the team itself if specialist knowledge of software or coding is required. Additional workshops that are co-produced with students on specific needs are also proving popular with staff and put the lived experience of disabled students front and center in accessibility training. Lastly, user research has proved invaluable as a means for staff to engage directly with the challenges students can face when things are not accessible for them. No doubt there are other ways to make accessibility training more motivating, inspirating and accessible to more people and we hope to hear in the comments if there are ideas we ought to try.
