Video Creation for Online Non-Majors Biology Courses and Accessibility Training

Video Creation for Online Non-Majors Biology courses and Accessibility Training

A Spring 2014 Type B Sabbatical Report Submitted March 16, 2015

By Jena Bills Professor of Biology Division of Science, Math, and Engineering Cosumnes River College Abstract

During my Type B Leave last semester, I had the opportunity to create videos for my Non-

Majors Biology courses as well as increase my familiarity of Accessibility Standards for online and on-ground education. Specifically, my goals for this sabbatical were 1) refresh my skill using video creation software; 2) develop video tutorials for online and hybrid Non-Majors Biology courses; 3) complete the @One course “Creating Accessible Online Courses; and 4) update as much of Biology 100 Online content to meet Accessibility Standards as time allows. Over the course of the Fall 2014 Semester, I was able to achieve all four of these goals. I am proficient in the newest versions of Camtasia on Mac and Windows operating systems. I also know how to use a few other recording applications including Explain Everything, which I enjoyed using to create many of my videos. Currently, I am using 12 videos that I created last semester in both my online Biology 300 course and my on-ground Biology 310 course. My students are viewing the videos and have commented on how the videos helped them better understand those concepts.

Although it was time-consuming and humbling, I greatly enjoyed “Creating Accessible

Courses”. Following completion of this course, I understand the legal aspects of accessibility much better. I now have a better feeling for universal design and am endeavoring to ensure my online and on-ground course content and assessments meet these standards. While I am not there yet, I have made significant progress. I have also made an effort to bring accessibility to the attention of my colleagues, but cohosting a DE flex workshop and also by encouraging communication between DSPS and faculty. Sabbatical Report

Objectives of Leave In my proposal, I identified the following four objectives 1. Refresh my skills using video creation software. 2. Develop video tutorials for online and hybrid Non-majors Biology courses. 3. Complete the @One course: “Creating Accessible Online Courses”. 4. Update as much of Bio 100 Online content to meet Accessibility Standards as time allows.

Summary of Sabbatical Activities

In August 2014, I began reviewing online tutorials and support pages for the software I expected to use when making my video tutorials. I installed and essentially re-learned how to use

Camtasia for Mac as well as Camtasia Studio 8 for PC, as it had been several years since the last time I used it for extensive editing purposes. I also explored a number of whiteboard apps for the iPad, one of which I ended up using for a number of my videos (Explain Everyting).

My video creation was temporarily interrupted by the @One course, which ended up being more of a time investment than expected. Following completion of the course, I was able to resume work on the videos. I was unable to create some of the videos I had originally hoped to make because I lacked the software and the technical skills to create an accessible version. I was able to create twelve videos that I am very pleased with, however. All videos were created using

Camtasia or Explain Everything. Filming was done with either iPhone or iPad. In addition, all videos are captioned. To accommodate short attention spans, and to ensure that there isn’t too much information in one video (a problem for learning impaired students), I tried to keep video length less than 15 minutes. I am currently using the videos in my online and my on-ground

Non-majors Biology courses (Biology 300 and 310) and have received positive comments from both student cohorts.

Links to videos on YouTube: These videos are unlisted so they are only visible with the link  Chromosomes, Genes, and Alleles Video  The Greenhouse Effect Video  Genetics 1 of 5: How to use Punnett Squares Video  Genetics 2 of 5: Complete Dominance Video  Genetics 3 of 5: Incomplete Dominance Video  Genetics 4 of 5: Codominance Video  Genetics 5 of 5: X-linked Traits Video  Pedigrees 1 of 3: Pedigree Basics  Pedigrees 2 of 3: Solving Simple Pedigrees  Pedigrees 3 of 3: Multigenerational Pedigree Analysis  Diffusion Time Lapse Video  How to make a PDF using GoogleDocs Video

During four weeks spanning September and the early part of October, most of my time was taken up with the @One course: “Creating Accessible Online Courses”. Originally I had allocated 10 hours per week (according to the course description on the @One website), but on average I spent around 30 hours per week. Because I was still teaching while taking the @One course, I was unable to work on the videos. However, the course was time well spent. In fact, it proved to be the most valuable component of my sabbatical. Over the four weeks of the course, we covered the following topics:

 Legal Issues associated with Accessibility (ADA, Section 508, Section 504)  Designing Accessible Documents o Universal Design o Using “Styles” in Microsoft Word, Templates in PowerPoint o The importance of Alt-text for images  Captioning Video, creating Transcripts for Audio recordings o Including how to use YouTube to caption your own videos  Making connections with campus Disability Resources o Identifying Offices and Staff on campus who can help  Learn how to assess a website for accessibility: WebAim Wave Tool o They have extensions for Chrome & Firefox. I use the one for Chrome and am quite pleased with the results.  Using CCC Confer for Online Office Hours

Before beginning this course, I considered myself a relatively experienced online instructor, having taught online at CRC and other colleges for nearly a decade. I thought that my courses were well designed and that I understood the principles of creating effective assessments and accessible content. During the course I learned that my assessments were inaccessible because they catered to students without visual or learning impairments, my content was inaccessible due to lack of structured formatting, and I had no clue about the accessibility resources on our campus.

Following this major hit to my ego, I endeavored to make as many changes as I could to my existing online course (Biology 100) in order to bring it up to accessibility standards. Since I was also in the process of creating content (videos, handouts, assessments) for a new online Non- majors Biology course (Biology 300), I knew that would need to be accessible as well.

These are the accessibility updates I have completed thus far:

 All Biology 100 and Biology 300 Handouts now have structured formatting and are available via Google Docs (Sample Bio 100 Handout)  Half of Biology 100 Videos from last Type B leave have new, accessible captions (Sample Updated Bio 100 Video)  Biology 300 course pages (HTML files) use structured formatting o Sample course file below. Image has alt-text label, Headings are used to orient students using screen readers.

 All Biology 300 websites and videos have been chosen for ADA compliance  Biology 100 PowerPoints are being revised (25% done) o Alt-text added to every image, text boxes removed when possible, outlines made available as .rtf file

Project Critique

I would like to have been able to create more videos for the Non-majors Biology courses and update all the PowerPoints and video captions for Biology 100 Online. However, mid-way through the Fall semester, I learned that I would have visually impaired students enrolled in each of my online courses for Spring 2015. This shifted my attention to ensuring that the assessments, handouts, D2L course pages, and websites were accessible. I am very pleased with the quantity and quality of the accessibility updates I was able to achieve. Thus far, I have had few requests for updates to materials that I was unable to revise.

One major goal of my sabbatical was to create video tutorials for topics that Non-major’s students often struggle with. Based on viewing statistics from YouTube and direct student feedback, this goal has been accomplished. My second major goal was to familiarize myself with accessibility standards for distance education and to begin to update my online courses to ensure that they adhere to these standards. While I grossly underestimated the amount of time that this would take, my courses are far more accessible than they were before this sabbatical and I feel that I am much better prepared to create accessible curriculum moving forward.

Anticipated Benefits

As stated earlier, the @One course “Creating Accessible Online Courses” was the highlight of my sabbatical. During the course it became clear to me how underprepared and uninformed we faculty are about Accessibility standards. For most of us, the extent of our knowledge is that we must accommodate our students according to the DSPS form. What we don’t know is that our courses must be universally accessible by design. In other words, we are expected, no - legally obligated, to create course content and curriculum that will be accessible to any student with any possible disability who enrolls in our class. To highlight this point, this Spring semester, I have visually impaired students enrolled in both my Biology 100 online course and my Biology 300 online course. One student is completely blind. Had I not completed the @One course and been in regular communication with DSPS about accessibility, I would have been woefully unprepared for these students. Even so, it has been a weekly challenge (beginning last semester when I learned they were taking my courses) to ensure that the content and the assessments are accessible. Having these students in my classes has been an enriching and rewarding experience for both my students and myself. Because they experience Biology differently, we are challenged to describe phenomena that would normally be illustrated with an image. A simple labeling exercise on a homework assignment or exam must be reconsidered and redesigned.

In summary, with accreditation looming as well as a possible future as part of the Online

Education Initiative, there will likely be increased attention on Accessibility in Distance

Education. This will require better communication among faculty, between faculty and DE coordinators, and between faculty and DSPS. I am relieved that my experience last semester has at least begun to open the lines of communication, if only a little bit.

Method of Sharing

As mentioned above, all video tutorials are shared with students via YouTube. The videos are embedded in D2L so that they do not have to leave the confines of the LMS. To ensure that distractions are limited, there are no ads associated with the videos and I have limited the number of related videos that appear at the end of the videos. During Spring 15 Flex Day I co-hosted a DE workshop with Greg Beyrer and Andi Adkins-

Pogue. My contributions included a discussion of attendance in online courses and a presentation of Accessibility considerations and resources. Andi and I worked together to create an

Accessibility Resource Guide for Faculty on the CRC Library website. This guide includes information on Legal Issues, LMS guidelines, captioning, and formatting instructions for various types of documents. We have also shared this guide with DSPS and it is now on their Faculty

Resources page.