This article introduces you to the Brickfield accessibility tools installed in VCC's Moodle LMS. It also provides links to vendor training and other support resources.
Brickfield's Accessibility+ Toolkit is a collection of blocks, reports, and back-end processes that help educational institutions identify, fix, and maintain the accessibility of course content inside Moodle.
Here's a brief video overview of the Brickfield Accessibility+ Toolkit:
(From North Carolina State University's Delta LearnTech YouTube channel)
Learn more about Accessibility
If you want to know more about why accessibility is important and how it can helps your online users, this section defines accessibility and offers links to training and support.
This eLSupport KB article goes into detail about the need and value of accessibility and usability in online environments, and offers further training and support from CTLR and Brickfield:
"Disability, whether visible or not, affects a surprising number of people.
Inaccessible online resources are a further barrier - one we can avoid."
Requesting File Conversion
For files in a Moodle course, Students and Instructors may request delivery of an alternate file format that is more accessible for their needs. For example, an Acrobat PDF document may be converted to Microsoft Word format, to make it easier for screenreader software to interpret.
Files that can be converted by Brickfield will have this icon next to their name:
Clicking on the icon displays a list of actions and available file formats to select:
For "Conversion Type", the options are Text, Audio, Ebook, or Braille.
Clicking on the "Format" list displays the available file formats for conversion:
- doc - Microsoft Word
- xls - Microsoft Excel
- rtf - Rich Text Format
- pdf - Tagged PDF (text over image)
- pdf - Tagged PDF
- txt - Plain text
- csv - Comma separated
- htm - HTML
- docx - Microsoft Word
- xlsx - Microsoft Excel
Select your desired "Conversion Type" and "Format", and then click the "Request" button.
After the file conversion is completed, you will receive an email to your VCC email address from "noreply-moodle@vcc.ca". The email subject will contain the words "File conversion" and the name of the file you selected. The body of the message will say "Your document conversion request for [filename] is ready for download". That text will be in a hyperlink that will download your file.
Brickfield Concepts and Terminology
This essential terminology and rationale explains Brickfield's approach to its accessibility tools:
- "Checks" – Refers to aspects of content that often need accessibility improvements (aka "accessibility issues you must check for").
Brickfield can help you identify and resolve a wide variety of checks, such as correcting text content (e.g. changing all caps case to mixed case), adding image descriptions (e.g. "alt" tags), or making syntactical or structural improvements to a page's HTML so it performs better for screen reading and mouseless navigation scenarios. See Brickfield's Teacher's Guide "Checks Introduction" page for a full explanation and related tool(s).
- "Find Tools" - Using Brickfield's block and reports to discover accessibility compliance issues. This can include statistics across Moodle categories, inside courses, or via detailed breakdowns of individual activities or content types.
See Brickfield's Teacher's Guide "Find" page for a full explanation and related tools.
- "Fix Tools" - Using Wizards to resolve accessibility issues that were discovered in Brickfield reports. These include an Error List to quickly identify issues, and an extensive suite of "Fix" tools that can run bulk corrections on issues found in page and activity content.
See Brickfield's Teacher's Guide "Fix" page for a full explanation and related tools.
- "Future-Proof Tools" - Integrated tools that can help you take preemptive steps during content editing to prevent accessibility issues from arising. These may include link text correction checkers, file conversion tools, and other features.
See Brickfield's Teacher's Guide "Future-proof" page for a full explanation of this concept and related tools.
Using the Brickfield Accessibility+ Toolkit in Moodle
Inside each Moodle course, Brickfield's Accessibility+ Toolkit is available in the "More" menu (shown below):
The image above shows a course that's already been scanned by the Brickfield Accessibility+ tool.
Results of the scan can also be seen in the "Accessibility+ Review" block on the right.
Scanning your course for the first time
A Moodle shell must be scanned by Brickfield the first time, to begin collecting accessibility report results. An initial Brickfield course scan can take some time, depending on the size and complexity of your course.
After Brickfield has completed scanning your Moodle course the first time, it won't need to be submitted for scanning again, but course accessibility issues and their status will continually be updated as you making changes and improvements to course content.
This "Getting started" video shows you how to start using Brickfield Accessibility+ in your Moodle course:
Reviewing the Results
Accessibility+ Outline Report
After your course has been scanned the first time, the next time you hit "Brickfield Accessibilty+" in the More menu, it will take you to the "Accessibility+ Overview Report" to review the course's accessibility status. This screenshot shows the "Check list" tab of the report:
For each issue reported on this page, the wrench icon in the "Fix" column will show you the details and the tool needed to fix it.
Accessibility+ Review Block
You can also see the status of your course's accessibility using the Brickfield Accessibilty+ block:
Using Brickfield's tools to Fix issues
The Accessibility+ Report page has tabs that lead to different kinds of accessibility reports.
The "Go to Wizards" button gives you access to tools to start fixing the issues you see in those reports.
Watch these other videos to see how to use Brickfield's reports and tools to fix accessibility issues:
(Note: These demonstration videos were created by a different institution. If you need help with any of these processes, contact the eLearning Support team.)
More Tutorials and Articles
The Brickfield Teacher's Guide knowledgebase
Brickfield's detailed "Teacher's Guide" is a searchable knowledgebase of articles that thoroughly covers the features and usage of the Accessibility+ Toolkit. It's organized along their key concepts of checking, finding, fixing, and future-proofing accessibility issues.