UDOIT User Guide

[mtuten]

Hi all. So, if you are/have attended InstructureCon 2018 and were able to attend the "Y'all Do It: Crowdsourcing
Development of UDOIT" presentation, you already know about the UDOIT User Guide and about how you can contribute to it. For the rest of y'all, here is what you missed.

What is UDOIT?

For those who don't yet know, UDOIT is an automated accessibility auditing tool for Canvas courses that was developed by University of Central Florida as part of a Canvas Grant. To learn more about UDOIT, explore the following links:

• UDOIT Information 
• UCF's UDOIT information page

Below is UCF's video overview of UDOIT:

Note: Whenever you're installing an initial or new version of UDOIT into Canvas, PLEASE install it to a test instance and make sure it works before installing it to your production instance.
During the intial writing of this post, Clemson had the latest version installed on our test instance, but, because we had not been able to get it to work, it had not touched our production instance and the faculty were none the wiser.

Why Do You Or Why Does UDOIT Need a Guide?

If you or your faculty aren't really familiar with the rules or expectations of digital accessibility, you need a guide. Automated accessibility auditing tools are thought to only catch about 25% of accessibility issues, and UDOIT is no different. There are some things that UDOIT will flag that aren't accessibility issues and then there are some accessibility issues that won't be flagged.

For example, in early versions of UDOIT, all color contrast error reports were based on the assumption that the text was on a white background. If the text was not on a white background, some text colors that would be accessible on white but not accessible on the actual background color would not be flagged, and text colors that were not accessible on white backgrounds but were accessible on the actual background color would be flagged. 

Knowing when you should address or ignore a UDOIT report is important.

How Can You Get A Copy Of The Guide?

This guide is available in Canvas Commons with a Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-Alike license. Because Canvas Commons doesn't give me a way to track who and how many of your are downloading the guide, please let me know you've downloaded it through a comment in Canvas Commons or here. 

Jacob and Karen have also expressed that they'd love to know when you've downloaded UDOIT too. So, when you do that, please leave a comment on Github or in Canvas Community (the UDOIT Information page would be a great).

Also, after you've tried the UDOIT User Guide, feel free to leave feedback here or in Canvas Commons as well!
If your feedback includes questions, please post them here instead of Commons as Commons won't allow me to reply to comments.

To access the User Guide, you must first be logged into Canvas. After you've logged in, follow this link:

UDOIT User Guide in Canvas Commons

For those who cannot access Canvas Commons, I have attached a .imscc zip file. You'll need to follow How do I import a Canvas course export package? directions to upload it to your Canvas instance.

To see an Overview of this guide, watch this UDOIT User Guide (v1, 2017) video overview.

What Can You Expect In The Next Version?

We're hoping to update the UDOIT User Guide after 2.4.1 or 2.5.1 is released (which is slated to happen this year). If we're able to do so (see earlier note), you can look forward to the following:

• Updated information (duh)
• Updated, cleaner look with (hopefully) simpler code.
• Tips for using UDOIT alongside Canvas's built-in auditing tool.
• Possibly other features suggested by YOU!

udoituserguidev1.imscc.zip

[mdmace]

I've got the latest version of the UDOIT user guide published in our instance of Canvas.  It's really well done.  

[mtuten]

So that I don't have to struggle to find this information later (will update this post as needed)...

Other institutions where I know at least one person who has a copy of the UDOIT User Guide:

• University of Central Florida (Commons and Conversation)
• Johnson County Community College (Commons)
• Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (Commons)
• Union County College (Commons)
• University of Colorado Boulder (Listserv)
• Middle Tennessee State University (Listserv)
• Middlebury College (Email)
• Mt. San Jacinto College (Found a link to it once)
• University of Texas at Austin (Slack)

[mtuten]

Hi  @dkitchin , 

I just now noticed that your post in the comment section of the Canvas Commons for this guide asks about a way to easily delete it from a course when finished (sorry for the significant delay!!). Canvas Commons doesn't allow me to respond to comments (and I don't get a notification when a comment is left), so I will respond here.

There is no quick and easy way to remove the guide from a course that I know of. I think you would need to just go through and delete the content page by page. If you installed the guide into a course that you were developing, I'm sorry for the inconvenience. I've just added information to the Commons description that discourages this method of installation. If you or others still wish to use UDOIT in that way, you may want to install the guide into a blank course shell, add "yy--" to the start of each page title and then import the course content you'd like to develop. By doing this, it should be easier to recognize which pages need to be deleted.

[stephanieakratz]

Thanks for providing the User Guide, Michelle. I've not downloaded it yet, but I'm reviewing it for my own use and for possible faculty training at Heartland Community College in Normal, Illinois. 

[mtuten]

@stephanieakratz I hope it is still useful. It really needs an update, but I've been occupied with several other projects.