Anne Zbitnew, Mike Karapita and Hillary Rexe and the course design team to create “Accessible Design in Broadcast Media” – online course to launch September 2017
The School of Media Studies and Information Technology (SMSIT) at Humber College ITAL has been granted $130,900.00 from The Broadcasting Accessibility Fund to develop a course called “Accessible Design in Broadcast Media” which will launch September 2017.
The first of its kind in the world, the Broadcast Accessibility Fund (BAF) is an independent and impartial funding body that provides grants for innovative projects that will advance accessibility to broadcasting content in Canada. It has allocated funds for Anne Zbitnew, Mike Karapita and Hillary Rexe and the course design team to create “Accessible Design in Broadcast Media,” a fully inclusive online course available in both English and French.
The course will be available in the fall, 2017 for all SMSIT students. The team will also create an open source version of the course for all Canadians, including broadcast media professionals, organizations seeking accessibility training, and post-secondary institutions across the country.
This course will raise awareness of the systemic, attitudinal, physical, information and technological barriers that interrupt accessibility in current broadcast media practices. It will include content about representing and raising awareness of disability in Canada within broadcast media itself. The course will teach our students how to incorporate accessibility features such as image description and described video, alt-text, transcription and captions into broadcast media content with the understanding that accessibility should not be an afterthought but part of the initial development process. They will be educated and trained to include accessibility in every aspect of what they learn and be ready for employment with necessary skills to start work without retraining.
The team behind this application seeks to nurture a culture of learning within Humber where students become change agents in understanding and promoting the value of fully accessible broadcast content. We seek to integrate a profound understanding of the need to create accessible content so that our graduates can flourish in subsequent further study and in the global job markets of today and tomorrow.