1.1 Why is accessibility necessary and who needs it?

Regardless whether teaching is offered in the analogue or digital space, in Germany there is a legal requirement (see 1.2 1.2 Legal requirements and accessibility components in video recordings) that content can be accessed and used by all students. The fact that this is often not the case frequently relates to implicit assumptions about students, a lack of thought about the accessibility of teaching materials, and not least to limited support structures: many university and college teachers implicitly assume that the students on a course can all see, hear, speak, read, concentrate and move sufficiently well. However, the 21st social survey of the Deutsches Studentenwerk (DSW) showed that 11% of students in Germany have a disability that affects their studies (cf. Middendorff et al., 2017: 36).(2) Being aware of the heterogeneity of students and understanding their different needs can help to shape your teaching inclusively and break down barriers. The possibilities and limits of accessible lesson planning also relate to the technical infrastructure that is available. In the short term, teachers are not able to alter the situation if digital structures are insufficiently accessible. However, they can influence many of the aspects that are relevant to accessibility. For some students who have disabilities, accessibility in teaching is absolutely essential so they have equal access to the content – and it is also helpful to many other students.
Adapting your teaching – and specifically teaching videos – to be more accessible, demands a different perspective and restructuring of how you teach to suit the needs of every potential user:

• Deaf people cannot audibly perceive spoken information or noises. They need it interpreting in the sign language of their country, i.e. in our case German Sign Language (DGS). Additionally, subtitling and/or a transcription should be provided.
  
• Subtitling and transcription help people who are hard of hearing to understand audio that they may miss.
  
• Blind people cannot perceive visual information and people with visual impairments may miss details. They need a spoken alternative to visual information, such as audio description (AD), or an accessible text form that can be used with a screen reader. This converts information shown on the screen into speech via a sound card, or presents it in tactile form on a braille terminal.

Presenting content and teaching in accessible form also provides benefits for others. Transcription can for example allow greater concentration on the content, because it is not necessary to take notes. It also helps when speed reading and when preparing for examinations. Subtitling is practical for anyone who is studying in noise-sensitive environments or for those whose first language is not that of the course.

(2)These students are the focus of the beeinträchtigt studieren – best2 study, in which only 4% of students stated that their disability was discernible straightaway to others.