Accessibility Guide
Updated May 2021
The Peer Review is committed to continually engaging disability justice as a public-facing value. We see disability justice and the work of access as forms of transformative pedagogy. We understand our positionality and the possibilities available to us help to create practices and ways forward that heal the harms historically reproduced within the academy and within academic publishing, including (but not limited to) inaccessible text documents or multi-media texts, a lack of audio or sound-capable texts, inattention to accessibility features in text presentation, and perhaps most importantly, a previously lax approach to proactively centering the needs and experiences of disabled persons within our community. By developing this Accessibility Guide, we are beginning to formalize the process of holding ourselves accountable to not reproduce the harms of the past, and to instead generate texts and scholarship that are more accessible and more easily engaged by a broader audience.
TPR is committed to creating an accessible, multimodal open-access journal, and we expect mutual accountability from our writers and readers. We are actively working to increase accessibility across our digital platforms. To achieve our commitment to accessibility, we require writers to follow accessible publishing practices. The guidelines below help writers create accessible publications for all readers.
This accessibility guide is a living document that will continue to grow. We welcome your scholarly knowledge and lived experiences with accessibility. Please contact us with any questions or any areas we should expand.
Access Moves in Audio/Video materials:
Transcripts and captions serve a number of helpful functions. Examples include, but are not limited to, their ability to enable readers with hearing impairments to access texts; they enable those who can’t use audio to still engage with a text; they provide an attentional foothold for those with visual or auditory processing disorders; they provide a helpful means of going back into an auditory text to review particular topics or points.
Video
Accessible videos include transcripts, descriptive transcripts, and captions.
- Transcripts are text-versions of the content. Transcripts should include all spoken audio, on screen text, and visual cues. Transcripts can be embedded on the website or as an additional document.
- Descriptive transcripts include summaries of the visual content alongside the spoken-audio. Descriptive transcripts should describe the visual content of the video.
- Captions are text-based representations of the audio displayed concurrently with the video.
TRP recognizes the technological challenges of revising videos during the peer review process. We recommend author(s) submit the descriptive transcript for the peer review process. That way, author(s) can then revise their descriptive transcript before recording. Once accepted for publication, author(s) should record their videos. For publication, the final video file (YouTube preferred) and transcripts must match. The original video file, transcript, descriptive transcript, and captions are required for publication.
Audio
Accessible audio files include transcripts and audio quality.
- Transcripts are text-versions of the content. Transcripts should include all spoken audio. Transcripts can be embedded on the website or as an additional document.
- Audio quality should be clear with low background noise. To record, we recommend using a microphone and headphones.
TRP recommends author(s) submit transcripts for the peer review process. That way, author(s) can then revise their transcript before recording. Once accepted for publication, author(s) should record their audio. For publication, the final versions of the audio file and transcript much match.
Resources and Guides on Developing Accessible Audio/Video Materials
We hope you’ll find these resources helpful in creating submissions that adhere to TPR’s Accessibility Guidelines.
Example of descriptive transcript
Images
Accessible images include either alt text and long descriptions. In addition, images submitted to TPR may include a title and caption.
- Alt text is a short description of the image.
- Long descriptions are detailed descriptions of complex images such as charts, tables, or diagrams.
- Titles are identifying names given to the images. Often, titles are used to indicate an images place within a sequence of images. i.e. “Figure 1”
- Captions are textual descriptions of images that augment the content presented in the image. This could include the official title or name of a reproduced image or work.
Alt text and long descriptions are embedded in webpages allowing screen readers to narrate visual media to readers who are visually impaired or prefer to use assistive technologies.
While images can be embedded in submissions for peer review, when the piece is accepted for publication images need to be submitted as separate, original files. Alt text or long descriptions can be submitted in a separate word document. We accept .jpg, .png, and .pdf file types. Separate image files and alt text or long descriptions are required for publication.
Resources and Guides on Developing Accessible Image/Visual Materials
We hope you’ll find these resources helpful in creating submissions that adhere to TPR’s Accessibility Guidelines.
Accessible Composing Guidelines (created by MSU WC consultants)
Access Moves in Visual Materials
Alt text, captions, and long descriptions serve a number of functions. Examples include, but are not limited to, they enable screen readers to narrate visuals; they display if images are unable or slow to load online; they provide an option for individuals with sensory processing; they highlight the rhetorical work of what images are doing.