List of active policies

The Outreach and Technical Assistance Network (OTAN), under the auspices of Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE), offers an online learning environment through Moodle* for adult education agencies throughout California located at https://adultedcourses.org/. This environment is managed by the OTAN staff to support adult learning and is for educational purposes only. This Moodle site is accessible both at school and home, and access is a privilege. 

To use the platform, you must agree to abide by the following rules. You may not access, distribute, or place on the Moodle site material that: 

• encourages or facilitates illegal activities. 

• is offensive, profane, obscene, abusive, harassing, derogatory, threatening, sexually explicit, pornographic, or otherwise inappropriate language, information symbols or images. 

• is in violation of your agency’s Acceptable Use Policy. 

• is in breach of copyright owners’ statutory rights (you should not use the Internet to plagiarize the work of others, or post any content including images without the permission of the owner/correct licenses and non-original content must be correctly attributed. 

• is of a personal nature. Do not reveal personal contact information of yourself or others. 

• is harmful, including intentional introduction of malware. Vandalism will not be tolerated. 

In addition, users agree to keep their login information private and to not use another person’s login credentials. 

Screen-reader and keyboard navigation 

California Adult Education Online Courses website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers can read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters this site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate the site effectively. Here is how the California Adult Education Online Courses website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements: 

1. Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others.  
    
   Additionally, the background process scans all the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website. 
    
   These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA. 
    

2. Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key. 
    
   Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by automatically switching the keyboard focus to them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside of the popup. 
    
   Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
   

Disability profiles supported in our website

• Epilepsy Safe Profile: this profile enables people with epilepsy to use the website safely by eliminating the risk of seizures that result from flashing or blinking animations and risky color combinations. 

• Visually Impaired Profile: this profile adjusts the website so that it is accessible to most visual impairments such as Degrading Eyesight, Tunnel Vision, Cataract, Glaucoma, and others. 

• Cognitive Disability Profile: this profile provides various assistive features to help users with cognitive disabilities such as Autism, Dyslexia, CVA, and others, to focus on the essential elements more easily. 

• ADHD Friendly Profile: this profile significantly reduces distractions and noise, to help people with ADHD and Neurodevelopmental disorders browse, read, and focus on the essential elements more easily. 

• Blind Users Profile (Screen-readers): this profile adjusts the website to be compatible with screen-readers such as JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and TalkBack. A screen-reader is installed on the blind user’s computer, and this site is compatible with it. 

• Keyboard Navigation Profile (Motor-Impaired):  This profile enables motor-impaired persons to operate the website using the keyboard Tab, Shift+Tab, and the Enter keys. Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements. 

Additional UI, design, and readability adjustments

1. Font  adjustments – users, can increase and decrease its size, change its family (type), adjust the spacing, alignment, line height, and more. 

2. Color  adjustments – users can select various color contrast profiles such as light, dark, inverted, and monochrome. Additionally, users can swap color schemes of titles, texts, and backgrounds, with over 7 different coloring options. 

3. Animations – epileptic users can stop all running animations with the click of a button. Animations controlled by the interface include videos, GIFs, and CSS flashing transitions. 

4. Content  highlighting – users can choose to emphasize important elements such as links and titles. They can also choose to highlight focused or hovered elements only. 

5. Audio muting – users with hearing devices may experience headaches or other issues due to automatic audio playing. This option lets users mute the entire website instantly. 

6. Cognitive  disorders – we utilize a search engine that is linked to Wikipedia and Wiktionary, allowing people with cognitive disorders to decipher meanings of phrases, initials, slang, and others. 

7. Additional functions – we provide users the option to change cursor color and size, use a printing mode, enable a virtual keyboard, and many other functions. 

Browser and assistive technology compatibility