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Synopsis

Articulate Rise is an e-learning authoring tool with an intuitive interface and powerful capabilities for creating interactive and responsive online courses.  Rise is part of a larger suite of Articulate 360 products that offers a comprehensive set of applications for designing and delivering eLearning content.

Licensing

Since Articulate Rise is not centrally licensed at Penn State, individual units and departments should follow the standard purchasing process to obtain a license. For pricing and information from Articulate, view Articulate 360 Pricing page.

Articulate Design Tips

Articulate provides some tips for how to design an accessible Rise course such as using a consistent design, providing text-based alternatives, and eliminating distractions. These are general best practices but that could be widely applicable, but some are written within the context of a Rise course.

While most content blocks in Rise are either already accessible or can be made accessible by taking some additional steps, there are a few types of interactions that should be avoided. Articulate has also created a guide to help you choose accessible Rise components by breaking down which ones are fully accessible, mostly accessible with some caveats, and currently inaccessible.

While these resources are a great starting point, there are some specific areas of Rise accessibility that we’ve provided more details about on this page.

Keyboard Navigation

If you’re designing course content in Rise, we recommend providing students with a link to the article detailing Rise keyboard navigation, which also includes steps for how to enable full keyboard controls on Macs.

Rise content should be accessible by someone who relies entirely on a keyboard for navigation. While some of the keyboard interactions are typical, such as using Tab to move from one interaction to another, the link above includes key combinations that are unique to Rise content blocks.

Adding Image Descriptions

There are multiple options for adding descriptions for images in Rise, including the following:

  • Describe the image within the course content. If you provide a description for everyone, you don’t need to duplicate the description in the image alt text.
  • For images that require relatively short descriptions (typically around 1-2 sentences), a description can be added to the images alt attribute. This article provides steps and screenshots detailing how to add image alt text in Rise.
  • For complex images such as a chart or infographic that needs a longer description, you can add an Accordion/Tab content block below the image and place the description within the accordion. This allows people who need it to expand the description and for it remain hidden for everyone else, which can help reduce the length of the page.

Video Captions and Transcripts

There are a variety of ways to add videos and captions in Rise, including the following:

Option 1: Upload a Video into a Video Block

  1. In Rise, follow the instructions to Insert a Video Block.
  2. Select Multimedia followed by Video and Rise will insert a video for you.
  3. Once the video block has been added, you can edit it to upload a video from your computer and a caption file in VTT format.
    For more information see Rise 360: How to Add Closed Captioning to a Video.
    Note: You can also add a transcript text in an Accordion/Tab content block below the video.

Option 2: Embed a Kaltura Video:

Find Embed Code in Kaltura

  1. Log in to the Penn State Kaltura site.
  2. Go to your video and select Share to view embed options.
    1. Under Standard Embed, select “V7 player embed – with transcript.”
    2. Copy the code to be pasted into Rise.

Paste into Rise

  1. In Rise, follow the instructions to Insert a Video Block.
  2. Select Multimedia followed by Embed. By default this inserts a sample video from Vimeo.
  3. Select Edit followed by Change to paste a new embed code.
  4. Paste the code copied from Kaltura and press Enter to update changes. The video with captions will be embedded.
    Note: If your Kaltura video does not already have captions, find out how to upload captions in Kaltura or order and edit machine captions in Kaltura.

Option 3: Embed From Another Source:

You can also embed videos from other sources such as Vimeo or YouTube using the same process. However, it is important to only use videos that already have captions.

Because Vimeo and YouTube embeds won’t have an interactive transcript like Kaltura, you can add the transcript text in an Accordion/Tab text block below the video.

Interactive Content Recommendations

There are some interactive content types in Rise that are either not accessible or partially accessible that should be avoided. For a full breakdown of what the issues are with various content types, please review Rise 360: Choosing Accessible Components to Create Online Learning.

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Last Update: July 30, 2024