Handwritten notes (e.g., scanned lecture notes, tablet annotations, pictures of board writing) present significant accessibility challenges because they are not machine-readable. This is not to say that handwritten notes should be avoided completely, but it is important to consider their role in your instruction, and identify ways to make the content, not necessarily the handwriting itself, accessible to all students.
Consider How the Handwritten Notes Serve Your Students¶
Consider a student who is not able to access the handwritten notes. Will the student still be able to learn the same content, without significant disadvantage, as a student who can access the handwritten notes? This is the key question to ask as we think about the accessibility of handwritten notes.
For example, if the content of the handwritten notes is already covered in other accessible course materials (e.g., a textbook), you can share the handwritten notes with an additional note to point the students to where they can find the content in other accessible course materials. In this case, students who cannot access the handwritten notes can still learn the same content as students who can access the handwritten notes.
If, on the other hand, the handwritten notes are essential for students to learn certain content, then it becomes important to provide an accessible version of the handwritten notes.
Use AI to Convert Handwritten Notes to Accessible PDF¶
With the help of modern AI tools, it is possible to convert handwritten notes into an accessible PDF file without too much manual work. For example, you can use the U’s ChatGPT subscription to convert handwritten notes into a LaTeX source file using the following prompt (edit the context as needed):
Generate a LaTeX source file that captures all the contents of the uploaded handwritten lecture notes. Make the LaTeX file reflect the handwritten notes as closely as possible. Context: The lecture notes are for an undergraduate-level course on cosmology. This particular lecture discusses solving the scale factor for single-component universes.
Once you have the LaTeX source file, you will want to review it and also add the \DocumentMetadata tags as described in LaTeX-generated Documents to make it an accessible PDF file.