Course material accessibility

Remove any content no longer needed in your Canvas course.

Content that you don’t need might include old syllabus files, assignments, or readings. Removing old content will make it faster and easier to review and update what remains. 

• Either delete individual items from your course manually, or you can use TidyUp if you have many unused items. TidyUp scans your course and identifies which items are not in use.
• TidyUp doesn’t see files or images that are used in Question Banks for Classic Quizzes and other LTIs (example: New Quizzes). To avoid accidentally deleting these items, move them into a Canvas folder and exempt them from being scanned.

Knowing the fundamental concepts of digital accessibility will make later steps easier to understand. This might take about ~20 minutes for a quick skim, or an hour or more for a deep dive.

You can also revisit the material as specific questions come up.

To scan your entire course at once, use Canvas’s built-in accessibility checker, UDOIT, which identifies accessibility issues and guides you through prioritizing and fixing them.

Keep in mind that the first time you use it, UDOIT may identify dozens or hundreds of issues – this is normal and not a crisis.

• Get started with “Easiest to Fix” to build momentum, then focus on “High Impact” issues that significantly affect the user experience.
• Set a realistic goal: fix 10-15 issues per session rather than attempting to fix everything.
• You may wish to address video, audio, and files (PDFs, MS Word, MS Excel, Google Docs, etc.) separately. Those are covered below. 
• Track your progress over multiple semesters with UDOIT’s accessibility score. 

To fix issues as you create content or before releasing it to students, use the built-in Canvas Accessibility Checker. This allows you to address issues on each page or assignment as you go.

• When you are ready to do more, keep in mind that UDOIT is a more robust tool and may catch a few additional issues. See Comparison of Canvas Accessibility Tools: Accessibility Checker vs. UDOIT for details. 

If either of these tools seems too advanced for your comfort level, learn more about the fundamentals of digital accessibility. You can review one topic at a time and then come back to fix that issue in your course. 

Every video in your course must have captions, and all audio-only content must have a transcript. UDOIT can check for some video and audio issues, but it can’t find or guide you through fixing all of them. Instead, you should review the video and audio included in your course.

To generate captions and a transcript, use Kaltura MediaSpace to automatically generate captions. You can then edit the captions for accuracy. 

If your course features videos from YouTube and other streaming platforms, review available transcripts and captions for accuracy. Consider alternative media if the captions have unacceptable inaccuracies. If no alternative media is available, include a supplemental edited transcript.

When you’re ready to do more, learn about audio descriptions and work toward getting them into your videos.

PDFs present significant challenges for accessibility and should be avoided. Share files as accessible documents or find a link to the article on a webpage whenever possible. (UW Libraries has access to a catalog of many online articles, databases, and journals.)

• For Microsoft files, review and fix issues using Microsoft’s built-in accessibility checker; then re-upload accessible versions.
• For Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets: Review and fix issues using Grackle, a Chrome extension similar to Microsoft’s built-in accessibility checker.

Revisit these steps to ensure your digital content continues to be accessible for everyone. Accessibility work is ongoing. Courses evolve, new content is added, and each group of students brings different needs.