Canvas and Accessibility/Universal Design

• In general, organize your course materials as centrally as possible, carefully considering:

  • where students might look for certain material (you might even choose to ask them.)

  • that your students do not all have the same level of “savvy” about college courses and/or technology.  Consider the “obvious” place(s) to find things.

• Reduce (by hiding) the number of Navigation links in your courses to mitigate cognitive overload for your students. (The assumption being that your intent is for your students to engage with your actual course content, not how to find the content.) Recommended Navigation links to use:

  • Announcements: students can easily locate all your all-class communications for the semester.

  • Syllabus: your Syllabus should not be a PDF, even if it’s accessibility-compliant. An accessible PDF will be viewable on a computer screen and via screen reader, but it won't be able to reflow the text for a smaller screen, e.g., a smartphone. HTML, as used in Canvas' Pages and Syllabus tools, is the gold standard for accessibility. It's not the end of the world if you post a PDF-based syllabus, but in general HTML is better than a good PDF, which is better than a bad PDF, which is better than nothing at all!

  • Modules (unless Modules is your Home): Modules are the “one stop shop” for students, allowing you to design self-contained learning units of your course material that contain all the different materials your students will need (including PDFs, images, links, etc). Modules are also great for controlling the pacing and scaffolding of your course(s), since you can regulate the sequence and timing of their deployment. Consider also that without Modules, your students often have to hop around various parts of your Canvas course to “scavenge” the course material they’ll need.

  • Grades, which aids in transparency in grading, as well as student engagement and motivation throughout the semester.

Understanding how your students will encounter your Canvas course(s) is critical. Fortunately there are several tools and techniques you can use to approximate the students' experience:

• Use Student view

• Use Ally to discover the ways in which your content will be downloaded in alternative formats by students

  • NB: sometimes you have to hunt for the Ally download button, depending on browser.

  • Learn more about Ally. (Yes, it’s made by Blackboard, but it’s integrated into Canvas)

• Practice submitting every assignment or quiz you have to make sure the students' submission process works as intended.

Checking your Canvas courses' accessibility will help you comply with Title II requirements.

• When designing material, use Rich Content Editor’s Accessibility Checker

• Enable and use the Immersive Reader. With it, you can check that your material is understandable when read by a screen reader. Here’s how to enable the Immersive Reader:

  • In one of your courses, go to “Account,” then “Settings”

  • Under “Feature Options,” find “Microsoft Immersive Reader.” If there’s not a checked icon, click on the “X” icon and select “Enabled”.

• Use Ally, either file by file or through Accessibility Report.

• Having non-Canvas web pages load inside of a Canvas course is often a nightmare for navigation. Instead, when you link to a non-Canvas web page, set the link to open in a new window.

• Help keep your students focused on what you just told them by showing recent Announcements on your course home page.

The very foundations of academic freedom ensure that you are in control of how and what you teach. Full stop. At the same time, do keep in mind that beyond the legal requirements of Title II Accessibility, the more often faculty members collectively adhere to recommended practices, the more consistent the “infrastructure” of students' educational experience at Whitman becomes, which promotes equity, inclusivity, and retention. Consider, for example, that the more consistently we use the same Navigational links in Canvas from course to course, the less “unproductive friction” is created for students in their learning – since they can focus on course content, not the infrastructure behind it.

• Universal Design for Learning by CAST

• Universal Design for Learning Guidelines

• Applying Universal Design for Learning to Canvas Courses by Emerson College

• How to Canvas by Sean Nufer

• How to use the Accessibility Checker in Rich Content Editor by Canvas 

• Canvas Course Accessibility Checklist by Canvas

• Transparency in Teaching and Learning

• Transparent Assignment Template