Making your Canvas course site accessible may seem like a formidable task, but it doesn’t have to be. In this post, we lay out the steps you can take as you’re building your course site to maximize the accessibility of your digital materials. By following these steps, not only will you increase the usability of your course site for all your students, but you’ll save yourself a great deal of time and effort in the future if you offer the course again and copy your materials into your new Canvas course site.
- Run Pope Tech in Your Course
- Employ SensusAccess Inside Canvas in Your Course
- Remediate Your Course Documents
- Clean Up Your PDFs
- Check the Accessibility of Your Panopto Videos
- Give Your Course a Final Check with Student View
- Further Resources and Getting Help
Run Pope Tech in Your Course
Run the Pope Tech Checker in Content Areas
As you navigate through Canvas, you’ll frequently encounter the Rich Content Editor (RCE). This editor, with its accompanying toolbar, appears in many different types of content, such as Pages, Assignment instructions, Discussion prompts, Announcements, and so on.
Wherever you see the RCE, you’ll also find the Pope Tech Checker. This tool is identified by a stylized P and can be found at the bottom of the page next to the Cancel, Save, and Save and Publish buttons.
Once you’ve built out your content in the RCE, click the Checker button to open a dialog box that will identify accessibility issues and offer help remediating them. Common issues include insufficient color contrast between text and background, empty links, and incorrect heading structure (e.g. placing an H2 under an H3, rather than the reverse, which causes issues for screen reader users as they attempt to navigate the page structure). Note that Pope Tech distinguishes between errors and alerts: the former should be remediated right away, while the latter may or may not need remediation and should be checked manually.
Get a Course-Level Overview with the Pope Tech Dashboard
You’ll also notice a Pope Tech Accessibility link in your course menu. This link gives you access to the Course Dashboard view, so that you can see at a glance the various errors and alerts Pope Tech has flagged in your course. Consider opening Dashboard view once you have built out your course content, so that you can find any errors you may have missed initially.
Detailed instructions on using the Pope Tech Checker and Instructor Dashboard can be found in the Knowledge Base article Enhance the Accessibility of Your Canvas Course with Pope Tech. We also offer video tutorials (CNet login required) on using Pope Tech.
Employ SensusAccess Inside Canvas in Your Course
By default, the tool SensusAccess Inside Canvas will be enabled in your newly created course site. When this tool is enabled, a white S in a black circle will appear across from most content types in the Modules and Files sections of your course site. If you or your students navigate to a content area for which SensusAccess Inside Canvas is enabled (e.g. a Page or Assignment), the same icon will appear. Note: when a page loads, the S icon may take a moment to appear.
You or your students can click on the icon to choose from a variety of alternative formats for that content area. Possibilities may include HTML, a Word document, a tagged PDF, or an audio MP3. Having access to these alternative formats can help your students, whether or not they identify as having a disability, to absorb content in a format suited to their needs.
Note: We strongly recommend leaving SensusAccess Inside Canvas enabled. However, if you choose to disable it, you can do so by navigating to Settings and clicking Disable SensusAccess Inside. You can re-enable later, if you wish, by returning to Settings and clicking Enable SensusAccess Inside.
For detailed instructions on using SensusAccess Inside Canvas, please see the Knowledge Base article Convert Files to Alternative Formats for Accessibility with SensusAccess Inside Canvas.
Remediate Your Course Documents
Depending on the types of documents you’re using in your course, different tools and strategies may work best for finding and remediating accessibility issues.
Employ the Native Accessibility Checker in Microsoft O365
If you have documents created in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, you can use the native Microsoft accessibility checker located in the Review tab of each program to help you with the remediation process. To get started, check out the LinkedIn Learning course Creating Accessible Documents in Microsoft Office. Remember that all members of the UChicago community with an active CNetID have free access to LinkedIn Learning.
Fix Your Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides with Grackle Workspace
Grackle Workspace is a browser extension, divided into Grackle Docs, Sheets, and Slides, that you can use to find and fix common accessibility issues in your GSuite content. It’s available to all UChicago community members who use the UChicago Google Workspace (which excludes the Booth School of Business and the Lab School). Simply launch the add-on from the Extensions menu in Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides, grant permission (only needed the first time you use the tool), and you’ll have access to the tool. Grackle can be particularly useful if you link to a Google Doc as your “live” syllabus, as many instructors do. For more information and support resources, consult the CDA’s Grackle Workspace page.
Clean Up Your PDFs
Among document types, PDFs present a special case. They’re useful in many situations, but they’re also among the most difficult file types to create in a way that meets accessibility standards. For this reason, it’s important that you take all possible steps to “clean up” your PDFs for your students.
Get a Clean Scan
If you’re using old/multi-generation PDFs, you can reach out to the Library for a fresh scan of your materials. The Library’s scanners now automatically employ Optical Character Recognition (OCR), which is important not only for accessibility (e.g. screen reader access) but also if you’ll be using annotation tools like Hypothes.is in your course.
Use Equidox to Detect and Remediate PDF Accessibility Issues
The University provides the PDF remediation tool Equidox, which can make your PDFs accessible more quickly and easily than Adobe Acrobat Pro, including generating tags for content elements, including tables and lists, to make them readable by screen readers. You can email the Center for Digital Accessibility to request onboarding with Equidox; they also offer video tutorials on Equidox to assist you with using the tool.
Check the Accessibility of Your Panopto Videos
If you’re using Panopto videos in your course, you’ll find that Panopto’s default settings help to promote accessibility. Panopto now automatically generates closed captions for videos. Also, if you add a Panopto video to your Module using the External Tool functionality, the video will load in a new tab by default. This maximizes screen “real estate” and makes viewing easier.
Nonetheless, you shouldn’t rely solely on Panopto to manage the accessibility of your videos. Always check automatic captions for accuracy – while the quality of Panopto’s captions has improved dramatically, they are still not perfect, particularly where proper names and technical jargon are concerned. Be sure to edit any captions that need correction.
Also, if you’re embedding a Panopto video in a Canvas content area, consider providing a transcript of the video beneath it. Transcripts help in many situations, such as when a student is in a loud place or when they cannot listen to the video. The quickest way to generate a transcript is to download the Panopto captions and paste them beneath the embedded video.
Give Your Course a Final Check with Student View
Before publishing your site and making it available to your students, it’s a good idea to explore the entire site as a test student using Student View. Student View allows you to detect issues that might hinder your students’ use of your site, such as unpublished module items or assignments missing due dates. It can also help you to spot accessibility issues that you may have missed in your initial check. Remember: if you run into difficulties navigating your site while in Student View, your students are likely to have similar difficulties. Fixing them now will ensure a smooth experience for your students.
Further Resources and Getting Help
If you have questions, we’re here to help! The general umbrella of Academic Technology Solutions includes both the Learning Design Team (LDT), which supports Canvas, Panopto, and other digital teaching tools, and the Center for Digital Accessibility (CDA), which promotes accessibility for websites and digital content across the University. For general enquiries, you can email academictech@uchicago.edu. For specific questions about accessibility, you can email digitalaccessibility@uchicago.edu. You can also drop by ATS’ virtual office hours Monday through Thursday with your questions, no appointment needed. We offer a wide range of workshops on topics related to teaching with technology, including accessibility. And finally, if you’d like 1:1 help, please feel free to book a consultation with one of our instructional designers.
(Cover Image by Andreas Breitling from Pixabay)
