Skip to main content

Digital Accessibility

Reviewing Existing Courses

Reviewing Existing Courses

 We recommend following the steps outlined below to help you improve the accessibility of your courses:

Run CidiLabs Tidy Up

TidyUp scans the Canvas course for unused pages and unlinked files and removes them from the course. You can access TidyUp through your course navigation menu on the left side of your course. If you do not see TidyUp available, you can enable it via your course

Review course content through Ally Course Accessibility Report.

Ally will help you gain detailed insight into the accessibility of your course content and provides guidance on how to remediate inaccessible components of your content and provides students with a range of alternative formats. You can access the Course Accessibility Report through your course navigation menu on the left side of your course. If you do not see the Accessibility Report available, you can enable it via your course navigation settings.

Determine your priorities

If you have already developed materials for your course, we recommend choosing one of the options below as a starting point:

  1. Start with your syllabus
    Making your syllabus accessible is a great place to start on making your course more accessible as it is one of the first documents your students will be accessing and will get you familiar with the document remediation process.  Tools such as Microsoft Word and Powerpoint have accessibility checkers in their software that will point out which sections of your document need remediation. Some common accessibility issues include incorrect text headers, color contrast issues, and missing alt text on images. 
    Rutgers IT Document Accessibility Guide
    Improving Microsoft Documents with Accessibility Checker
  2. Use the Course Content Helper to help prioritize based on your course’s unique context.
    This tool will help you prioritize the remediation changes that will have the most impact on students in your class. Depending on how you respond to the questions, the Course Content Helper will identify which level of considerations should be taken for your course.The base-level for all courses is our Bronze Model, with increasing levels of accessibility/usability thresholds according to factors like class size and enrollment of students with disabilities. The goal is to provide you with a road map of the items that are going to make the most impact in your course as you work overtime to improve the accessibility of your course.
  3. Use the Ally Course Report to see your course’s current accessibility score and set a manageable goal, such as raising your overall score by 10%.
    The Ally Course Accessibility Report can help you determine a pathway to a more accessible course that works for you. The report separates content into two groups, “content with the easiest issues to fix” and “low scoring content.” Things to remember:
    • Remediating content with the easiest issues to fix is a good way to quickly fix issues such as missing alt text on images.
    • Going after the lowest scoring content will have the most impact on raising your course’s overall accessibility score.
    • It’s a good idea to set a goal of raising your overall course accessibility by 10% per semester. The most important thing is to begin working accessibility into your course design process in a consistent, ongoing way

Additional Considerations:

Resource Selection

Some scanned documents can be too difficult to read. Scanned documents with text cut off, smudges, faded writing, etc., may not be feasible to make into an accessible document. You should review your course resources to make sure that the resources provided are legible. 

Use the Rutgers Library Academic Search Premier to find updated and legible resources and work with your content area librarian to locate accessible versions of any other resources you may need.

Review Course Technologies

When utilizing course technologies, prioritize using native Canvas features like Canvas Discussions, Quizzes, and Modules, as they are accessible to students. While third-party external tools may offer additional features, they can create inaccessible experiences for some students, although some tools have or are being updated to include accessibility options.

 

PDF File Revision

With all your PDFs, you should follow our PDF workflow:

  1. Remove any unused PDFS from your course. TidyUp is a great tool for doing this.
  2. If you would like to keep your unused PDF documents for archival purposes, please move them to a separate sandbox course clearly marked Archived.
  3. If your document was originally a Word or PPT file, upload the original version of the document instead of the PDF. You can upload read-only files to ensure the content remains the same. If possible, please convert PDF files to module pages. It is easier for students who are using screen readers to navigate pages compared to attached files.
  4. For those PDFs that truly need to be PDFs, we recommend you utilize SensusAccess to provide text-based documents to your students.