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Accessible Course Content
Creating and locating course content that is accessible is the key to making your course inclusive to the entire UMass Boston community. This can include screen reader users, students who fall under the category of neurodivergence, such as ADHD, Autism, Epilepsy, Learning Disabilities, and more.
Methods for Accessible Course Content
Course content is made accessible in three main ways:
- You create content that uses recommended accessibility features
- You fix content you have already created so that it is accessible
- You locate and provide access to content that are accessible or have html versions
This page will provide guidance for taking all three routes to having accessible content in your course. Additionally, review the following Accessibility Basics (from IT's Digital Accessibility website) to ensure you have a strong foundation in accessible design.
Accessibility Basics
Creating Accessible Content
When creating a course in Canvas, you will likely use a mix of content created directly in Canvas, such as Pages, Assignments, Discussions and/or Quizzes, as well as outside materials inserted into Canvas. When creating materials in Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat, or other software, be sure to follow accessibility best practices for that tool. The Guide for Creating Accessible Documents will give you an overview of accessibility practices. Below, are software-specific steps for Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Adobe Acrobat.
- Guide for Creating Accessible Documents
- Microsoft Word
- Learning Design Knowledge Base: Making Word Docs Accessible
- IT Digital Accessibility: Creating Accessible Word Documents
- Power Point
- IT Digital Accessibility: PowerPoint Accessibility
- Adobe Acrobat: Creating Accessible PDFs
When building Pages, Discussions, and Assignments in Canvas, there are additional considerations and tools you can use. These elements in Canvas use the Rich Content Editor (RCE). When creating these items in Canvas, you can review their accessibility by clicking the YuJa Panorama accessibility meter icon at the bottom of the RCE. For more information, review the Learning Design Knowledge Base article, How do I use YuJa Panorama to improve accessibility in the Canvas Rich Content Editor?
Fixing Existing Content
YuJa Panorama can help you remediate existing documents to make them more accessible. You can access YuJa in the left side navigation menu of your course on the “Accessibility (YuJa)” tab. If you don’t see the Accessibility Tool in your navigation menu, please refer to How do I add YuJa Panorama to my course navigation in Canvas? or Contact UMass Boston’s Learning Design Services team to make sure YuJa Panorama is enabled in your course.
The Learning Design Knowledge Base articles below will show you how to use YuJa to review your course’s Accessibility Report and remediate existing documents within YuJa.
- How do I fix accessibility issues in a file using YuJa Panorama's Accessibility Report?
- How do I replace a file with an improved accessible version using YuJa Panorama?
Curating Accessible Content
When curating content from other sources, make sure this content also follows accessibility guidelines.
- PDFs should have searchable text that can be viewed with a screen reader. PDFs that are scanned images of documents are not able to be read by screen readers and can sometimes have low contrast that make them hard to read for all learners.
- Videos should have closed captions available.
- Audio recordings should have a transcript available.
- When including images in your course, be sure to add descriptive alt text that describes the images.
- Learning Design Knowledge Base: How do I locate accessible materials?
Get Help from Learning Design Services
Write to us: learningdesign@umb.edu