How to Start Making Your Course Accessible
Utah State University is committed to making course content accessible in accordance with state and federal laws and with USU Policy. Digital Accessibility Services, the Disability Resource Center (DRC), and the Center for Inclusive Design and Innovation (CIDI) are working hard behind the scenes to support accessibility in your courses, but your help is essential. Completing the steps on this page early allows our teams to jump in and remediate accessibility issues more efficiently, saving you time and effort down the road. When these steps aren’t done, the work of fixing inaccessible content often falls back on you, sometimes under tight deadlines. By taking a few minutes now, you’re making a huge difference for your students and setting yourself up for a smoother semester.
Follow these steps to begin improving the accessibility of your course. While these steps primarily focus on accessibility, they will also help you improve the usability of your course for all students. If you have any questions or need help getting started, please contact us!
If You Are Using a Previous Semester's Content
Move Course Content Soon After Registration
The Accessibility team is always working to resolve as many accessibility issues as possible in preparation for upcoming semesters. To support this effort, we ask that you move any course content you plan to use into your course shell as soon as the Canvas course becomes available to you. This is often right after registration. Doing so gives our team time to review and improve accessibility before the semester begins. If you need help, reach out to your department’s instructional designer.
Use the Canvas Accessibility Checker and TidyUP
The Canvas Accessibility Checker alerts you when certain elements of your Canvas pages are inaccessible. This tool is used on a page-by-page basis, so you will go into each of your Canvas pages, quizzes, and assignments to see what errors you may need to fix. To help guide your efforts, we have created website pages with examples of each of the accessibility errors and how to fix them. Use our Canvas Accessibility Checker overview page to get started.
As you are going through your course content and fixing accessibility errors, use TidyUP to remove any duplicated or unused files. TidyUp is a tool designed to identify images, files, and pages in Canvas courses and show where they are used or unused. By removing unnecessary content, it is easier for the Accessibility team to make the remaining content you’ll be using more accessible. These instructions will help you learn how to use TidyUP.
If You Are Creating New Content
Create Accessible Course Content
Designing with accessibility from the start saves time and effort in the long run and ensures all your students can easily engage with your materials. As you build your course for the new semester, be sure to take advantage of built-in accessibility features in Canvas. Use our Creating Accessible Content page to learn about the different accessibility features.
Use the Canvas Accessibility Checker
The Canvas Accessibility Checker alerts you when certain elements of your Canvas pages are inaccessible. This tool is used on a page-by-page basis, so as you create each of your Canvas pages, quizzes, and assignments you can see what errors you may need to fix. To help guide your efforts, we have created website pages with examples of each of the accessibility errors and how to fix them. Use our Canvas Accessibility Checker overview page to get started.
Remember: If you’ve moved any content from a previous course, use TidyUP to remove materials you no longer plan to use.