Course Accessibility FAQs
Utah State University is committed to making all course materials accessible to every student. Accessibility is not just a legal requirement — it’s an essential part of creating inclusive, supportive learning environments. As we work toward meeting federal and university accessibility standards, we need your support to ensure that course content is usable by all students. This FAQ page explains why accessibility matters, what’s required, and how you can help us make meaningful progress toward a more inclusive campus.
Why is Accessibility Important for My Course Content?
Accessibility ensures that all students, including those with disabilities, can fully engage with your course materials and have an equal opportunity to succeed. Accessible content creates a better learning experience for everyone by making materials clearer, more organized, and easier to navigate. When your content is accessible, you help remove barriers that could otherwise prevent some students from participating fully in your course.
Why Has There Been an Increase in Communication About Accessibility?
While we always strive to make our campus more accessible and inclusive, one of the main reasons for the increased communication is because of a new rule from the Department of Justice (DOJ) about digital accessibility. This rule specifically requires public higher education institutions to make their digital content accessible by April 24, 2026.
Why Are You Asking to Copy Our Courses in Advance of the Semester?
The Digital Accessibility Services, Disability Resource Center (DRC), and the Center for Instructional Design and Innovation (CIDI) teams are working hard behind the scenes to help make your course accessible. If courses are not copied early, the responsibility of fixing inaccessible content often falls on faculty, sometimes under tight deadlines. Preparation now can make a significant difference for your students and help ensure a smoother start to the semester. Our teams will prioritize courses with high enrollment for review, so we encourage you to complete these steps as soon as possible.
You may also have a student enrolled in your course with accommodations, such as captions for videos or accessible formats for text-to-speech or screen-reading software. Preparing your course early allows our teams to start working on these materials in advance, helping us better meet student needs by the time the semester begins.
What is the TidyUP Project?
Achieving digital accessibility in Canvas courses is easier when courses are free of irrelevant content. Therefore, an ongoing project for the Accessibility Team is to prepare courses for accessibility work by removing unused files. This is done using a tool called TidyUP, which identifies content not linked from course pages, assignments, or modules so that it is easier to review and remove as needed.
Each semester, a selection of courses are identified for TidyUP work. If your course is one of these, you will be notified and given two weeks to download or back up any files that you want to save before the process begins. If any issues arise that could affect course materials, our team will reach out for your direction. Please note that this work will only affect current or upcoming semester courses. Past courses will remain untouched and available for reference. You will receive an email once the clean-up is complete.
Faculty are encouraged to clean up course pages on their own as well. The TidyUP tool is available for faculty to use on their own. It can be enabled in a Canvas course's settings in the Navigation tab. If you have any questions, please reach out to cidi@usu.edu.
What Do I Do if I’m Creating New Content for My Course?
If you are creating new content for your Fall courses, you do not need to have your course ready before summer break. We understand that building a new course takes time, and we want to be mindful of that. If you are creating new content, we encourage you to integrate accessibility as you build. Applying accessibility practices during the creation process will save both you and our Accessibility Team time and effort down the road. You can find a full list of simple, practical tips to make your new content more accessible on our website: How to Start Making Your Course Accessible.
If you are reusing content from a previous course, we still recommend importing it to your Fall course early and using tools like TidyUP and the Canvas Accessibility Checker to clean up and improve accessibility.
When Do I Need to Have This Done?
If you are copying your course to a new semester, please copy that content as soon as the Canvas course becomes available to you. This helps us get an early start identifying and fixing potential accessibility issues. If you are creating new content, please create your materials with accessibility built in.
How Do I Start Making My Materials Accessible and What Should I Prioritize?
We recommend prioritizing the simplest accessibility errors first. Our How To Start Making Your Course Accessible page will walk you through where to start depending on the course content you are working on.
What Do I Do if I Have Handwritten Materials?
If you have handwritten materials, consider whether there are other ways you can share the same information, such as typed documents or digital notes, which are easier to make accessible. If you need to use handwritten content, you can try to use AI tools to help digitize and convert it into a more accessible format. If you’ve already created handwritten materials, we’ll work with you to create more accessible digital versions the next time you develop or update them.
What Kind of Support is Available To Help Me?
Our Accessibility Team is happy to meet with you to discuss how to make your content accessible. We also have open office hours that you are welcome to attend. We’ll be offering training sessions and workshops in upcoming semesters where you can bring your content and receive one-on-one support. We’re here to support you every step of the way — no question is too small!