How to Start Making Your Course Accessible

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. Completing the tasks in numerical order will ensure a smoother implementation of accessibility best practices.

1

Use TidyUp to Delete Unused Course Material

TidyUp is a tool designed to identify unused images, files, and pages in Canvas courses. By removing unnecessary content, we can more easily make the remaining content more accessible. These instructions will help you set up TidyUP in your course.

Once you set up TidyUP and scan your course, a report will show you all the files in your course and if they are being used. The filters in the upper right-hand corner allow you to change the report to show only unused files. 

The TidyUP report for a course with a red arrow pointing to the filter option Unused Files under the Show dropdown.

There are a two ways you can use TidyUP to delete unused course files. The first is to select the boxes next to each file and then select the button “Delete Selected”. You can also select the box next to File Name which will select all unused files. 

The TidyUP Report for a course with a red arrow labeled one pointing to check boxes next to each files. A second arrow labeled two points to the Delete Selected button.

The second option is to select the trash can icon after reviewing each file. This option is better for deleting files one at a time. 

The TidyUP report for a course with a red arrow pointing to a trash can next to each file on the right side.

After reviewing and deleting unused course files, you can also review Canvas Content that is unused. Toward the top of the TidyUP report, there is a tab labeled “Canvas Content”. This option shows you all of the pages, assignments, quizzes, announcements, and discussions in your course. It will also show you if that content is published, if it is in a module, and if it has content. Review this report and delete any unused course content. 

A TidyUP report for a course with the Canvas Content tab selected to show unused course content.

 
2

Use the Canvas Accessibility Checker

Now that you’ve cleaned your course, you’re ready to review the remaining course content to make it accessible. The Canvas Accessibility Checker is a built-in Canvas tool that alerts you when certain elements of your Canvas course 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.

If you have any questions or need help getting started, please contact us!