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Designing Accessible Canvas Courses

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1. Introduction

2. About Universal Design for Learning

3. Accessibility Considerations in Online Learning

4. Best Practices for Accessibility in Canvas

5. Using the Accessibility Checker and UDOIT Tools

6. Resources and Help

Introduction

Welcome to Designing Accessible Canvas Courses! The Canvas LMS has built-in accessibility features that make it possible to accommodate students with all types of disabilities. You may be here because you have been contacted by the Department of Accessibility Services about a student in your course. Even if you don't currently teach students with disabilities, it's likely you will in the future. If you design your course for accessibility now, you will save time and energy redesigning it later on. As you will learn in this course, the set of best practices for designing accessible courses, called Universal Design for Learning (UDL), meets the needs of all students and facilitates a better learning experience overall.

This course covers step-by-step instructions for setting up your Canvas course to be an accessible learning environment. By the end of the course, you will be able to:

apply the principles of Universal Design for Learning to Canvas courses
determine the necessary Canvas design strategy for different types of disabilities
design a Canvas course that addresses the needs of all students

Why Accessibility in Canvas Matters

When an online course is made accessible, all students, regardless of difficulty or disability, can retrieve, view, and use all course content. Different students may require different accessibility feature designs, depending on their particular difficulty. Here are a few things to consider when it comes to accessibility in Canvas:

Disability is more common than you may think. About 1 in 5 people in the U.S. have a disability; that's 19 percent of the population. Worldwide, 1 billion people, or 15 percent, have some kind of disability.
Canvas is the primary resource for course content. During remote learning, students are getting most of their learning materials and assessments via Canvas. Accessibility issues in a Canvas course can be detrimental to student success.
Accessibility accommodation is required by federal law. By following the principles of UDL outlined in the course, you will be prepared to meet Section 504 requirements with regard to your Canvas course design.
Designing for accessibility benefits all students. It doesn't just give equal access to students with disabilities. It can also make learning easier for students who have difficulties that are not documented - for example, problems with focusing due to anxiety, limited Internet access, or temporary physical injury that hinders computer use. Universal design makes it easier for all students to find, access, and read course content so they can be successful.

Up Next: About Universal Design for Learning

Discover more about the principles of Universal Design and how it works in practice.

Some content in this course is based on the Online Teaching course created by the Trustees of Indiana University.