Digital Accessibility
The Why of Digital Accessibility
Federal Laws, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, ensure that individuals with disabilities have equitable access to learning environments, including digital accessibility. UT Austin adopted a Digital Accessibility Policy to provide university-specific guidance. As a faculty member, these laws and policies apply to instructional materials posted in your Canvas course website.
Moreover, Universal Design for Learning (UDL) priciples provide an educational framework informed by research to "...ensure all learners are able to access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities." UDL approaches include designing for:
- Student choice and autonomy in how they are able to engage in the learning environment. For example, the Ally tool in Canvas allows students to self-select the format for information to meet their individual access needs.
- Representation of instructional information with accessibility in mind. For example, enable Canvas features, such as gradebook icons for colorblindness, to support students who process visual information in a different way.
- Action and expression opportunties for all students. For example, providing closed captions or transcripts of videos to support student responses in discussions.
The How of Digital Accessibility
The Center for Advancing Teaching Excellence (CATE) provides several resources to build your digital accessibility design skills.
- Accessibility Checklist for Digital Instructional Materials. A comprehensive list to guide you from creation of accessible course resources to remediation of existing resources.
- CATE Ally Quick Reference Guides
UT Austin offers fauculty resources on accessible design.
- UT Digital Accessibility Center
- UT Library resources have links to online formats that are digitally accessible. Be sure to capture the URLs or links to upload in your Canvas course.
- Microsoft 365 products provide accessibility checkers to create accessible materials for your course. Every faculty member and student can download the products free of charge to support a robust digital accessibility learning experience.
- Canvas accessibility features for individuals include translation, dyslexia-friendly font, immersive readers, and closed captions. These choices are available by clicking on the "Account" icon in the Canvas left navigation list.
- The Ally Accessibility Platform modules in Canvas provide comprehensive training.
- Panopto automatically transcribes audio in recorded lectures.