Accessibility

Canvas Accessibility Project

Through a multi-year, phased approach, the Canvas Accessibility Project will guide instructors through bringing all active course sites into alignment with Northwestern’s digital accessibility policy and the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

The project will be completed in two phases. The first phase of the project is focused on training instructors to understand and address the seven core areas in course sites that most impact digital accessibility. Phase two will focus on ensuring the accessibility of documents used in teaching and learning.

What you need to know:

We’ve identified seven core accessibility skills that we are focusing on for improvement. These seven areas were chosen because updates to them are quick, relatively easy, and have a high impact on the student experience.
To walk you through improving these seven core skills and to provide a way to track your progress, we’re asking you to participate in an iterative challenge called Mission: Accessible.
To help get you started we’ve enabled Canvas Commons and populated it with accessible course templates–both full course templates and templates that focus on specific course elements like the syllabus page–that you can easily import into your courses.
Northwestern IT has enabled the Pope Tech Accessibility Guide in all Canvas courses. Pope Tech is a Canvas accessibility evaluation tool that scans pages to reveal accessibility errors and provides an interface to correct those issues directly on the page.

Accessibility in Canvas

Pope Tech Accessibility Guide in Canvas

Canvas Course Site Accessibility Checklist

General Accessibility Design Guidelines Links to an external site.

Accessibility Standards in Canvas Links to an external site.

Northwestern Policies & Resources

AccessibleNU

Digital Accessibility Policy (Effective September 1, 2021)

Best Practices for Pope Tech in Canvas

Equally Effective Alternate Access Plans (EEAAPs)

EEAAPs address known accessibility issues within tools used on campus and suggest alternate access plans for those who encounter these issues. Below are EEAAPs for tools used within Canvas. Please report any additional accessibility issues you encounter that are not addressed in these plans.