Perusall Accessibility Information

Perusall is a social annotation tool that allows instructors to upload readings or links to online web pages, videos, and podcasts for students to comment on. It is important to note that the instructor is responsible for ensuring the accessibility of materials uploaded or linked in Perusall. Videos linked from YouTube should have captions, and selected podcasts should have captions or text versions as well.

If you upload an inaccessible PDF document to your Perusall Library, you will see an accessibility warning when the document properties are visible in the Library. When you receive this message, Perusall recommends removing the PDF from your Library, running the PDF through an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) application to add a text layer, and then re-uploading the PDF to Perusall. You can also optionally enable Perusall’s built-in automatic rotation for all uploaded documents within Settings > Advanced (this will make PDF-based uploads slower as the OCR process is completed for each page).

Apart from ensuring the accessibility of any material added to Perusall, the service itself has a small number of issues.

Affected Users

The minor issues impact people using a screen reader and people using a keyboard for navigation.

Known Accessibility Barriers

Screenreaders

Because of the way PDFs are rendered in Perusall, images in PDFs won’t have “alt text” associated with them.

Keyboard

Focus does not shift to some popups, namely the “Latest Updates” popup, after the What’s New button is selected.

Alternate Access

To provide context for students who may need to use a screen reader, instructors should use Perusall’s “figure annotation” tool to drop a pin somewhere on the image and leave a comment that describes its contents.

To mitigate the issue with focus order, Perusall's website provides an alternative way to directly access the full changelog (the content in the What’s New widget). Provide students impacted with a link to Perusall’s Changelog for Students Links to an external site. page. Instructors who are impacted can visit Perusall’s Changelog for Instructors Links to an external site. page.

Communication

An accessibility statement should be included in the syllabus, noting the accessibility barriers for students using screenreaders and keyboard support. Students should notify the instructor immediately, and the instructor and department should contact AccessibleNU promptly. Instructors can also share Perusall information from the Canvas Learning Center.

A suggested statement may include: "Perusall has some known accessibility issues related to screen reader and/or keyboard-only use. Should you encounter accessibility issues using the tool, please get in touch with your instructor ASAP for alternative access options."

Additional Support

The instructor of the course is responsible for implementing the alternate access solution and the department the course is within is responsible for providing any support in creating alternate versions of assignments or in proving human support.

They can contact Accessible NU at accessiblenu@northwestern.edu and Teaching & Learning Technologies at canvas@northwestern.edu if guidance is needed.

For student(s), contact AccessibleNU at accessiblenu@northwestern.edu.

For faculty, staff, or the general public, contact the Office of Equity at accommodations@northwestern.edu