Accessible course materials help ensure that all students can access and use course content. Instructors and course support teams can use this guide to make images, audio, video, documents, Canvas pages, links, and math more accessible.
Accessibility means making content perceivable, operable, understandable, and compatible with assistive technologies. In practice, provide text alternatives for visuals, transcripts and captions for media, clear structure, readable formatting, descriptive links, accessible math, and checked files before sharing them with students.
Media and Alternatives
Media refers to images, audio, and video.
Images
Provide appropriate alternative text, or alt text, for every image. Use concise, descriptive alt text when an image conveys information. For decorative or fully redundant images, use empty alt text or mark the image as decorative, depending on the application. For complex images, provide brief alt text and a nearby detailed description of the relevant information.
Learn how to describe different image types in Alternative Text for Visuals.
Audio and Video
Provide an accurate, readable transcript for audio-only content. Videos must include accurate, synchronized captions. Panopto generates machine captions for uploaded media; faculty must review and correct them before sharing the content. For live, synchronous sessions in Zoom, enable automatic captions. Provide a text alternative or audio description for important visual information that is not explained in the audio.
For live-event guidance, review Captioning and Live Transcription at Whiting School of Engineering.
Structure and Formatting
Structure and formatting help students navigate a document, webpage, or slide deck in the correct order.
Heading Structure
Clear document and page structure helps students understand how the content is organized. A logical structure also helps screen readers organize the material for students and allows students to use keyboard commands to navigate course content more easily. Structure should be applied to all areas in Canvas and to course files, such as Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, and PDFs.
Using headings and styles is the simplest way to add structure to a document, page, or slide. Do not use font size options to make text look like a heading because screen readers do not recognize those visual changes as headings.
Microsoft Support explains how to Add a Heading in Word.
Canvas provides instructions for adding and modifying text in the Rich Content Editor.
Reading Order
For PowerPoint presentations, the reading order of the slide content must be set for each slide to ensure the content is presented in a logical order.
Microsoft Support explains how to check reading order in PowerPoint.
Formatting Tools for Lists and Tables
Lists, such as ordered lists, unordered lists, and tables of contents, should be created using built-in list tools instead of manually typing numbers or symbols. Similarly, tables should be created with the built-in table tool in Canvas pages and Microsoft programs.
Readability
Readability refers to how easily students can read and understand the content. For hyperlinks, this means using descriptive link text that indicates the link purpose or destination. Links should also be visually identified by an underline and a different color than the surrounding text.
For example:
- This link is less meaningful and longer for a screen reader: View the recording of the Math Accessibility Part I workshop at https://vimeo.com/895915785/258aedbf16?share=copy.
- This is a better way to describe the same link because it is more readable: View the recording of the Math Accessibility Part I workshop.
For hyperlinks and all other uses of color, use colors with sufficient contrast. Color alone should not be used to convey meaning or emphasis.
Use Contrast and Color Accessibility to evaluate color choices.
These tools are useful for checking contrast:
Accessible Math
Common methods of equation creation, including images of equations and plain text math, are often inaccessible. We recommend authoring math content in Office Math or LaTeX. LaTeX may be used in Microsoft Office or Canvas, or converted to MathML for use in Canvas. For content that includes both text and equations, MathML is often the best output after converting a TeX document to HTML.
Review Adding Equations Using Microsoft Office for Office Math guidance.
For MathML workflows, review Converting Equations to MathML.
Learn how to access Overleaf for LaTeX authoring in Overleaf Professional Accounts at WSE.
Accessibility Checkers
Microsoft Office, Canvas, and Adobe Acrobat include built-in accessibility checkers that can identify many potential issues. Use these tools and the applicable accessibility guidelines to identify and remediate accessibility errors.
Accessibility checkers can help identify many common issues, but they do not catch everything. Always review materials manually for clear link text, accurate captions, meaningful alt text, logical reading order, and readable formatting.
Microsoft Support explains how to improve accessibility with the Accessibility Checker.
Canvas provides instructions for using the Accessibility Checker in the Rich Content Editor.
Additional Resources
Explore additional guidance in Training and Resources on Digital Accessibility at JHU.