General Guidance:

To make your courses more accessible, please use the Yuja Panorama tools that are embedded in your canvas courses. 

Recommendation:  In order to make the process not overwhelming, you are free to fix accessibility issues as you teach your course. 

Methods: 

1.  Work in advance of your weekly course modules.  Before classes start, fix accessibility issues in your week 1 and introductory content areas.  When you prepare for the second week of courses, fix those and so on.  Alternatively, you can also work ahead as you feel comfortable.

2. Work through and entire course one at a time.  Fix the major issues by using the "fix it" option first and then run the AI Autopilot tool.  Note any files that need additional information and come back to them after you do an initial fix on each course.

3. For documents such as Word or Powerpoint, download those files and fix accessibility issues in Word and PowerPoint first and then re-upload them to your Canvas shell and reprocess them in Yuja.

Goal:  Begin to work on your courses and fix as much of the easier things as possible (contrast issues, alt tags, etc.).  Then go back later and do the harder items such as PDF documents.

Images and Alt Text Descriptions

It is highly recommended to not use the Autopilot AI Platform tool to auto generate alt text descriptions in Yuja Panorama.  Please fix these issues by using the “fix issue” feature in Yuja and typing in a text description or manually confirming that the images are decorative in nature.  The A.I. will work well, but human interaction to describe the intent of images as it pertains to your use of them in course content will be a much better experience for the student.

Recommendation: Ensure that all images have an alt text description that is informative about the image. A good website to help generate descriptive alt text is: asuo-ai-labs.streamlit.app/Image_Accessibility.

PDF Documents - General

All PDF Documents should be tagged and checked for reading order.  To initially fix PDF documents, please use the features in Yuja Panorama to fix the content of PDF’s by tagging them.  PDF documents should be validated for reading order as well.

PDF Remediation Recommendations:

1. If the document is a scanned PDF and cannot be tagged easily, the recommendation is to search for an alternative source in an electronic format if possible.  Simply replace the scanned document image with an electronic version of the PDF and re-run the Yuja Panorama tools.  This should greatly simplify the remediation process.
2. If an alternative source is not possible (i.e. Instructor hand drawn materials), it may be necessary to either simplify the drawing or transpose the handwritten notes into an electronic format using the appropriate tools.  In general, the cleaner the handwriting, the easier it will be to convert to a digital format.
3. If possible, use Word or PowerPoint native formats instead of PDF formats.  Word and PowerPoint are much easier to remediate and sometimes work better with different assitive technologies.  Each of these tools has a built-in accessibility checker that you can run prior to uploading them to your canvas course.

PDF Documents - Complex Materials:

Many courses will have content that contains complex representations of items which will be initially difficult to move to an accessible format. 

Examples of complex items may include spatial math relationships, complex molecular modeling, three-dimensional imaging or modeling such as anatomical structures, or complex tables containing different equations.  Instructors are encouraged to do their best to make math equations and other complex items accessible in the short term by either looking for resources that are already in an accessible format already such as LaTeX, MathML, or some other accessible tool.

Recommendation: NIC IT is still working on finding the best and most acceptable method for converting complex documents with equations and formulas.  Instructors are encouraged to look for alternative accessible content, but also please keep an inventory of different items that you use in your courses such as PDF’s which contain math equations or formulas.  NIC IT will reach out this Fall to different department chairs to help find tools which faculty will be comfortable using.

Exams and Quizzes

Yuja Panorama does not check the accessibility of the Exam and Quiz modules in Canvas, nor does it auto generate any alternative format for these items.  This is purposefully done to not interfere with the integrity of the assessments.

Recommendation: For using Exams and Quizzes in canvas, please use the built in tools within the Canvas Exam and Quiz builder.  Using the equation editor and providing alt text for images will also make the content more accessible.