Accessibility in Canvas Terrill Thompson Technology Accessibility Specialist University of Washington tft@uw.edu

“Accessible” to whom?

Everyone!

Ability on a continuum See Hear Walk Read print Use a mouse Write with pen or pencil Communicate verbally Tune out distraction etc.

Student Photo #1 Jennifer Bishop National Honor Society in high school Received scholarships to attend college. Wants to work in public relations.

Student Photo #2 Wesley Strong Starting (Everett) community college in fall 2011, Plans to study psychology.

Student Photo #3 Nicole Torcolini Recent Stanford graduate Majoring in computer science with focus on human and computer interaction. Interned at Microsoft & Yahoo!, now works at Google

Can everyone access your course content?

Simple test: Try your Canvas course without a mouse

By law, the answer must be Yes Rehabilitation Act of 1973 Section 504 requires that programs and services of federally funded programs and organizations not discriminate against qualified individuals with disabilities The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 Prohibits disability discrimination in places of employment, public entities, and places of public accommodation

Accessibility is Possible W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines originally passed in 1999, updated in 2008 Federal accessibility standards (Sec 508) became law in 2001 W3C Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) Specification makes accessibility possible in dynamic web applications. Assistive technologies widely support it.

National Federation of the Blind (NFB) June 2009 – NFB vs Arizona State University over use of Amazon Kindle (settled in Jan 2010) November 2010 – NFB vs Penn State University over use of Angel, etc. March 2011 – NFB vs. Northwestern and NYU over use of Google Apps

Who's at risk? We are – if students and faculty are unable to participate in our courses Instructure is not required by law to make an accessible product Instructure is a company who listens, and cares about meeting customer's needs

Who can fix this? Instructure can ensure Canvas complies with accessibility standards Instructure must hear from its customers that this is a priority Teachers must create and use accessible course content

Accessibility in Five Simple Steps Use headings Add alternate text to images Caption videos Upload accessible course materials Ask questions about accessibility before selecting other features or tools

Step 1. Use Headings Generally good use of headings throughout. Instructors need to understand the built-in heading structure so they can use headings at the appropriate levels when they add content. There are a few places (e.g., Discussion List) where headings could be better utilized to facilitate navigation.

Outline of a Canvas Course Page H1 is typically the title of the course. H2 marks the top of the main content.

Use Heading 2 as Top of Content When creating a page of course content, know that Canvas uses H1. Therefore the top-level heading available to instructors is H2.

Step 2. Add alternate text to images When using the rich text editor to add images, there are two options: Enter a URL, or "Search flickr creative commons". The former includes an option to enter Alternate text, which is great. However…

Alternate text = equivalent communication Discussion point: What is appropriate alt text for this image? Answer: It depends on the context. I grabbed this off of FlickR, and the default alt text was "National Park". That's not suitable alt text on a page where it's important to know that this is a photo of the sheer north face of Half Dome.

If adding Flickr Images, check alt text in source code If adding a Flickr image, there is currently no way to check or change its alt attribute without switching views and studying the source code. So if you're going to add FlickR images, be sure you're knowledgeable enough with HTML to be able to do this.

Step 3. Add Captions to Videos There is no option to add captions when adding a video to Canvas using the rich text editor. However…

Just click the cc button in the video player. AFTER adding the video, the player includes a CC button, which can be used to "Upload subtitles".

Then follow the instructions. Canvas sends you out to Amara.org to caption your video. The Canvas help here may be a little confusing, but the help on Amara.org is excellent. Captioning is really pretty easy (and fun), and all videos should be captioned!

Caption files are plain text files

Step 4. Upload Accessible Course Content Accessible Microsoft Word documents Accessible PowerPoint files Accessible PDFs The issues we've been talking about related to web pages (e.g. headings, alt text) also apply to documents in other formats

Step 4a. Use Headings

Step 4b. Add Alternate text for images

Step 4c. Export to Accessible PDF Three general types of PDFs: Images Untagged images with text Tagged "Tagged PDF" is the only type that supports accessibility Office 2010 (Windows) "Save As PDF" exports to tagged PDF by default Prior versions did so with a plug-in Accessible PDF can be tricky, but the workflows are well documented on the UW Accessibility site (URL is given in a later slide)

Is My PDF Tagged? Ctrl (or Command) + D

You can make an inaccessible PDF accessible using Adobe Acrobat Pro

For more on PDF Accessibility Complete step-by-step workflows for creating or retrofitting PDFs: http://uw.edu/accessibility

Some features may require workarounds

Discussions Discussion point: How do you know which of these comments is a reply to the original post? How do you know which comment is a reply to a reply? The answer: Indentation! Unfortunately this is a visual cue. If you don't have access to this visual cue, all posts are identical. How could it be improved? Answer: Headings. If H2 marks the original post, H3 could mark the first level of replies. H4 could mark replies to those replies, and so on to H6. Instructure has been informed of this problem, and the recommended solution, so hopefully we'll see this fixed soon. Meanwhile, avoid Discussions if you have a non-visual student in your class.

Conferencing Canvas uses a third party tool, Blue Button, for conferencing. Discussion: How do you post a question or comment to chat?... How do you do that if you're physically unable to use a mouse? It's possible for this interface to be designed with full accessibility, but unfortunately it isn't. Therefore you have options: 1. If you have programming expertise, contribute code to Blue Button (it's open source) and help to make it more accessible; 2. Use an alternative. Blackboard Collaborate is available as an LTI App and can be added to your Canvas Course. It's more accessible, but it isn't free. 3. Avoid Conferencing.

Collaboration Neither of the default third party apps that Canvas promotes for Collaboration are very accessible. One of them is Google Docs, and NFB has filed complaints with the DOJ against two universities (Northwestern and NYU) for using Google Docs, so that obviously comes with known risk.

External Apps / LTI Some external apps are more accessible than others. Be sure to consider accessibility before choosing an app (see next slide)

Questions to Always Ask When Choosing Features and Tools Is it accessible? Can users perform all functions without a mouse? Has it been tested using assistive technologies such as screen readers? If it supports audio, does it support captions? Is accessibility documentation available? If it’s an authoring tool, how does one create accessible content with it?

What Next? Ask Instructure about Canvas Accessibility Talk about accessibility within the Canvas community Educate yourself and others on your campus about creating accessible course content Contact me for additional ideas about ways you can help: tft@uw.edu