Digital Accessibility Resources for Graduate & Teaching Assistants

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and new Title II regulations (with a Department of Justice compliance deadline approaching April 24, 2027), all digital course materials must be accessible to students with disabilities. This means meeting WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) standards. Your primary responsibility is utilizing digital accessibility resources to ensure that documents, Canvas pages, and videos are perceivable, operable, and understandable before they are published to students.

Always run accessibility checkers before distributing content. Canvas has a built-in Rich Content Editor checker, and Microsoft Office features built-in checkers under the “Review” tab. These tools identify missing alt-text and reading order issues.

For checking colors in your presentations or documents, use the WebAIM Contrast Checker to ensure your text color has a high enough contrast ratio against the background for visually impaired students.

PDFs created by “printing to PDF” or scanning a physical document often function as flat images. Screen readers cannot extract text from them. Unless a PDF is meticulously tagged for reading order and structure, you should avoid using them.

Best Practice: Build your content directly into native Canvas pages or upload the original, accessible Microsoft Word document instead.

Anthology (Blackboard) Ally and YuJa Panorama are integrated accessibility platforms operating within Canvas to flag WCAG and Title II compliance issues. They automatically generate alternative formats (like electronic braille or audio) for students, and they provide instructors with visual indicators (gauges) scoring the accessibility of uploaded files.

Understanding the Score Icons

When you upload a file to Canvas, you will see a small dial icon next to it. Clicking that icon will open a panel telling you exactly what is wrong and how to fix it.

• 🔴 Red (Low – 0-33%): The file has severe accessibility issues (e.g., a scanned PDF with no readable text). Action: This needs immediate remediation or replacement.
• 🟠 Orange (Medium – 34-66%): The file is somewhat accessible but requires attention (e.g., missing alt-text on images or poor color contrast).
• 🟢 Light Green (High – 67-99%): The file is accessible but has minor issues (e.g., slight reading order problems).
• ✅ Dark Green (Perfect – 100%): The file is fully accessible. No action needed!

Typical Errors & How to Fix Them

• Missing Alt-Text: The tool will flag images that lack descriptions.
  🚨 Important Warning: While Ally/Panorama allows you to type a description directly into the Canvas popup, this does not update your original document. It only applies a temporary fix over the file inside Canvas. If that file is downloaded or copied to a new course, the alt-text is lost.
  ✅ The Best Fix: Open your original Word or PowerPoint file, add the alt-text there, and re-upload the fixed file to Canvas.
• Untagged PDFs: The tool will flag PDFs that screen readers cannot navigate. The easiest fix is usually to upload the original, accessible Microsoft Word document instead.
• Contrast Issues: Text color blends in too much with the background. You will need to edit the original document to use darker text and re-upload it.

For more detailed technical breakdowns, review the YuJa Panorama Scoring Model or the Ally Accessibility Checklist.

Never use screenshots or images for mathematical formulas. Screen readers cannot interpret them, and writing alt-text for complex equations is incredibly difficult. Instead, use PowerPoint’s native Equation Editor (Insert > Equation) so the math is encoded using MathML and can be read aloud correctly.

If you are recording lectures or lab demonstrations, you must ensure they have accurate closed captions. Auto-generated captions are a great start, but they must be reviewed and edited for accuracy, especially when using technical engineering terminology. Learn more by watching the YuJa Accessibility and Captions video tutorial.