Digital Accessibility Instructor Guide

When deciding which courses to prioritize, please consider the following aspects and prioritize those with the greatest institutional and student impact:

• Spring 2026 Target: Prioritize courses you expect to be teaching in spring term 2026.
• High-Enrollment Courses: Prioritize courses with the largest number of students.
• Core Education & Required Courses: Prioritize courses that are foundational, required, and essential for students to progress in their degree.
• New Courses and Learning Materials: Start accessible by building digital accessibility into any new course materials you are developing either for current or future use.

After you identify the course(s) to start with, the next step is to consider what materials in these courses to prioritize. Please consider the following aspects as you make decisions.

• Required Course Materials: Any required learning materials that students use in the course, including the syllabus, assignment descriptions, readings, discussion boards, videos, etc.
• Content Heavily Used and that will be Reused: Any content that is most heavily used in the course or that will be reused multiple times, such as content published on Canvas pages, assignments, assessments, uploaded documents, etc.
• Archive Unnecessary Materials: If you have extra resources or learning materials that are not accessible and not central to the course, you should archive or unpublish them until you are ready to make them digitally accessible.

Canvas provides three tools to help faculty find and fix accessibility issues in Canvas: 1) the Canvas Accessibility Checker, located underneath the textbox when in Edit mode, and looks like a person standing in a circle; 2) the UDOIT Accessibility Check, located in the Canvas course navigation menu; and 3) the Ally Course Accessibility Report, also located in the Canvas course navigation menu.

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Currently, no single tool provides full accessibility checker coverage. Each of these tools has its own strengths and weaknesses, and we suggest using a mix of all three tools, depending on your situations and needs. Please refer to the following table for best practices in using the tools.

The Ally Course Accessibility Report in Canvas locates uploaded documents with accessibility issues and provides guidance on how to fix or replace the problematic documents. Microsoft Word documents will be the easiest file type to fix, followed by PowerPoint presentations. PDF documents should be reviewed last.

Microsoft Word documents

The Microsoft Accessibility checker can help identify and fix accessibility issues in the Word document such as use of color contrast and missing alternative text for images. You should also review your document for other issues related to the five foundational topics because the Microsoft Accessibility checker can miss things; we recommend you check that:

• Headings are created using the built-in Styles options, rather than increased font size and/or bolded text;
• Links have descriptive text rather than the link URL; and
• Lists are created using one of the automatic bullet or number list options, rather than manual indentation.

PowerPoint presentations

When making an accessible PowerPoint, check that images have alternative text, that you are using the existing slide title and section blocks for text content, lists are formatted correctly, colors have enough contrast, and links have descriptive text.

If you use tables to display data, you also need to make sure the tables are formatted in an accessible way.

Visit PowerPoint Accessibility for more information or review the Preparing Slides and Projected Material section from the “Making Events Accessible” checklist created by Web Accessibility Initiative.

PDF documents

Accessibility issues are difficult to fix in PDF format. Assess whether the PDFs in your course are copyrighted information (e.g., articles from the library or content from a publisher). Check with the OSU Valley Library or the Publisher to see if a web version of the document is available, then replace the PDF with a persistent link, also known as a permalink

If the PDF is not copyrighted material or is your own material (such as your syllabus or an assignment sheet), check whether you can either replace the PDF with the original file (e.g., an accessible Word document or PowerPoint), or recreate the PDF content within a Canvas page.

PDFs that contain math or chemistry equations and formulas will need to be recreated using the Equation Editor in Microsoft Word or Canvas to ensure the equations and formulas meet accessibility standards. If the document was originally created with LaTeX, reach out to the OSU Digital Accessibility Community for support.

In rare cases, PDF is the best format for the document. Once you have finished fixing accessibility issues in Canvas, Word, and PowerPoint, and replaced or converted other PDF files with accessible alternatives, reach out to the OSU Digital Accessibility community for guidance on how to correctly tag your PDF file to make it accessible.

New videos uploaded to Kaltura (OSU’s centrally supported media platform) are machine captioned, which means captions are automatically generated and displayed. However, it is important for you to review and, if needed, edit these captions to ensure they are accurate. A few tips on making videos more accessible:

If you want to use videos from other sources, e.g., YouTube videos, check that the video includes accurate captions. Consider reaching out to the owner of the video if the captions are missing or inaccurate.

If you are using Kaltura video content created prior to December 2025 that does not have captions, you will need to add captions or have the video auto-captioned and check for errors. Video strategies has more guidance.

Whether student work is within the scope of the new ADA requirement depends on whether the student's work is shared with other students and whether their review of peer work is central to course learning outcomes or part of required course assignments.  As best practice, embedding accessibility guidelines in coursework is beneficial to all students and will help students be more prepared when they make their shareable work (e.g. group projects, peer reviews) accessible. Consider providing links to OSU’s digital accessibility resources in the instructions for these assignments.

After resolving issues related to the foundational topics of accessibility, select an additional accessibility topic that is relevant to your course(s) and work through this list again to resolve issues connected to the additional topic. Repeat until all accessibility issues are resolved. Reach out to the OSU Digital Accessibility community for help with any topic related to digital accessibility!

Digital content changes frequently and will need to be accessible. We encourage you to seek out accessible sources. It is possible that the content you want to use is available in an accessible format elsewhere. Search first before settling on inaccessible content. As you evaluate your future courses, consider ways of embedding accessibility proactively, rather than fixing it after the materials have been created. Include accessibility compliance as a factor when evaluating new textbooks.  When publishers or vendors contact you, ask about accessible materials and, when possible, insist on accessible formats before selecting their materials.