Canvas Accessibility

Canvas, the learning management system adopted for the California Community Colleges (CCC), serves as the framework for online education. Its inherent structure offers solid accessibility support, empowering faculty to create inclusive learning materials. To foster an inclusive and equitable learning environment, all content within the Canvas learning environment, including attachments, links, third-party materials, LTIs, and content created within the Canvas platform must adhere to accessibility best practices. By prioritizing accessibility in the creation and delivery of course materials, we enable students with diverse needs to engage fully with the instructional content.

CVC Canvas Resources

The California Virtual Campus (CVC) is a collaborative effort among California's Community Colleges to ensure that significantly more students can complete their educational goals by increasing both access to and success in high-quality online courses. The CVC and @ONE offer numerous resources for developing, improving, and delivering effective online teaching and content development.

Pope Tech Dashboards Tool

The Pope Tech Dashboards and Instructor Guide for the Canvas platform allows campuses to create more accessible courses and remediate existing ones. The Instructor Accessibility Guide reviews Canvas pages for potential accessibility errors and prompts content authors with changes to resolve issues. Accessibility Dashboards allows instructors to view the accessibility status of all their courses and gives administrators overall accessibility reports at the institution.

This tool is available at no cost to the CCC System. To learn more or to request access, please visit the Pope Tech Canvas Dashboards section of our Tools page.

Document Accessibility

Digital documents can be shared in various ways: on websites, via email, on social media, in blogs, etc. To ensure that all people have equal access to your information, documents should be designed and developed in a way that can be easily perceived, operated, and understood by a wide range of users (including individuals with visual, auditory, motor, and cognitive disabilities), and robust enough to be interpreted by various assistive technologies.

It is easiest to make a document accessible during content development instead of retroactively remediating it, which may be challenging and resource-intensive. Here are a few basic steps that can be followed in most document authoring tools to help ensure that your content is accessible.

Best Practices for Document Accessibility:

Use plain language and avoid jargon and acronyms that are not defined.
Use Headings
Provide Alternative Text for Images and Charts
Use Sufficient Color Contrast
Make Links Descriptive, Succinct, and Unique
Create Accessible Tables
Utilize Accessibility Checkers

CCC Accessibility Center Training Resources and Tools:

To learn how to create accessible documents, enroll in WebAIM Accessible Document Training
To learn why these concepts are important, enroll in CCC Accessibility Center Canvas Courses
For assistance with PDF Remediation, licenses of Equidox are available

Platform Specific Guidance:

Word

PDF

PowerPoint

Excel

Google Workspace Document Accessibility

Digital Content Accessibility Overview

Digital content accessibility refers to the design and creation of information, media, and communication shared online to ensure inclusivity and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

Accessible digital content, including educational materials, such as syllabi, presentations, articles, assignments, lecture notes, video and audio content, and content within the Learning Management System (LMS) are crucial in ensuring equal learning opportunities and facilitating full engagement in the learning process.

Document Accessibility

The majority of digital content, including word processing files, PDFs, presentations, forms, templates, and marketing materials, follow the same accessibility tenets. Learning the basics of accessible digital content creation can reduce barriers and remediation needs. Learn more about Document Accessibility.