Accessible Content

TOPICS

• Quiz Accommodations
• Canvas Accessibility Tools
• Using Ally for Accessibility
• Resource Materials
• Student Accessibility Help

Quiz Accommodations

Give Extra Time for a Quiz

Giving a student extra time on a Canvas quiz (for CDAR accommodations) is accomplished through Moderate This Quiz settings (located on the right-hand side of the Edit Quiz screen). Extra time can be given for any Canvas quiz including those with no due dates. However, a quiz must be published before it can be moderated.

• CLASSIC QUIZZES
  How do I add accommodations for a student in "Classic" Quizzes?
  Note: Extending the quiz duration time for students with accommodations must be done on a quiz by quiz basis for Classic Quizzes.
  
  
• NEW QUIZZES
  How do I add accommodations for a student in "New" Quizzes?

Allow a Student to Take a Quiz at a Different Time

You can assign different due dates and/or availability dates to the same quiz. This allows you to give different due dates for each section of a class or provide extensions for individual students without having to create a new quiz.

Allowing a student to take a quiz at a different time than the rest of the class is accomplished through the Quiz Settings.

• Edit the quiz
• Look for an Assign to: card at the bottom of the page. This card will be assigned to Everyone. (don't change this)
• Below the available dates, look for a + Add button and select it to add an additional Assign to: card.
• In the new card's Assign to field, select the student or section's name from the dropdown list. Note: After selecting the name of the student or section, the first card's Assign to field will change from Everyone to Everyone Else.
• Enter from and until available dates.
• Enter a due date.
• Click Save or Save & Publish.

Print a Canvas Quiz (for CDAR accommodations)

• How to Print a Canvas Quiz. Recommended settings for printing via your browser:
  • Printer: Adobe PDF
  • Layout: Portrait
  • Advanced Settings: Turn off Headers/Footers and Background Graphics
• If your quiz is setup to Show one question at a time, change this setting temporarily to Show all questions to print. If the quiz is already deployed, duplicate the quiz, and change the setting in the duplicate version to Show all questions before printing.

Caution: Printed quizzes often split answer options between pages and leave little room for essay answers.

Canvas Accessibility Tools

• Accessibility Checker - The Rich Content Editor includes an accessibility tool that detects common accessibility errors within the editor.
• Ally - an integrated solution provided through Canvas to help instructors make course materials more accessible to students.
• Immersive Reader - The Microsoft Immersive Reader enhances the reading experience by improving accessibility and boosting reading comprehension. To use, click the Immersive Reader button when viewing pages, assignments, course home pages, and the syllabus in a course. Note: Microsoft Immersive Reader does not work for the Canvas modules area, nor does it work when viewing a file (use Ally for files).
  
• Alternative Formats for Students - Alternative Formats allow students to view course documents in a variety of accessible formats.
  
• Panopto Video - Panopto is seamlessly integrated into Canvas and provides automatic closed captioning for all video it stores for Canvas. (In contrast, the Canvas Files area does not provide closed captioning for video files.)

Using Ally to Improve Content Accessibility

Watch: Ally - The Easy Canvas Accessibility Checker (50 min) by Sean Quallen, Ph.D.

Ally automatically generates Alternative Formats (designated by ) to make files more accessible without altering the original file in any way. Alternative Formats are fully integrated into each Canvas course and allow students to view course documents--such as Microsoft Word and PDFs--in a variety of accessible formats.

Over the past two years, students used Ally's Alternative Formats over 24,000 times to aid in their learning processes. U of I instructors made over 10,000 accessibility improvements to more than 1,900 courses.

Ally provides Accessibility Indicators () & Scores for content in Canvas (these are ONLY viewable by instructors). When you see an Accessibility indicator in your course, click on the icon to view step-by-step instructions on how to improve the content's accessibility. Ally's accessibility indicators come in four colors designed to indicate how accessible the content item is.

• For scanned documents without OCR conversion, consider consulting the U of I Library to obtain more accessible versions of articles or to ask them to digitize book chapters for you.
• Consider replacing PDFs with the original documents (such as Microsoft Word) which are generally more accessible.
• Add descriptions to images for the visually impaired or indicate the image is decorative. If words appear within the image, list these in the description.
  

Run the Ally Accessibility Report

Ally's course accessibility report provides an overall score for the course and a quick summary regarding the remaining issues. Select Ally Course Accessibility Report from the left course menu. This menu item NEVER shows to students. (If you do not see this menu item, go to Settings > Navigation and drag the Ally item up to visible items. Then Save.)

The Ally Course Accessibility Report provides a holistic way to work on low scoring content or to focus on fixing quick and easy issues--whichever you prefer. Simply follow Ally's step-by-step feedback to fix each issue.

Resource Materials

UI Accessibility Policy

The University of Idaho is committed to ensuring an accessible learning environment where course or instructional content are usable by all students and faculty.

Faculty Staff Handbook 6400
6400 - Academic Adjustment and Accommodation for Students with Disabilities
The university will operate each service, program, or activity so that the service, program, or activity, when viewed in its entirety, is readily accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities.

The Center for Disability Access and Resources (CDAR) provides services and support to ensure that students are able to access and participate in the opportunities available at the university.

Email: cdar@uidaho.edu
Phone: (208) 885-6307
Location: Bruce M. Pitman Center, Suite 127, Moscow Campus

Canvas Accessibility Standards

Recorded CETL Workshops

• Equitable Canvas: Enhancing Accessibility (33 min) | Jen Elbek, Ph.D., Sean Quallen, Ph.D. (Spring 2024)
• From Our Perspective, a Student Panel on Creating Accessible Classes (1 hr) | Sean Quallen, Ph.D., Amy Taylor, M.S.W. (Spring 2022)
• Making Your Virtual & Online Classes Accessible (1 hr) | Slides | Alex Hollingshead, Ed.D., Amy Taylor, M.S.W., Erin Chapman, Ph.D. (Summer 2020)

Video Tutorials

• Play Why Accessibility Matters (2:47 min)
• From Our Perspective: UofI Student Panel (1 hr)
• Introduction to Canvas Ally (2:42 min)
• Make Canvas Courses Accessible using Ally (15 min)