Any staff, faculty or student worker who is designated to manage, create and/or update content for their department or unit is responsible for following the IT Accessibility Regulations.
Here’s a checklist for course designers and instructors to follow in order to ensure that all instructional materials, including information provided for reference, are accessible to everyone, including those with disabilities.
- Any dialogue with students regarding accessibility accommodations is to be kept confidential.
- Instructions and course materials are simple, clear and well-structured.
See tips for utilizing plain language.
- Documents and information within Canvas or other Learning Management Systems have consistent formats.
See more about Canvas accessibility.
- Documents included and/or referenced are not scanned or copied images. Additionally, when utilizing PDFs, ensure that they are built according to accessibility standards. (PDFs can be made accessible by utilizing Acrobat Pro DC utilizing the “Tools” menu and the “Make Accessible” task wizard.)
See cheat sheets and other references for creating accessible PDF, InDesign, Word and PPT documents.
- A text equivalent, or Alt text, is provided for all images, graphs and charts in order to convey the same information as presented in each.
- Any referenced documents include the appropriate nested heading structure, such as H1, H2, H3, etc.
- Shape, color and/or text style are not the sole methods of conveying or distinguishing among visual elements. (This includes highlighting, bold and italic text.)
- Sufficient contrast exists between foreground and background elements in course materials and any referenced materials.
Tips for contrast and color accessibility.
- Tables are designed as simple tables, utilized for data only—not for layout purposes—and contain appropriate headers.
Creating accessible tables in Word.
- Audio-only content provided or linked has an associated transcript. Videos with audio content (either provided or linked) contains synchronized captions.
Multimedia Accessibility FAQs.
- The course does not contain blinking, flashing or sparkling animated images.
- Links within the course use descriptive text that indicates where the link is pointing (instead of “click here” or “see more”).
- A systematic approach to checking for usability and accessibility has been utilized. (Utilizing this checklist to determine if course materials are accessible.)
For a more comprehensive set of guidelines, course developers can consult WCAG 2.1 and adhere to Level AA standards. If you need additional assistance with accessibility, contact itaccessibility@tamu.edu.