Beyond legal obligations, making digital course materials accessible is a shared responsibility that fosters an inclusive education experience for all students at Stanford and supports the university’s Online Accessibility Policy. Any instructor or staff member responsible for adding content to their Canvas courses can use the following resources:
Tool: Instructor Accessibility Guide
Task: Add inline content
While Canvas has a built-in Accessibility Checker that detects common accessibility errors within the rich text editor, some instructors have commented that this tool does not always provide clear guidance on how to fix the identified issue(s). Stanford’s Office of Digital Accessibility (SODA) recommends using the Instructor Accessibility Guide (IAG) instead. The IAG tool is automatically installed in all Canvas courses and is identified by a button with a white “p” icon against a circular dark blue background. The IAG button is located to the left of the Cancel button.
IAG Button Image:
Once activated, the IAG appears as a panel on the right side of the screen and displays a list of elements that are checked on the page as well as the number of identified errors and alerts.
To learn more about how to use the IAG:
- Review the Instructor Accessibility Guide for Canvas Intro
- Sign up for the Instructional Accessibility Modules, which provide an overview of how to use the Instructor Accessibility Guide and other accessibility strategies.
- Instructor Accessibility Guide video tutorial approximately 11 minutes long.
IAG image within a Canvas course:
Tool: The Stanford Converter into Braille & E-Text (SCRIBE)
Task: To convert text and image-based files into different formats
SCRIBE is an online document conversion system that transforms text and image-based file types into different formats. SCRIBE is automatically installed in every Canvas course. On the SCRIBE screen, select a file from your Canvas site and you will be presented with conversion options.
For detailed instructions, follow the guide on how to use SCRIBE. Please view the 6 minute long Scribe video tutorial.
Scribe Tool within a Canvas course image:
Additional Resources for Instructional Accessibility Guidance
- Send an email to instructional-accessibility@lists.stanford.edu
- Sign up for a SODA Office Hour (Tuesdays at 11 AM)
- Join the Slack COP Accessibility channel to post questions and share experiences
- Sign up for the Accessibility Training Modules to access courses on document and web accessibility