Center for Academic Technologies

Digital Accessibility

Create Accessible Courses

At California State University Monterey Bay, Canvas is the standard Learning Management System (LMS) for all courses across our institution. Canvas provides a unified platform for students to access course materials, submit assignments, collaborate with peers, and communicate with instructors. 

All faculty should use Canvas to manage and deliver course content, communicate with students, and facilitate online learning activities. Canvas provides a robust, user-friendly platform that integrates with our campus systems and supports various educational technologies.

Creating an accessible course does not have to be a daunting task. We have powerful tools like ALLY and the Canvas Accessibility Checker available in Canvas courses. We also have resources that are a part of our ongoing commitment to creating inclusive and accessible learning environments.

Check out the tools and resources below to learn more.

  • Canvas ALLY is a tool that enhances the accessibility of online courses and course materials. 

    This tool helps you:

    • Automatically check your course content for accessibility issues 
    • Provides step-by-step guidance on how to fix them
    • Generates accessible alternative files students can download, such as audio files, electronic braille, and other options.

    Videos & Guides:

    Watch ALLY Instructor Feedback (length of time 1:42)

    Watch ALLY Course Report (length of time 1:14)

    Watch ALLY Alternative Formats (length of time 0:58)

    Read Tips on How to Write Accessible Content

  • Canvas courses have a built-in tool known as the Canvas Accessibility Checker. It's seamlessly integrated into the Rich Content Editor in Canvas, offering an easy way to ensure your course content is accessible to all learners.

    The Canvas Accessibility Checker is designed to identify and highlight potential accessibility issues in your course content, from text to images and everything in between. It not only identifies these issues, it also offers practical suggestions for fixing them.

    How to use the Canvas Accessibility Checker as an instructor (written).

  • Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Guidelines (UDL page)

    Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn.