Ball State faculty can find updates to the May 11 ADA Title II compliance deadline in our Digital Accessibility site, part of the Teaching Innovation Team Public Resources Canvas Community. As you prepare your course for accessibility, access resources to remediate your content to align with the updated requirements.
What is This New Rule? What Does it Apply To?
You can read a more detailed discussion of the updated accessibility requirements in this previous blog post.
Specifically, accessibility concerns are particularly prominent for but are not limited to:
- PowerPoint slides (such as lecture slides)
- Images included in the course site, slide decks, and/or readings
- Video content
- PDF readings or handouts
- Course syllabus
The Web and Digital Accessibility site from Marketing and Communications is a great resource hub, providing information that covers the broad range of digital accessibility. In particular, its resources support BSU community members who produce publicly visible content, such as websites, social media, email, applications, and more.
Video and Captioning Guidance
Preparing video content for accessibility is a daunting component of these changes. If you haven’t already, we recommend creating, storing, and sharing your videos with Panopto, the university-supported video platform at BSU. Panopto supports the creation and editing of video captions—the primary part of video accessibility.
Resources for Remediating for Accessibility
Trying to remediate an entire course for accessibility all at once can be overwhelming, so we recommend adopting a step-by-step approach that supports prioritizing your time and student success. Review our “One-Item-at-a-Time Workflow” to see an easy, step-by-step breakdown for doing this.
An essential element of that step-by-step process is the usage of Canvas’s built in Accessibility Checker. You can review this help documentation at Instructure to learn more about how to use the Accessibility Checker and see images to help you navigate its interface.
Aside from videos, another major course component to remediate are PDFs, and that remediation is largely done by using Adobe Acrobat. If you do not currently have access to Acrobat, you can request it by using the Adobe Software Request form.
Remediation Quick Tips and Advice
The Journey Has a Difficult Start, But Gets Easier
Right now, you’re on the ground, looking up at the plateau above you. Remediating your content initially will be a climb, but once you develop these habits of accessibility, you’ll reach the level top where it flattens out and gets easier as you have less to remediate. A good example of this is making headings accessible in Microsoft Word by using styles.
A common accessibility issue in Word documents is the use of bolded or otherwise styled regular text as headings instead of clicking the “Heading 1” style from the format ribbon. This is an issue because, for screen readers, that heading is interpreted as normal text. When you instead click the “Heading 1” button, it inserts a tag in the code that tells the assistive technology, and in turn the user, that the text is a heading.
Updating the headings for a series of documents to all use the Heading 1 button is tedious and time intensive. However, once you develop the habit of using the Heading 1 button for headings in the first place, you effectively eliminate the need to remediate this issue in the future.
Don’t like the default styles for Microsoft Word headings? Want to use headings that are specific to your discipline’s formatting guidelines? You can change the default style settings for the documents you create in Microsoft Word!
Be Strategic! You Don’t Have to Eat This Elephant All At Once
What’s the best way to eat an elephant? One bite at a time. If you aren’t prepared for it, accessibility is a similarly large, unwieldy beast, but we can get it eaten one bite at a time.
This applies in a couple ways. First, as mentioned above and in the “One-Item-at-a-Time Workflow,” adopting a step-by-step approach allows you to prioritize your time accordingly. Focus on the easy, “quick wins” in remediating and work your way up to the more complex, technical remediation. The mantra is:
“Progress over Perfection.” An 80% accessible course is definitely better than a 0% accessible course because I was too overwhelmed to start.
Second, remember that the digital accessibility rule change is focused on student-facing content used by your learners. Use this to be strategic in your remediation. An ideal scenario would be to have the entirety of course content accessible before the start of the semester, but if you can’t remediate everything right away, stay ahead of your students, such as four weeks ahead of wherever learners are in the course.
Talk to Your Liaisons at University Libraries About Reading Lists
If your course relies heavily on PDFs of readings, consider reaching out to University Libraries about getting set up with a Reading List. If the library has access to the articles you need, they can help you get accessible versions of them available for your learners.
Software Accessibility
Do you use, or plan to use, a particular software as a part of your course? You can review the Software Accessibility Review Process here. This is the process that ensures new academic technology meets the University’s accessibility guidelines under State and Federal law.
Resources for Learning More About Accessibility
To learn more about accessibility, enroll in our Make Your Canvas Course Accessible Self-Paced Course. This course includes written materials and short video presentations, covering a number of important topics, such as the basics of accessibility, the 8 steps for making your course accessible, support for discipline-specific accessibility, Universal Design for Learning, and more.
Additionally, the course contains a wealth of resources and guidance that lives on your Canvas Dashboard both before and after completion. Even if you don’t finish the course, enrolling in it gives you access to its information and resources.
Conclusion
Changes to accessibility requirements are just around the corner with a current deadline of May 11, 2026. Reviewing and remediating course content for accessibility is a lot, and it’s understandable to feel overwhelmed. Bookmark our Digital Accessibility page in our Teaching Innovation Team’s Public Resources. This page is your up-to-date resource for tracking these changes and the support available at the University for complying to them.
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