Resources and Tools
General online training modules are available from a vendor, Level Access and are available for interested parties. In addition, how to “checklist’ reference materials providing best practices for making Word, Excel, Powerpoint and PDF documents accessible are available beginning December 2017. Beginning in late February 2018, the Instructional Technology Design Services group will offer targeted and mandated training modules and user documentation.
The following resources are available in the interim to assist you with checking course web pages and materials to see how accessible they may be to students with disabilities.
- Canvas offers some General Accessibility Design Guidelines.
- The National Center on Disability and Access to Education (NCDAE) has excellent suggestions on how to create accessible electronic content.
- A detailed description of the 508 standards for web design and online educational materials.
- WebAIM provides a detailed checklist to ensure Section 508 compliance in online materials.
- Cynthia Says Accessibility Checker.
- W3C Accessibility Resources.
- WAVE Accessibility Checker for websites.
Assistive Technologies
Screen Readers and Text to Speech Technology
- NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access), is a free “screen reader” which enables blind and vision impaired people to use computers.
- JAWS (Job Access With Speech), is the world’s most popular screen reader, developed for computer users whose vision loss prevents them from seeing screen content.
- Zoomtext A magnification and screen reading software for the visually impaired.
Speech to Text
- Voice Notebook
- Voice Notebook Google Chrome extension works with Canvas. It allows you to right-click on any text box in Canvas so that you can speak and it will translate it to text.