As educators, we aim to provide every student what they need to succeed in our courses. To achieve this, we must ensure our course materials are accessible to all learners.
“I take accessibility into consideration, really at all stages. It’s when I’m setting up my courses and also when I walk in the first day and start interacting with my students. But then we also have to think a lot about accessibility as the semester goes on, because various things might come up, or just the environment or the structure of the class might change a little bit...
"Find out what your students need. Think about what they want from you. Think about how you can deliver the knowledge you want them to get in a way that they’re actually going to be able to absorb it.”
- Dr. Margaret Price, Professor and Director of the Disability Studies Program, Department of English
Designing courses to be more accessible can be transformative for students and instructors alike. To build accessible courses, we must first understand and comply with the digital accessibility requirements established by international web standards organizations and United States law. To help you create course material with accessibility in mind, this resource provides guidance on digital accessibility standards, foundational skills, and helpful strategies for reviewing your content.
Background
In 2024, the Department of Justice (DOJ) released updated regulations for digital accessibility under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The rules will require all web content and mobile apps—in other words, all digital content shared and used across the university—to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1, Levels A and AA (WCAG 2.1). Starting on April 24, 2026, these standards will apply to all student-facing digital content you use in your teaching, from your Carmen course and lecture videos to the documents and readings you share and assign.
To ensure your courses meet these accessibility requirements moving forward, you must:
- First, review existing course content to fix any accessibility issues.
- Second, design all new course content with accessibility in mind.
This guide walks through the steps for correcting accessibility issues in existing course material. To develop new content that is accessible—whether an entire course or a single assignment or lesson—we recommend using the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework. UDL helps you proactively design student-friendly course content that meets a range of learner needs and preferences. With UDL, you provide students multiple and varied ways to access course material, engage in learning activities, and demonstrate what they have learned on assignments and assessments. The UDL framework also prompts you to ensure all your course materials—lectures, videos, images, assessments, readings, textbooks, and more—are accessible.
Read more in Universal Design for Learning: Planning with All Students in Mind.
What is Digital Accessibility?
When we hear “accessibility,” disability and student accommodations are usually the first thing to come to mind. In general, when we talk about accessibility in this article, we are referring to the ability of all users to access content in the same place and to navigate and engage with that content in equitable ways, regardless of their context, knowledge base, or disability status. In the case of digital content, accessibility is best defined using the four main principles of the WCAG standards developed by the Web Accessibility Initiative.
To be accessible, digital content must be:
- Perceivable. Information and interfaces must be perceivable to all users. This means adding captions to audio/video media, adding text alternatives to image-based content, and ensuring color and contrast are appropriate for those with vision differences (including temporary differences due to context, such as bright sunshine or device display issues).
- Operable. All interactions can be completed, regardless of input method or device. Forms, quizzes, interactive maps and charts, and applications all fall under this category. Keyboard-only operation is an essential mode for those with motor control issues, those who use screen readers, and those who cannot use a mouse due to temporary circumstances (for example: a dead battery in a wireless mouse, holding a baby with the dominant hand, lack of space to move a mouse).
- Understandable. All content and instructions should be clear so that users can complete tasks. Instructions for completing assignments, using tools, or operating a system should be easy to follow and error tolerant. Consistency in design and procedure can improve understandability. Use templates with predictable and repeatable arrangements or layouts to help users prepare for tasks.
- Robust. All content should work across all major device types and should be as future-proof as possible. Robustness at universities is usually managed by software developers, IT departments, and those in charge of purchasing or authorizing new applications, not individual instructors.
These four principles are referred to by the acronym POUR. The POUR framework is an easy way to remember the basics of digital accessibility.
Students with disabilities have been—and will continue to be—supported through accommodations and one-time, case-by-case changes to course policies or materials. Accommodations can make a course more accessible for students by giving them more time on exams, offering flexibility in the attendance policy, providing note takers or other in-class support, allowing for changes to the classroom environment, or providing alternative course materials. Universal Design for Learning, digital accessibility, and accommodations work together to create the best opportunities for all students to succeed.
From Compliance to Commitment
The new Title II regulations require public colleges and universities to ensure all digital content is accessible, including student-facing course materials. This means that, by law, all CarmenCanvas courses, web content, documents, videos, audio recordings, emails, and other communications shared with students must comply with the WCAG 2.1 standards.
Ensuring access for Ohio State students is not just the job of Student Life Disability Services, Digital Accessibility Services, or IT—it is a shared responsibility. Everyone at the university is accountable for the content they create. For instructors, who are the primary architects of students’ learning experience, accessibility is a pedagogical commitment. We design our learning materials with accessibility in mind so all students have opportunities to meaningfully engage, learn, and thrive in our courses and beyond.
“Thanks to our amazing accessible media team, legally blind, 59-year-old widows like me can pursue a highly respected graduate degree that will open the door for unprecedented financial independence. Words cannot adequately express how liberating that is, and how much gratitude I have for the opportunity!”
- Jill Freeze, Graduate Student
Accessible course design:
Removes barriers to learning.
When course materials are not designed with accessibility in mind, barriers to learning can arise for students with visual, auditory, motor, cognitive, and learning disabilities. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, about 1 in 5 undergraduate students and 1 in 8 graduate students report having a disability (2023), but only about a third of students with a disability inform their college of their disability (2022). Accessible course design offers these learners equitable access and affirms their right to participate fully in your course.
Creates a student-friendly experience.
Accessible design improves the clarity, quality, and usability of your course for everyone. For example, video captions support not only students who are D/deaf or hard of hearing, but also those who are multilingual or studying in a noisy environment. Similarly, accessible link text makes navigating your course much smoother for all students, not just those who use screen readers.
Encourages intentional teaching.
Designing for accessibility prompts you to reflect more deeply on how you structure and deliver content. For example, putting thought into heading structures can lead to more organized Carmen pages that align with your learning outcomes. Writing descriptive link text fosters clearer, more purposeful communication. Reviewing transcripts or captions may reveal where lecture videos are redundant or unclear. These and other accessibility practices can help you refine your teaching and course materials.
Mitigates risk.
Abiding by accessibility laws and university policies can help us mitigate a variety of risks. Most importantly, it reduces harm to student learning and academic performance. It can also serve to prevent complaints, legal action, loss of trust in the institution, or even loss of funds.
Shows students they are valued.
Like UDL, accessible course design signals to students that you have considered and respected their learning needs, fostering a more positive and welcoming learning environment.
Saves you time.
Investing time to make your course accessible from the get-go can save you time in the end. You will have fewer revisions to make in the future and less scrambling to rush corrections or retrofit material when students request accommodations.
Digital accessibility is a shared responsibility, and it benefits everyone. If you’re ready to get started, the next sections walk through foundational accessibility skills and a step-by-step process for reviewing the accessibility of your course.
7 Core Skills for Digital Accessibility
Whether you’re gearing up to design an entirely new course or to review existing course material, getting started with digital accessibility can seem overwhelming. No matter the tools or applications you are using, we recommend starting with just seven foundational skills.
- Headings: Provide outline structure for text content by using an application’s built-in headings styles.
- Lists: Organize your content into easy-to-read chunks using numbered or bulleted lists.
- Links: Use clear link text that describes the link’s destination or purpose.
- Tables: Organize data and complex information in simple tables with descriptive row and column headers.
- Color and Contrast: Avoid using color as the only way to communicate meaning or emphasis and ensure all text has sufficient contrast against its background.
- Images and Alt Text: Add alternative text (alt text) that clearly describes the content and purpose of every non-decorative image in your course.
- Video and Audio: Ensure all videos include accurate captions and an accompanying audio description track or text transcript. Provide accurate transcripts for audio-only recordings.
For each skill outlined below, we will suggest practical “things to do” (and not do) and link to additional resources. Once you are familiar with these general accessibility best practices, addressing them across all your course content will become second nature.
Download 7 Core Skills Accessibility Checklist.docx to use as a reference and guide.
Headings
Research shows that a well-organized course supports student learning. An essential part of organizing your course is ensuring your text has a clear and easy-to-navigate structure, and that all students, including those who use screen readers, can access and understand that text structure. This applies to pages in your Carmen course, all documents you share with your class (including your syllabus, instructions for assignments and activities, readings, and so on), any web content created for your course, and even the emails that you send to students.
Provide an outline structure for text content by using the built-in heading styles of the platform you are using, such as Canvas or Microsoft Word. As you create or review each heading, make sure the wording clearly signals to readers the topic or purpose of the content below it.
Why It Matters
Headings allow users to easily scan a page to find the section of interest. All learners benefit from visual and logical structure to better understand content, but properly formatted headings are crucial for students who use screen readers. Many screen reader users don’t read a page top to bottom; instead, they use the software’s option to read out each heading, and then jump to the section of interest using keyboard shortcuts. Screen readers will not recognize boldface styling or text that uses different font sizes or colors. So when proper heading styles aren’t designated, screen reader users are forced to listen to the entire page to find information.
Using a screen reader to read text without proper heading structure can be frustrating and confusing. Imagine a screen reader user is navigating your CarmenCanvas pages to read a lesson, answer a quiz question, or study for an exam. If the built-in heading styles in Canvas were not used, the key ideas and organization will be hard to decipher, increasing the cognitive effort required for the student to understand the material.
What to Do
- Use a logical organization for all text content from the start.
- Organize headings hierarchically, nested sequentially as in an outline.
- Format headings using the built-in heading styles of the software application or web content management system you’re using. The tool to designate your headings will vary across platforms; you might find it under a Styles menu, as in Microsoft Word. From the menu, you will be able to select heading levels—such as H1, H2, or H3—to clearly organize your content into navigable sections.
- For web content, level 1 headings indicate the title, topic, or purpose of each page. There should only be one heading 1 (H1) on each page. In Canvas and most website Content Management Systems, the H1 is what the author inputs into the Title field.
- For documents, H1 should be the title of the document.
- Make sure each heading clearly indicates the topic or purpose of the content below it.
Resources and Tools
- CarmenCanvas: Accessible Headings in the RCE
- Headings, WC3 Web Accessibility Initiative
Lists
Lists are another useful way to format the text in your course so it is easier for students to read and navigate at-a-glance. Numbered and bulleted lists can help you break up lengthy course content into readable chunks, making it easier for all students to digest. You can use lists to highlight key concepts and details, show the order of importance or relationship between ideas, present a sequence clearly, or to convey a lot of information in a more concise way.
Whether you need to present a sequence of tasks in assignment instructions or simply add structure to a stream of informational text, using lists can bring clarity to your course content. Always use the built-in list features in the platform you’re using, and be thoughtful about whether a numbered or bulleted list is best suited to organizing your text.
Why It Matters
Lists break up text into more bite-sized chunks, helping all students understand the key points more quickly. Like headings, they enhance the readability and “scannability” of text. All of this can reduce reader fatigue and cognitive load for learners. If a student is using a screen reader—and if the built-in list features are properly used—they will be alerted to the presence of the list and may be informed of the number of items, allowing them to proceed through the listed items with a single keystroke.
Imagine that you have drafted 450 words of instructions for an extensive research assignment in your class. You would probably intuitively present them in an easy-to-read list or lists. If you instead presented the lengthy instructions in paragraph form, it would be much more difficult for students to grasp the steps required to complete the assignment. Consider how lists could be similarly leveraged to lend a clear and user-friendly organization to all your course content.
What to Do
- Identify content that is best presented in a list such as key concepts, related items, or sequences.
- Decide if you should use a numbered or bulleted list, depending on the context.
- Choose numbered lists when items must be understood or completed in a specific order. For example, you might use a numbered list to break down the order of tasks in a complex assignment, to highlight the steps in the scientific method, or to show the order of importance of ideas.
- Choose bulleted lists, or unordered lists, when the sequence of list items does not matter or help students understand the content.
- Use the built-in list tool of the application to designate and order list items.
- When creating nested items (in other words, a list that breaks down sub-bullets to follow bullets or letters to follow numbers), continue using the built-in list tool to properly designate the nested levels.
Resources and Tools
- CarmenCanvas: Create Accessible Lists in the RCE
- WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool (use the structure tab to see if a list is actually marked as a list)
- How To Use the List Feature in MS Word, The Accessibility Guy
Links
Links are a foundational element of digital content. They help us navigate and connect information in a world that is increasingly online. As such, making sure all links in your course are accessible is essential to creating a positive learning experience for students. Once you learn to create accessible link text, your Carmen course pages, documents, emails, websites, and any other digital content you create will be much more user-friendly.
For a hyperlink to be accessible, it must:
- Be perceivable, as in visually distinct from surrounding text
- Make known the purpose of clicking the link (for example, to read more about a specific topic, to fill out an application, to download a document)
- Use clear and specific wording that describes the link destination
Why It Matters
Sighted learners often scan pages for links. Meaningful link text helps them quickly understand where a link will take them, without having to read the surrounding text. When a link is non-descriptive, students cannot quickly glean information about the link destination and have to search for context to understand. Links that display the full URL or are worded with text that is meaningless in isolation, such as “explore further,” are not user-friendly since students will have to put forth effort to glean the purpose of the link.
Did you know that screen reader users can access a list of all the links on a page? Screen readers will also announce each link as a student navigates through your course content. Nondescript text links (think commonly used generic terms like “click here” and “read more”) are not helpful to students who use screen readers since it is not apparent where the link will take them. If your link text includes an entire URL, a screen reader may read every letter, making the link very difficult for a student to decipher.
What to Do
- Make your links look like links—link text should always be underlined.
- Embed links in text using the built-in link tool of the application or content editor. For example: write a sentence, highlight the text you want to link, and then insert the link. The method of doing so will vary by platform.
- Windows shortcut: Control & K
- MAC shortcut: Command & K
- In some cases:
- You can highlight text, right-click, and then choose “link” or “hyperlink.”
- You can highlight text and then click a “link icon” (often a chain link) in the Rich Content Editor.
- Use clear and specific wording that describes the link’s purpose or destination.
- Properly link email addresses.
- Right-click the text to insert a link and include “mailto:[email address]” in the hyperlink field.
- Preferably, type out and hyperlink the full email address (e.g., “Please contact brutusbuckeye.1@osu.edu”).
Resources and Tools
Tables
No matter your discipline, you will surely find many reasons to organize elements of your course content using tables. In the sciences, data from experiments and research findings are often presented in tables. If you teach business or accounting, tables are used for financial reporting and budgets. In the humanities, tables can be used to compare information and ideas across distinct categories (for example, to compare historical periods or literary genres). The rubrics we create for assessments in our courses are typically presented in a table format as well.
Tables make complicated information easier for students to understand by placing it into easy-to-scan rows and columns. But for your tables to be accessible to all students, they must be simple and include descriptive column headers and/or row headers that clearly describe the data they present.
Why It Matters
Tables organize information in an easy-to-use format. For sighted users, reading the column and row headers provides a starting point for understanding how the data is presented. Screen readers can only announce each table cell one at a time, reading from left to right and top to bottom. If table headers are not properly assigned to cells, a student using a screen reader will not be able to understand how each announced data cell is related to the other data in associated columns or rows.
What to Do
- Create simple tables using an application’s built-in table formatting tools.
- Use an application’s built-in table formatting tools to assign the column and/or row headers.
- Add a descriptive caption or alternative text (alt text) that explains the purpose and content of the table.
Resources and Tools
Color and Contrast
In addition to making your course material more engaging and aesthetically appealing, proper use of color and contrast can help students accurately locate and perceive key information. But if you use color only to convey meaning or signal emphasis, or text contrast that does not meet the WCAG contrast ratio, your course content may become illegible for some students. When developing course materials, keep in mind that differences in color perception are fairly common, and your students may not understand information communicated through color alone in the way that you intend.
Why It Matters
Using color as the sole indicator of meaning or emphasis in your course can create barriers to access and learning for a range of reasons.
- Color blind or low vision users may not be able to decipher the information.
- Device displays vary in color calibration and can be impacted by setting (indoor vs. outdoor lighting).
- Display settings for high contrast mode or dark mode may affect color rendering.
- Accessing content on a device outdoors can affect vision and color perception.
Have you ever seen a film with subtitles that were very difficult to read? The subtitles may have had insufficient contrast with the background. When text has poor contrast, it is not easy for students to decipher, and accessibility is especially reduced for learners with low vision. Contrast is measured by the difference in perceived brightness of two colors, commonly referred to as its “contrast ratio.” White text on a white background has a contrast ratio of 1:1, while black text on a white background has a 21:1 contrast ratio.
Insufficient text contrast can lead to:
- Increased eye strain and cognitive strain when reading.
- Students overlooking important information, including buttons and links to other resources.
- Difficulty maintaining focus or short-term memory issues, particularly for students with learning or cognitive disabilities.
What to Do
- Use color alongside another element (text description, boldface font, patterns, or shapes) to create emphasis or distinction.
- Make sure all text is readable and has sufficient contrast against its background, according to the WCAG 2.1 AA Contrast Ratio. Contrast requirements are as follows:
- Small text: Text under 18-point regular font (14-point bold) must have a minimum 4.5:1 ratio with the background.
- Large text: Text at or above 18-point font (14-point bold) must have a contrast ratio of at least 3:1 with the background.
- Text on images (and video) can be especially difficult to read, so it is important to ensure the text has sufficient contrast. In general, it is also a best practice to provide that text within the body copy, image caption, or alt text. To improve the contrast of text on an image, you can use the “highlight” feature in an application to add an opaque a semi-transparent bar behind the text. Be sure to adjust the font color so it is legible against the bar. When using text on images, you may also want to consider the legibility of the font size and style and check that that text does not obscure important parts of the image.
Resources and Tools
- CarmenCanvas: Accessible Text Color in the RCE
- WebAIM on Contrast and Color Accessibility
- WebAIM Contrast Checker
- Accessibility best practices for color, University of Michigan
- Contrast Checker, Acart Communications
- TPGi Colour Contrast Analyzer
- See instructions for downloading the Colour Contrast Analyzer on the ADA Digital Accessibility Center website.
Images and Alt Text
Using images throughout your course is a great way to make your content more appealing and engaging to learners. Depending on the context, your images might convey meaningful and necessary information, or they may simply be used for aesthetics. Instructors in certain disciplines might find they have more frequent reasons to integrate complex images, such as detailed diagrams or infographics, while in other disciplines the images used may frequently be supplemental or decorative.
Whenever you add an image to your course, and the image represents meaningful or necessary information, you must make it accessible for all learners. You make a meaningful image accessible by adding alternative text (or alt text) that briefly describes its content and purpose.
Why It Matters
Alt text is metadata that does not appear visually in your course, but that is used by screen readers. Visually impaired students who use screen readers rely upon alt text to understand what the images in your course convey. If you neglect to add alt text, these students will be unable to obtain the same information as their sighted peers. It is imperative that all non-decorative images you add to Carmen, embed in documents, or otherwise share with students have clear and concise alt text that describes the image content and the context in which it is used.
Alt text can also be useful if an image is not displaying properly. For example, if a photo fails to load in a browser or if user settings block it, the alt text will display.
What to Do
- Add alt text to each non-decorative image in your course.
- Make your alt text clear and concise—the alt text should describe the image in the context that it is used. The length is typically a few words but can be a couple of brief sentences.
- Identify images that are too complex to describe with alt text and prepare a full image description. For example, graphs, charts, and diagrams are frequently too involved to describe with alt text alone and will require another format to adequately convey their meaning to students using screen readers. Some ways to describe complex images include in tables, in descriptions within the body text, or by linking to a separate document or “image transcript” in the caption of the image. The latter may be the best route for very detailed images.
- Mark as “decorative” all images that do not convey meaning. If an image is used only for aesthetics or design purposes, you can indicate that it is decorative so screen readers will ignore it. The method of marking an image as decorative varies depending on the platform used. Sometimes, adding a space or leaving the alt text field blank will denote an image as decorative, while other times you may be able to check a box labeled “Mark as decorative.”
Resources and Tools
- CarmenCanvas: Add Alternative Text to Images Using the RCE
- WebAIM alt text Decision Tree
- WebAIM on Alternative Text
- Effective alt text in Microsoft 365
- Image Description Guidelines, DIAGRAM Center (detailed guidance on writing text alternatives for a variety of image types, including drawings, diagrams, charts, maps, and more)
- Instructure on Alt Text in the Canvas Rich Content Editor
Video and Audio
Incorporating multimedia in your course can enrich the learning experience, make your content more engaging, and provide students with multiple means of engagement and representation, two of the key pillars of Universal Design for Learning. As with images, however, it is crucial to ensure every video and audio recording you use in your course is accessible.
Videos must include human-edited captions of all spoken dialogue, as well as descriptions of other audio, such as sound effects or applause. All videos must also have an accompanying audio description track or text transcript that describes both audio and visual elements. For audio-only recordings, you must provide an accompanying text transcript.
Why It Matters
Digital media is increasingly common and an expected part our daily lives, in the classroom and beyond. Video and audio recordings can be highly useful and engaging when you incorporate them thoughtfully into your learning materials. It is imperative, however, to ensure all students have equitable access to and opportunities to engage with the video and audio you include in your course.
- Captions (for video): Captions provide equitable access to learners who cannot hear or process the original audio track in a video. This can include students who are D/deaf, hard of hearing, neurodivergent, or listening to audio in environments that are noisy, crowded, or have a poor internet connection.
- Audio Descriptions (for video): Audio descriptions are narrations that help blind or low vision students, as well as those with cognitive disabilities, understand what is happening in a video. An audio description might provide information about the speakers, setting, scene changes, and onscreen text. It may also describe the moods, gestures, physical expressions, or visual reactions of characters.
- Transcripts (for audio or video): Transcripts are a text version of audio or video content. They offer an alternative method for blind and D/deaf learners to access the digital media you include in your course. Additionally, transcripts are useful for any student who is searching for specific information in a video or audio recording. Rather than having to rewatch or re-listen to the whole recording, the student could use ctrl+F to search the transcript and find the section of interest.
What to Do
- Add or edit video captions for each video in your course. It’s important to manually edit captions to make sure they are synced properly with a speaker’s words. Review spelling and check that all auto-captioned words are accurate.
- In addition to spoken dialogue, captions must include non-speech information conveyed through sound such as music, laughter, and sound effects.
- Every time a new speaker speaks, your captions should identify them by name in parentheses.
- Create transcripts for any audio and video you use.
- Use regular sentence structure and punctuation.
- Describe spoken and unspoken (visual, text, or audio) information that is contextually important for understanding, unless the narration already describes it.
- Include line breaks at the end of a complete thought or section.
- Identify speakers.
- Spell out text presented onscreen, when it is relevant.
- Create audio descriptions. Review videos to make sure the audio track adequately explains what is happening onscreen so that all students can understand the concepts being taught. If it does not, describe the unspoken content in a secondary audio track, or create a separate version of the video with the audio description in the main track. For example, if you include a lecture video in which you are writing formulas on a whiteboard (and you did not read them aloud in the original recording), you must narrate what you have written in an audio description so a student listening to the video can follow along.
Resources and Tools
- Producing Accessible Video, Audio, and Multimedia Content, Digital Accessibility Services (detailed guidance on how to think through the video creation process, including creating captions, transcripts, and audio descriptions)
- Audio Description Resource Guide, Library of Congress
- Integrated Audio Description: At a Glance, Microsoft
The 3Rs Review Strategy
If you've taught for any length of time, you likely have a thick stack of digital materials you use in your courses. This might include webpages, PDFs, Word documents, links to online articles, videos, or audio files. And you may feel daunted by the prospect of sifting through those materials and addressing accessibility concerns.
To best approach and prioritize this work, and to ensure that all students are able to access your course content, it helps to follow the 3Rs Review Strategy: Retire, Replace, Remediate. In this approach, inaccessible materials can be retired (or removed) from your course, replaced with accessible content or learning activities, or remediated to fix the accessibility issues.
Before deciding whether to retire, replace, or remediate content, you will need to review your course materials. During this review, you will consider three primary questions:
- First, are you still using all the material that is present in your Carmen site or other spaces students access for course content?
- Second, how well aligned is your content with your learning outcomes?
- Finally, using the 7 Core Skills Checklist; built-in accessibility checkers within Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat, Canvas and other tools; or website checkers like ANDI or WAVE, what accessibility issues are present in your materials?
Carefully considering these questions can reduce the amount of content you’ll need to address and guide your approach to making content accessible. We recommend making a list of your course materials, the accessibility concerns you uncover, and how you plan to address them.
Download 3Rs Accessibility Review Template.docx and customize it as needed for your content review process.
Retire
Retiring your course materials entails removing unneeded and inaccessible content from spaces where students might access it. An occasional review or cleanup of course materials is always a good practice so that you and students aren’t distracted or confused by inapplicable content; preparing your course for the new digital accessibility law presents an opportunity to conduct this work.
As you review each material in your course, consider the following questions.
Are you still using the course material?
If you reuse a Carmen site from one semester to the next, copying content from one course to the other, it's possible you have assignments, pages, or files you no longer use. If these materials are not restricted from student access, they would be subject to the Title II accessibility changes. Your best option is to unpublish or remove them from Carmen or other shared spaces. Doing so will also prevent you from having to check them for accessibility issues.
You can follow these steps to remove or restrict access to course materials in Carmen:
- Unpublish course content that you currently do not use but may want for future reference.
- Delete files, pages, or assignments you are sure you do not want to use in the future.
- Restrict navigation settings so that students don't have access to the Files, Discussions, Assignments, or Quizzes tabs. As long as files, discussions, assignments, and quizzes are published and added to the course Modules tab, students will be able to access them. Restricting student navigation not only prevents students from stumbling upon inaccessible materials, it also streamlines the digital learning space and makes it easier for students to find what they need in your course.
Is the course material aligned with your learning outcomes?
When we select course content and materials we are, ideally, doing so with our learning outcomes in mind. Our course content should help students advance toward those outcomes and should also prepare students for the assignments we ask them to undertake.
However, a quick glance at your stack of digital materials may reveal the inclusion of content added for different reasons. Perhaps you’ve included a video students respond well to and that sparks a lively conversation. Or you might have added a reading that was influential for you when you were a student. While these can be valid reasons to include a certain course material, if it does not ultimately support your learning outcomes, it may actually detract from the skills and knowledge students need to succeed in the course.
We would recommend having your course outcomes handy as you review your course materials and note which outcome(s) the materials address. If you notice a piece of course content that does not relate to a learning outcome, or does so only tangentially, this is likely material you can remove from your course.
Is the course material up to date?
Checking course materials for outdatedness will be more relevant to some disciplines than others, but this may be an opportunity to incorporate newer research or publications. Even a course on Shakespeare can bring in new critical theory, content that emphasizes why the study of Shakespeare is relevant to our modern world, or newer fiction that retells or engages with Shakespeare’s work in revealing ways. Keeping your content relevant and applicable can help students better connect course materials to their lives outside the classroom, and this again helps reduce the amount of material you have to review for accessibility.
Resources for Retiring Content
Replace
Once you've removed outdated, unused, or inapplicable course materials, you can begin reviewing what's left for accessibility issues. Using the 3Rs Accessibility Review Template or a similar table format, note which course materials contain accessibility concerns and what those concerns are. After this review, you'll want to determine whether you should replace inaccessible content with accessible content or remediate the issues you've found. This decision will likely be guided by whether there are accessible alternatives that meet your needs and by the degree of remediation required.
Replacing inaccessible content can occur in one of three ways: you can replace the material with an accessible version of the same content, you can replace the material with accessible substitute content, or you can replace the material with other learning strategies.
Find accessible versions of the same content.
Perhaps your course includes scanned PDFs of journal articles or book chapters. Or perhaps you ask students to watch a captionless version of a well-known documentary on YouTube. It is likely that these sources exist elsewhere in accessible versions that you can incorporate instead. The University Libraries has a vast holding of electronic resources, including eBooks, online journal articles, and streaming media, that meet accessibility requirements.
Use different content as a substitute.
You may find inaccessible content that has no accessible alternative version. Maybe you include a less well-known documentary that is only available on YouTube. Or maybe you have students read a portion of an out-of-print work, and the only extant copy is a PDF you found online ten years ago. If it’s not possible to remediate those issues on your own, you will want to find accessible alternatives. While it can be difficult to let go of valuable course materials, we want to keep in mind that all students, and not just some, should benefit from our course content. There are a few strategies that can make this task easier.
- Let your learning outcomes guide you, selecting course materials that will advance student progress toward those outcomes.
- Consider content that will help students prepare for upcoming assignments, providing them with the knowledge and skills they need to successfully complete their work.
- Search for content on websites or in databases you know are accessible.
- Contact your subject librarian for assistance with locating replacement content for your discipline.
Ultimately, keep in mind that you will want to verify the accessibility of any replacement content you select.
Replace content with other learning strategies.
Course materials like readings, podcasts, or videos are one place students can acquire knowledge, but they certainly aren't the only place. Empowering students to seek out information can increase motivation and engagement at the same time that it addresses accessibility concerns.
As an example, if you typically lecture for an hour each class period, you likely have a large number of slides that would need to be made accessible. To reduce that workload, you might replace some of your lecture content (and thereby decrease your number of slides) with hands-on activities. These might include asking students to search for and explain examples, discuss a course concept as a group and report back to the class, or put class content into action through a problem set, case study analysis, or other application activity.
This type of hands-on learning is generally known as active learning, and it positions students as active participants in their knowledge and skills acquisition. There has been a large amount of research into the benefits and effectiveness of active learning, including increasing engagement and sense of belonging (McDonald et al., 2024), helping students develop a positive attitude toward course material (Metz & Metz, 2022), strengthening retention (Shatto et al., 2017), and helping students develop critical thinking skills (Rossi et al., 2021). Incorporating active learning strategies as replacements for inaccessible course content allows you to take advantage of these benefits. While there are numerous active learning strategies to choose from, we’ve included a few common activities below.
- Think-pair-share: Students discuss a concept, question, or problem in pairs or small groups and then report back to the full class.
- Jigsaw: Students are placed into small groups, and each group researches a different component of an issue. Groups are then rearranged, and students teach their new groups what they learned in their initial groups.
- Top Hat polling: Lectures are interspersed with knowledge-check questions that help you assess student understanding in the moment. This makes lectures more dynamic and allows you to slow down or speed up where necessary.
- Case studies: Students are presented with case studies in class that they review and discuss. Case studies can allow students to apply course concepts to real-world scenarios.
- Role play: Students are placed in pairs or small groups, assigned roles, and asked to act out a situation or discuss a topic from the perspective of their role. Role plays enhance critical thinking and problem-solving skills and enable students to understand topics from varying perspectives.
Resources for Replacing Content
- Textbooks in the Library Collection
- Contact the University Libraries: LIB-a11y@osu.edu
- Active Learning Techniques
Remediate
If you have content that is essential to your learning outcomes and for which there is no easy replacement, you will need to remediate the accessibility concerns. The approach you take will depend on your content's format and the accessibility issues that you found. A good first step is to return to any built-in accessibility checkers or tools (for example, PowerPoint's Accessibility Checker or Adobe Acrobat's Prepare for accessibility function), as they typically contain suggestions for how to address the accessibility issues that they find.
For formats without a built-in accessibility checker, or for issues the checker does not offer advice on, consult the information in this guide or in other trainings and documentation, such as the Resources for Remediating Content highlighted below.
Resources for Remediating Content
Canvas
- Become a Canvas Expert
- Improve Accessibility with the Rich Content Editor
- Using the Canvas Accessibility Checker
Mediasite
Microsoft
PDFs
- Fast Track to Accessibility for PDF Creators
- Producing Accessible PDF Documents
- PAC PDF Accessibility Checker (PCs only)
Video, Audio, and Multimedia content
Visit the Digital Accessibility Services site for additional Trainings and Resources on a range of accessibility topics and tools.
When Students Need Additional Accommodations
We should strive to design course materials so all students can access, interact with, and learn from them. But sometimes, individual students will need further accommodations to participate fully in our courses. Examples of accommodations include interpretation services during in-person classes, notetaking support, and extended time for exams. These services are coordinated for students who are registered with Disability Services in the Office of Student Life (SLDS). Registered students can generate a Course Accessibility Letter via SLDS to request accommodations in your course. When you receive a student's letter is dependent on when the student registers—this could be before the semester, during the first week, or even later in the term.
It is important to remember that many students with disabilities do not register with SLDS. Encourage your students to speak with you if they need support or flexibility to access material, complete assignments, or take part in class activities, and do what you can to accommodate these requests.
If you have questions about a registered student’s accommodations or how to meet specific accommodation requests, Access Specialists at SLDS are available to consult with you. See Points-of-Contact for Faculty/Staff to find drop-in consultation hours and locate specialists by department and service area.
Finding Support
We recommend that you download and save the 7 Core Skills Accessibility Checklist.docx and 3Rs Accessibility Review Template.docx to guide you in your future accessibility reviews. You can also save or bookmark any of the other suggested resources in this article that you find helpful.
If you cannot find the answer to an accessibility question and require further assistance, support contacts are linked below.
- For questions or guidance on implementing digital accessibility in your unit, contact your Digital Accessibility Coordinator.
- For questions on Title II compliance and Ohio State’s Minimum Digital Accessibility Standards, contact the ADA Digital Accessibility Center at accessibility@osu.edu.
- For questions or guidance related to a student’s registered accommodations, contact Disability Services in the Office of Student Life.
- For all other accessibility issues or concerns, contact Digital Accessibility Services at das@osu.edu.
Summary
Building accessible courses is a pedagogical commitment to fostering a supportive and student-friendly learning environment. Digital accessibility works in conjunction with Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and accommodations to create the best opportunities for all students to meaningfully engage, learn, and succeed in our courses.
Whether you are creating new course content or reviewing existing material, it’s important to know and apply the 7 Core Skills of digital accessibility.
- Headings: Provide outline structure for text content by using an application’s built-in headings styles.
- Lists: Organize your content into easy-to-read chunks using numbered or bulleted lists.
- Links: Use clear link text that describes the link’s destination or purpose.
- Tables: Organize data and complex information in simple tables with descriptive row and column headers.
- Color and Contrast: Avoid using color as the only way to communicate meaning or emphasis and ensure all text has sufficient contrast against its background.
- Images and Alt Text: Add alternative text (alt text) that clearly describes the content and purpose of every non-decorative image in your course.
- Video and Audio: Ensure all videos include accurate captions and an accompanying audio description track or text transcript. Provide accurate transcripts for audio-only recordings.
The 3Rs Review Strategy is a helpful approach to evaluating the accessibility of your digital course content. Use the 7 Core Skills in conjunction with accessibility checkers and tools to identify your inaccessible materials and then decide how to address them.
- Retire: Remove unused, outdated, or irrelevant course content.
- Replace: Find accessible versions of the same material, use different content as a substitute, or replace inaccessible content with other learning strategies.
- Remediate: Use the 7 Core Skills and accessibility tools and resources to fix the accessibility issues in the remaining course material.
Explore
Resources
- ADA Digital Accessibility Center at Ohio State
- OTDI Digital Accessibility Services at Ohio State
- Student Life Disability Services at Ohio State
- Association on Higher Education and Disability (website)
- International Association of Accessibility Professionals (website)
- W3C Web Accessibility Initiative
Learning Opportunities
References
McDonald, S., Huntington, B., & Allen, H. (2024). Students Engage with and benefit from active learning when this is appropriately embedded in curriculum design. Open Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 3(2), 56-78. https://doi.org/10.56230/osotl.108
Metz, C., & Metz, M. (2022). The benefits of incorporating active learning into online, asynchronous coursework in dental physiology. Advances in Physiology Education, 46(1), 11-20. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00110.2021.
Rossi, I.V., de Lima, J.D., Sabatke, B., Ferreira Nunes, M.A., Ramirez, G.E., & Ramirez, M.I. (2021). Active learning tools improve the learning outcomes, scientific attitude, and critical thinking in higher education: Experiences in an online course during the COVID-19 pandemic. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, 49(6), 888-903. https://doi.org/10.1002/bmb.21574
Shatto, B., L’Ecuyer, K., & Quinn, J. (2017). Retention of Content Utilizing a Flipped Classroom Approach. Nursing Education Perspectives, 38(4), 206-208. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.NEP.0000000000000138
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative. (2024, July 15). Accessibility principles. https://www.w3.org/WAI/fundamentals/accessibility-principles/
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative. (2025, May 6). WCAG 2 overview. https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/