Digital Accessibility Resources
Accessible Course Design in Canvas
Accessible Course Design in Canvas (PDF download) is a two-page checklist that provides a high-level overview of what goes into making an accessible course in Canvas. Reference it as you’re creating or revising your Canvas course site.
University Resources
- Northwestern’s Office of Equity Accessibility Hub: A centralized resource for all things accessibility at Northwestern, this site contains policy information, resources, training opportunities, and more. If you have a question about accessibility at NU, this is an excellent first stop.
- Digital Accessibility Liaisons: The Digital Accessibility Liaisons are a group of Northwestern staff who are dedicated to supporting digital accessibility in their units. They are available to support faculty and staff who have accessibility questions or concerns.
- AccessibleNU: Northwestern’s disability resource center. Their primary mission is to support disabled students, but they provide training opportunities and other resources for faculty as well. This is also where faculty can log in to see any accommodation letters for their current courses.
- Digital Learning Canvas Workshops: NUIT offers numerous workshops on Canvas, including several on accessibility. You can check the schedule to see when the next workshops will be offered, or request a consultation for one-on-one support.
General Resources
- WebAIM: An excellent, generalist resource for web accessibility. It takes fairly complex technical topics and explains them in straightforward terms.
- World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI): The organization behind the Web Accessibility Content Guidelines (WCAG), which are a globally respected standard for web accessibility. This page is aimed at a technical audience and as such, the information is fairly detailed. But if you want to go straight to the source on web accessibility, this is where you should look.
- Americans with Disabilities Act: The U.S. government site on the ADA, the leading civil rights law for disabled Americans. Contains numerous resources on understanding the rights provided by the ADA.
- llinois Information Technology Accessibility Act: An Illinois law that governs the accessibility standards of technology, including digital content, developed and used by the Illinois state government.