You may have heard about the Title II changes that are slated to take effect in April 2026. These changes require faculty to ensure digital course materials in Canvas classes meet a higher threshold of accessibility for content like images, video and documents.
If making your classes accessible has not been a focus in the past, it may seem like a lot of extra work is headed your way. But planning may be the key to making this digital accessibility work seem less overwhelming and stressful.
"Having a plan is critical," says Michael Mace, manager of the Assistive Technology and Accessibility Centers (ATAC) at Indiana University and the co-chair for the Big Ten Academic Alliance IT Accessibility Group.
Below is ATAC's advice for departments and individual faculty members interested in planning their work.
Planning by departments
1) Tackle classes with highest enrollment first.
Mace says that departments can get ahead by prioritizing courses with the most impact. He suggests that departments start by looking at the accessibility of the four to five classes that have the highest enrollments and tackling those first.
Don't let the sheer volume of work prevent you from taking the first steps. Tackle high enrollment courses and work down from there. If you do not have the resources to get the work done, bring that up to your department or school leadership, so that they can assist with developing a plan.
2) Work on classes currently being taught or classes that will be taught in the future.
Destin Hubble, an accessibility analyst at the ATAC, said that faculty do not need to worry about fixing issues in classes that they have previously taught; the new requirements are not asking faculty to remediate archived Canvas content. However, if existing class material is imported into an upcoming course, instructors will need to make sure that reused content is accessible when it becomes part of the new class in Canvas.
3) Support faculty who may need extra help.
Mace said that while instructors are responsible for the accessibility of their classes, schools and departments can play a critical role in helping them with this work—leadership may want to consider providing added support and training to help individual faculty members tackle these obligations.
Planning by individual faculty members
How can faculty efficiently tackle digital accessibility issues in their classes?
1) Run TidyUp.
Mace advises that faculty start by downloading and saving a copy of their course content outside of Canvas. After this, he suggests that they should run TidyUp on the course in question. TidyUp will scan a Canvas class, identify files and folders that are not used in the course, and then allow you to delete them.
Why do this? Many classes that have been taught over and over have items lurking in their Canvas Files area that faculty no longer use—things like old syllabi, PDFs, or slide decks from several terms ago.
Since the Ally accessibility checker scans all parts of the class, it not only looks over items that are published and visible to students, but also checks unpublished files. By getting rid of unused items, you will dramatically cut down on the number of files to remediate in the class.
2) Link to journal articles from IU library resources rather than using uploaded versions.
PDFs can have many accessibility issues that are time-consuming to remediate. Mace encourages faculty to consider linking to journal articles from IU library databases instead. IU librarians can help you locate electronic versions and link them to your Canvas class.
3) Run Anthology Ally.
Next, look over the Ally Course Accessibility Report for your class. Don't worry too much about your score; instead focus on the dial ranging from red (with a low gauge to indicate not very accessible) to dark green (with a high gauge to indicate highly accessible).
Ally also displays these dials on Canvas pages, both when you click the edit button and for documents linked to a Canvas page. When you select a dial, Ally will identify the accessibility issues and walk you through how to fix those issues. (Note: Ally indicators are only visible to instructors; students cannot see them.)
4) Focus on "content easiest to fix," then go page by page through the course.
Hubble advises faculty to first tackle items that the report labels as "content with easiest issues to fix." Next, he suggests prioritizing any content that they might use early in the course—and then finally work through their course, page by page, fixing anything that Ally uncovers. Click on dials that are red, orange, or light green and follow the instructions from Ally to fix the problems they list. The dials will update as you fix issues.
This work of making digital course materials accessible will help faculty meet the Title II requirements. The accessibility-conscious mindset that they cultivate along the way, though, will have a much longer-lasting impact.
