Happy Holidays! We here at OTL hope you’ve enjoyed the holiday season so far and hope you are able to wrap up your end of year with a nice bow before we break for the new year! As always this year has brought a lot of changes and challenges and we know there are more to come in 2026. To help you prepare, we’ve prepared a recap of some of the more recent changes as well as some to come.
Accessibility
The big news this year was the announcement of the new online accessibility requirements. OTL has been working on preparing tools, training, standards, and other resources to support faculty as we work towards compliance. With the April 2026 deadline approaching OTL will be increasing our efforts to identify and address accessibility issues in MTECH’s Canvas materials. We will do everything we can to coordinate these efforts with each program.
In order to fully address the accessibility requirements and support MTECH faculty as they adjust as well, OTL will temporarily request that any non-essential curriculum development be paused. We will continue to provide regular support and other services, but we want to make sure everyone has the time needed to make the necessary accessibility adjustments.
Single Sign On
In coordination with MTECH’s IT department, Johnathan Vargas recently enabled single sign on (SSO) for Canvas. This means that for any Canvas user, faculty or student, if you are signed into your MTECH Gmail account, you will automatically be logged in when you go to Canvas. This helps reduce the number of issues with forgotten passwords. For anyone signing in on a device without their MTECH Gmail account, you can use an alternative login page (https://mtec.instructure.com/login/canvas).
Faculty Development
While much of OTL’s focus during the next few months will be dedicated to accessibility, Brent Gregson will continue to offer faculty professional development opportunities.
Of particular interest to all faculty members is the first webinar that will review and expand on our accessibility requirements. We will need everyone to work on accessibility in order to reach full compliance. If you know you will not be able to attend please reach out to a member of OTL to learn more about what you can do.
Canvas Speed Grader
Canvas recently announced an update to the Speed Grader. This update will be available for early adoption in January for any faculty that want to test it out, but will likely not be fully implemented until July 2026. The functionality will remain mostly the same, but there will be some visual differences with the updated user interface. If you want to learn more about it you can review the Canvas documentation on using the updated Speed Grader.
Upcoming Changes to UDOIT
While you may not have had a chance to work with UDOIT yet, we recently learned that the user interface will be getting an update. This should not impact the main functionality, but will move a few things around. OTL will provide additional updates and training once the update is available.