New Accessibility Standards
As most of you should be aware by now, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title II has adopted new standards for web and mobile accessibility. We are required to update all MTECH online content, including Canvas course materials, to meet the new standard. This will be an ongoing endeavor as we all become more familiar with accessibility and how to apply related principles to curriculum development.
While there is a lot to be done to bring all your course materials up to the necessary standard, there are a few things you can start with that will help make the process easier. The OTL website has a summary of everything that you can do to help update your course. Here will take a more in depth look at the FIRST STEP. Once we get everyone started we’ll send out more information.
First Step – Clean Up
For many MTECH programs your courses are constantly evolving and updating to meet the needs of your students. In many cases this results in your course having a number of unused resources and old files that need to be cleared out. While this may seem like a daunting task, AVP Becky Fenton has put together this helpful guide to get started with TidyUP.
TidyUP is a content cleanup tool for Canvas courses that provides a quick way to view all of the content in your course and clean out anything that is no longer needed. Identifying and deleting extra files, folders, pages, or assignments that are no longer needed makes your course easier to manage and more usable for everyone!
Ongoing ADA Training/Q&A Sessions
In Person (Lehi A 219)
| Virtual (Google Meet)
|
How To
- Open your Blueprint/Master course.
- On the left hand side, click on TidyUP.
- Click on the green “Scan Course” button.
- NOTE: It’s important to understand that any files/images used in question banks will show up as “Not Used”. Reach out to OTL if you need help understanding how Question Banks work.
- The results will show three tabs labeled, “Files”, “Folders”, and “Canvas Content”. Watch THIS VIDEO to learn how to use TidyUP for Files and Folders.
- Next you will want to clear up the Canvas Content tab. Watch THIS VIDEO to learn how to use TidyUP for Canvas Content.
Best Practices
- Focus on your Master/Blueprint courses.
- Organize your course files with a clear naming convention, in clearly named folders, i.e.,
- add “QB” to all files used in question bank questions, or
- store images in a “Question Bank” folder, or
- align file/folder names with module names.
- Download backup copies of your course files before deleting any files.
- Remember, deleted files can not be recovered.
- Find and remove duplicates of files.
- Run TidyUP and remove unused course elements before working in UDOIT.
Next Steps
The Office of Teaching and Learning is committed to supporting MTECH faculty as they strive to improve the student learning experience. Implementing accessibility and utilizing the new tools are important steps towards that goal, and need to be included in all ongoing development projects. Learning to make use of TidyUP is an important first step.
Next, once you’ve taken time to review your course materials and are confident you’ve trimmed any unused content, you can start working with UDOIT to improve accessibility. UDOIT is a course level accessibility checker that scans online course content, identifies possible accessibility issues, and guides course designers and instructors in repairing those issues using inclusive design principles – all from within the UDOIT interface.
If you are ready to move on to this phase, please reach out to OTL with any questions and we will help get you started. And watch for additional information and training materials on the OTL website.