Learn about Accessibility

Helpful Resources

• Fundamentals of Digital Accessibility
  Introduces the importance of accessibility, outlines its core principles, and highlights best practices across key topics. Included guides provide practical, step-by-step instructions to help content creators apply key accessibility concepts to their work.

• Accessibility Practices for Teaching with Technologies
  JMU Libraries provides accessibility practices that are easy to apply.

• Captioning and Transcribing Video & Audio Recordings
  JMU Libraries highlights tools and strategies for transcribing video and audio recordings and creating subtitle files for captioned videos.

• Accessibility Vendors for Departmental Use 
  JMU has been approved to work with several vendors that can assist with remediating materials for accessibility. Consult with your leadership to determine the availability of funding for outsourcing.

General Workflow Suggestions

1. Make it a top priority to learn the basics of accessibility so new content you create is “born accessible.” Most of the basics require only minor changes in our workflows. Start with the formats you use the most often in your classes: Word, PowerPoint presentations, PDFs, Canvas sites, et al.
2. For EXISTING Canvas content, start by clearing out anything you are no longer using, remove it & save it locally to your personal (non-Canvas) files.
3. Prioritize remediation of your remaining materials by considering these factors:
   • Materials used in larger classes by large numbers of students.
   • Materials that students MUST access to meet learning objectives & complete assignments/evaluations. (This is not an argument to no longer use content that may be secondary, just a way to prioritize your time.)
   • Materials that cause serious accessibility barriers, for example (see below for guidance on how to fix!):
     • scanned/image-based PDFs
     • uncaptioned videos created by yourself or third parties
     • images without alt-text
4. Review Canvas course content for accessibility using  Anthology Ally. Fix any content that you can using Ally. Ally does not include built-in tools for editing scanned PDFs for accuracy or for captioning videos. Refer to JMU’s How To Guides:
   • How to Caption at JMU
   • Creating Accessible PDFs from Scanned Documents

Ambassador Program

The Digital Accessibility Ambassador Program (DAAP) includes representatives from each JMU college who serve as digital accessibility advocates and ambassadors for their faculty peers. Contact the ambassador for your college and learn more about DAAP’s role.

Tools

• Anthology Ally
  Anthology Ally is a digital accessibility checker tool that JMU Libraries has integrated into Canvas at JMU. Also known as Ally, it helps you identify course content needing adjustments and outlines how to make that content more accessible.  Scan Canvas course materials and generate a comprehensive accessibility report for instructors with Ally.

• SensusAccess Document Converter
  Convert written documents into MP3 files, DAISY audiobooks, Mobile-friendly ebooks (Mobi, EPUB and EPUB3 formats), or Digital Braille for embossed printing or reading on a Braille display. 

• Free Assistive Technologies
  A collection of free assistive technologies provided by the Office of Disability Services. This includes built-in accessibility tools for commonly used devices and software, as well as downloadable programs and browser extensions.