Fundamentals of Course Accessibility

Whether you are creating a course from scratch or working on an existing course, the guidelines and tutorials provided here will get your course accessibility score in the green!

Getting to Green

For each resource type, we provide information about the basic benchmarks for accessibility. As you work, keep these general best practices in mind:

• Make all images and videos accessible by providing alt-text and captions.
• Make all documents screen-reader friendly. 
• Use sufficient font size and color contrast.  
• Ensure that color and/or font size are not the only means of conveying the importance or order of information on a page.
• When using hyperlinks, make the link text meaningful. "Links should convey clear and accurate information about the destination. For example, avoid using link texts such as "Click here," "See this page," "Go here," or "Learn more." Instead include the full title of the destination page." - quoted from Microsoft's web page, Make your Word documents accessible to people with disabilities.

Making Fixes

For each topic, we tell you the easiest way to fix the major accessibility issues in your course. For some resources, getting a 100% accessibility score will never happen - and that's ok!  An item doesn't have to score 100% in order to be accessible to students. The goal is to make everything as accessible as we can - so get that score in the green.  

Use the menu to select an area of accessibility you'd like to address.