Accessibility in Canvas

Canvas is often the primary way students access course content, complete learning activities, and navigate a course. How you design and organize your Canvas course can either create unintended barriers or foster a more accessible and inclusive learning environment.

Accessible course design reduces barriers and provides students with flexible ways to access information, engage with learning activities, and demonstrate their understanding. Canvas includes several built-in tools—including Canvas Studio, the Accessibility Checker, Immersive Reader, SensusAccess, and the Approved Student Accommodations Dashboard—that can help instructors create more accessible courses while supporting a wide range of learning and accessibility needs.

Accessibility supports learning for everyone

Accessibility helps ensure that students can access, engage with, and learn from course materials in ways that work for them. While accessibility features are essential for some students, they can also improve the learning experience for everyone. These practices align with Universal Design for Learning 3.0 (UDL), a learner-centred framework that encourages instructors to provide multiple means of engagement, representation, action and expression.

Examples:

  • Captioned videos support students who are deaf or hard of hearing while giving all students another way to access and review course content.
  • The Accessibility Checker helps identify accessibility issues in Canvas content.
  • SensusAccess and Immersive Reader allow students with vision loss to access text content via audio through their screen reader or text-to-speech software.

Strategies

The following tools can help you reduce barriers, improve accessibility, and provide students with greater flexibility in how they access course materials, engage with learning, and demonstrate their understanding.

Canvas Studio: Accessible and interactive video

Video can be a powerful way to explain concepts, demonstrate processes, provide feedback, and engage students. Canvas Studio includes built-in features that support accessible, inclusive course design by giving students multiple ways to access course content, engage with learning, and demonstrate their understanding.

Canvas Studio Logo

Canvas Studio can help you:

  • Provide captioned videos by automatically generating captions that can be reviewed and edited for accuracy.
  • Offer downloadable transcripts so students can read, review, search, or listen to video content in the way that best supports their learning.
  • Embed annotations, reflective prompts, questions, and links directly within videos to encourage active learning and guide students’ attention to key concepts.
  • Create interactive video quizzes by embedding formative or graded quiz questions directly into videos to check understanding as students watch.
  • Support flexible demonstrations of learning by allowing students to submit videos recorded with a webcam, a screen recording, or a mobile device, or by uploading media.
  • Provide targeted, time-specific feedback using timestamped comments in SpeedGrader so students can connect feedback to specific moments in their work.
Note: Comments students make under Studio videos are course-specific and do not carry forward when a new course shell is created.

Learn more:
Canvas Studio Guide

Accessibility Checker

Creating accessible Canvas content begins with clear structure, readable formatting, and compatibility with assistive technologies. The Accessibility Checker, built into the Canvas Rich Content Editor, helps you identify and resolve common accessibility issues as you create course content, reducing barriers before materials are published.

Canvas Accessibility Checker Icon

The Accessibility Checker can help you:

  • Identify missing or inadequate alternative text for images.
  • Detect insufficient colour contrast that may reduce readability.
  • Check heading structure to ensure content is organized logically.
  • Review tables and lists for missing headers or captions or for incorrect formatting.
  • Resolve issues during editing with built-in guidance in the Rich Content Editor.

Many issues can be corrected directly in the tool, making it a practical way to improve accessibility as you build your course content.

Learn more:
How do I use the Accessibility Checker
In the Rich Content Editor?

SensusAccess: Alternative file formats

Providing course materials in alternative formats helps ensure more students can access and engage with course content. SensusAccess is an accessibility file conversion tool available within Canvas that allows instructors and students to convert course materials into formats that best support a wide range of learning and accessibility needs.

Sensus Access Icon

SensusAccess can be used to:

  • Create audio versions of course documents (MP3).
  • Generate eBook versions of course materials for flexible reading on a variety of devices.
  • Create Braille-ready files for students who use refreshable Braille displays or embossers.
  • Improve readability by adjusting text size and enhancing text accessibility.
  • Convert scanned or image-based documents into searchable text using Optical Character Recognition (OCR).

Note: Text-to-speech software and screen readers work best with text-accessible documents (files that can be selected, copied, or read by assistive technologies). If a document contains image-based text, SensusAccess can use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to convert it into searchable, machine-readable text. Because OCR accuracy depends on the quality of the original document, instructors should provide text-accessible files whenever possible.

Suggested Syllabus Statement

Accessing alternative formats in Canvas: As a student, you can use SensusAccess, an accessibility file conversion tool in Canvas, to convert course materials into alternative formats, including audio (mp3), eBook, and Braille. SensusAccess can also improve readability and convert image-based documents into searchable text that is compatible with most screen readers and text-to-speech software.

To use SensusAccess, look for the SensusAccess icon (a capital “S” in a green circle) next to content in Canvas.

Learn more:
Sensus Access File Converter

Immersive Reader: Flexible reading support

Canvas includes built-in reading supports that give students greater control over how they engage with written course materials. The Immersive Reader allows students to customize text display and how they interact with course material and use text-to-speech features that support a variety of learning preferences and accessibility needs.

Immersive Reader button in Canvas

Students can use the Immersive Reader to:

  • Listen to text using text-to-speech.
  • Translate content into multiple languages.
  • Adjust text size and spacing to improve readability.
  • Customize colour contrast and background settings to support individual reading preferences.
  • Reduce visual distractions using line focus while reading.

Suggested Syllabus Statement

Reading support tools in Canvas: The Immersive Reader is a tool that lets you customize how you engage with course content. Features include converting text to speech in multiple languages, adapting text to adjust size, spacing, and colour contrast, and supporting line-focused reading.

To learn how to use this tool, please refer to the official student guide: "How do I use the Microsoft Immersive Reader in a course as a student?"

Learn more:
How do I use the Microsoft Immersive Reader
in a course as an instructor?

Approved Student Accommodations Dashboard

The Approved Student Accommodations Dashboard helps instructional staff efficiently access information on approved academic accommodations for students enrolled in their Canvas courses. Developed in partnership with the Academic Success Centre, the dashboard provides a centralized location for accommodation information needed to support assessment planning and implementation.

The dashboard allows you to:

  • View students who have registered for accommodated exams.
  • Review approved exam accommodations associated with course assessments.

Course-level accommodations will be added in a future update.

Confidentiality reminder: Accommodation dashboard information is confidential and is intended for the sole use of instructional staff who require the information in order to facilitate students’ accommodations and should not be distributed in any form. Note that students will not see the dashboard in your Canvas course.

Learn more:
Adding the Approved Student Accommodations
Dashboard to a Course

Putting it into action

Improving accessibility is an ongoing process. Small, intentional changes—such as adding captions, checking page accessibility, or providing alternative formats—can reduce barriers, improve usability, and create a more inclusive learning experience for all students. As you review your Canvas course, consider the following questions:

  • Which course materials would benefit most from an accessibility review ?
  • Have I provided captions, transcripts, or alternative formats where appropriate?
  • Have I shown students how to use the accessibility tools available in Canvas?
  • Are my course documents compatible with assistive technologies?
  • Where could I provide students with more flexibility in how they access course content?

Learn more: Additional resources

CAST. (2024). Universal Design for Learning guidelines 3.0.
Instructure. Canvas Course Accessibility Checklist
Instructure. APAC Webinar - Accessibility in Canvas [video]
Instructure. Accessibility. Canvas Community.
University of Alberta, Information Services and Technology. Accessibility Considerations in Canvas (for Instructors)