Jess_Jones
Instructure
Instructure

Accessibility is a necessary practice for ensuring our classrooms, courses and learning environments are inclusive to all learners.  As our educational offerings become increasingly diverse, and the concept of a ‘traditional student’ is broadened, the importance of providing accessible learning experiences cannot be overstated.  Within Learning Services here in EMEA we are increasingly exploring how we can drive and support accessibility with the varied organisations we collaborate with.  As a result of this work, this blog considers three strategies for championing accessibility across your organisation.  These strategies can be applied across multiple work streams and various stages of the Canvas journey, whether you are leading a Canvas roll out, refining training strategies as a learning technologist, or assessing templates as a course designer.  So let’s dig in! 

 

#1. Embed Early and Continuously 

Accessibility is a shared responsibility for all teachers, educators, and content creators.  Whenever there are conversations, communications, or decisions made around teaching and learning, accessibility must be considered and prioritised.  When we take this approach, we minimise the risk that accessibility becomes an afterthought, the responsibility of a specialised team, or considered a skill for advanced users.  Instead, accessibility should be  a shared responsibility that is addressed early and then continuously with all stakeholders in our learning communities.

Raise Awareness 

Convey why accessibility is important across your organisation.  There are many reasons why accessibility is important, and while unpacking this is not the focus of this blog, there are some key considerations that we should be aware of:

  • To be inclusive of all learners
  • To provide a necessary foundation for learning to occur
  • To ensure access across devices (including mobile) and by other technologies (including assistive technologies)
  • To future proof content
  • To align with core principles embedded within many learning theories 

The ‘why’ for your organisation may also be informed by contextual considerations, organisational policy, or regional laws.  With this in mind, take the time to ensure teachers and course designers are aware of why accessibility is important in your organisation.  Aligning on the ‘why’ often allows us to be more receptive to the ‘how’, and cultivates adoption of accessible practices moving forward.

Demonstrate Assistive Technology

Utilise tools like Microsoft Immersive Reader to showcase how users with assistive technology interact with Canvas. Demonstrate functionalities like text-to-speech, colour overlays, adjustable text size, and automated translations. This allows colleagues to experience first hand how learners may be experiencing their Canvas Courses, and raises awareness of different technologies that others in their learning communities may be using.  

 

#2. Invest in the RCE

The Rich Content Editor (RCE) in Canvas is a powerful tool and is used across almost all aspects of course content creation, including Pages, Assignments, Discussions and Quizzes.  While the toolbar may look familiar and similar to toolbars used in other software (for example when creating documents or emails), effective use of the Rich Content Editor for digital accessibility requires specific considerations. Unlike printed documents, web pages need to be responsive to various screen sizes, devices, and assistive technologies.  We therefore need to invest time during training sessions on how to use the RCE effectively from an accessibility perspective.  Fortunately, the ask of our colleagues is often a minor change to workflow rather than an increase in workload (for example using Headings instead of adjusting text sizes).  Aligning on the ‘why’ sets the ground here for adopting these changes: when we understand why they are important and the positive outcome being achieved, we are more likely to change our practice.  Additionally, by supporting colleagues to understand how to build accessible web content, we are investing in the development of their digital skills and expanding digital expertise across our organisation.

The following resources are great starting points for learning more about how to create accessible content with the RCE: 

Additionally, the Canvas Accessibility Checker is a great tool to include in Canvas training, as it provides teachers with a tool to review if the content they are creating has been built in a way that can be reliably interpreted by assistive technologies. 

 

#3. Recognise the Value of Consistency 

Canvas is a flexible platform that can lend itself to many different educational contexts - it’s one of the things that many of us love about Canvas!  However when considering the individual learner experience, a consistent navigation and layout both within and between courses is key.  Consistency allows learners to easily find content, understand expectations, and focus their cognitive load on learning the subject at hand rather than how to navigate through the content.  Consistency doesn’t equate to uniformity however, and there are ways to still achieve consistency while also mindfully adapting based on subject, activity, teacher preference, or class context.   

When it comes to defining consistency, four key areas are often considered: homepage design, module structure, page layout and navigation menu items. There are also multiple ways to achieve consistency, from utilising tools in Canvas like Course Templates or Canvas Commons, to defining course design checklists like Instructure’s Canvas Course Evaluation Checklist.  

The conversation of balancing consistency for students with autonomy for teachers and courses is nuanced and very contextual to the organisation, course, and members of that learning community.   Therefore, it is important to engage colleagues in the conversation early on, and clearly explain the ‘why’ behind any decisions that are made.  

 

Conclusion

Accessibility is a rightfully important topic for all learning communities, and hopefully these three strategies provide insight into how to embed accessibility into your Canvas adoption, training, and course design.  Here in Learning Services we are always learning from across our community, and so please do join in the conversation below.  How are you approaching accessibility in your organisation? Are there any strategies or considerations you would like to share? I look forward to continuing the conversation with you.

This blog was written following a presentation at the Nordics-Benelux CanvasConnect event.

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NoahBoswell1
Community Contributor

For those of us that have been using Canvas LMS for a while, we can all agree that Canvas LMS has countless, and I mean countless amounts of resources for teachers, students and admins. They even have resources for Parents and Guardians!

 

However, one of the most powerful tools that Canvas LMS has to offer would definitely be Canvas Studio.

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Andrew_Mouse
Community Member

Book 1: Ego is The Enemy by Ryan Holiday

Synopsis: Ego is The Enemy is a fascinating book that takes a deeper look at historical events, popular pieces of literature, and common philosophical questions in order to answer the question as to why certain conflicts were lost by a specific side. After careful analysis, author Ryan Holiday found that a common factor among various losses in history was the losing side having too big of an ego.

Benefits: This book acts as cautionary tale for young readers; encouraging them to be more mindful of their actions and confidence as it can be one's undoing. That being said, watching one's ego helps to teach an overall aura of respect among individuals despite what conflicts may come. Lastly, this book does an amazing job at leaving the reader wanting more and having to think deeply on the subject at-hand, which continues to promote overall successful readers.

Sources: Holiday, R. (2016). Ego is the enemy. Profile Books.

Find more information on GoodReads.com: Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday | Goodreads

 

Book 2: Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know by Malcolm Gladwell

Synopsis: Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know by Malcolm Gladwell is a though provoking piece of literature that explores the common theme of "don't judge a book by its cover." It accomplishes this by going to the extremes by discussing individuals such as Fidel Castro and Adolf Hitler and how the people around them couldn't have known exactly who these people were or what they would do without getting to know them very well first.

Benefits: This book supports personal growth for young readers by teaching that classic theme that we have heard time and time again throughout our lives. It encourages students to drop their pre-conceived notions about individuals and instead get to truly know the person before any "judgement" can be passed. Similarly, it promotes an idea of respecting each other's differences solely because one shouldn't judge a book by its cover. This promotes acceptance of individuals despite their physical characteristics (race, gender, clothing, etc.). Lastly, this book promotes a sense of being a successful reader by challenging students to think about their actions and truly understand the idea that no one knows another person's personality let alone their entire life just by passing by them on the street or having a single conversation.

Sources: Gladwell, M. (2019). Talking to strangers: What we should know about the people we don’t know. Little, Brown and Company.

Find more information on GoodReads.com: Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell | Goodr...

 

Book 3: The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown

Synopsis: This book explores author Dr. Brene Brown in her journey of life and self-discovery while encouraging others to do the same. Dr. Brown is motivated by the belief that one's own story matters because they as a person matter and addresses this sentiment regularly within her novel. Acting as a guide of sorts on how to live life to its fullest and truest to oneself, Dr. Brown believes that one's authenticity to others starts with being authentic to themselves and claims that "worthiness is an absolute act of resistance."

Benefits: This book supports the personal growth of individual readers by encouraging authenticity while addressing the fears and concerns that might come with being true to oneself. Dr. Brown utilizes these fears and stigmas to better guide students to respect each other and respect yourself because everyone matters. Lastly, this book promotes a sense of being a successful reader to students because they are encouraged to take these lessons and sentiments that Dr. Brown discusses and utilize them within their daily lives. Dr. Brown encourages students to be their truest and most authentic selves, which by proxy encourages students to find successful strategies for difficulties in life whether they be personal or school/academic-related.

Sources: Brown, B. (2022). The gifts of imperfection. Hazelden Publishing.

Find more information on GoodReads.com: The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown | Goodreads

 

 

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Gabbyrenee
Community Member

Teaching Social Emotional Learning is a vital part of primary grades because they are learning how to be nice humans and work with others! These 3 books are some of my top must-haves for any classroom library

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KaitlinCoventry
Community Member

Do you ever get stumped when students have challenging behaviors? Maybe they're struggling with social skills or managing their emotions. Whatever the question or behavior, these three SEL books are sure to help!

SEL stands for "Social, Emotional Learning." SEL books are great resources to teach tough topics around mental health.

These books are geared towards early to mid elementary ages (ages 5-9).

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AlexaSkrtic
Community Member

The Skin I’m In by Sharon G. Flake

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This novel is about a girl named Maleeka and her new teacher Miss Saunders. Maleeka and Miss Saunders are a little bit different from the others. Maleeka has a dark black skin tone which she is bullied for. Miss Saunders has a large white patch of skin located on her face, which Maleeka fears her new teacher being made fun of for. To a surprise, Miss Saunders is very confident with her difference which really stands out to Maleeka! We are left to wonder will Maleeka gain the same confidence as her teacher?

 

This novel will extensively support young readers' personal growth. Students will grow in being able to understand wrongs from rights. They will be able to find ways to relate the differences they have to the characters found here in our story. They will also be able to identify a time that they may have judged someone based on a physical difference they noticed about them as well. Students will be able to understand and respect that differences are what make us so unique and special. The differences we hold are truly what make us who we are! The students will be able to be successful readers through the process of comparing and contrasting their own experiences with the experience that is taking place in the story. The overall purpose of this novel is to promote an understanding that differences are beautiful and that who you are is perfect! 


The Skin Im In Link 

 

 

Born Behind Bars by Padma Venkatraman

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This novel is written about a character named Kabir. Kabir is from India and has been living a very interesting life since the day he was born. Kabir was born in jail while his mother was booked into jail for serving time for a crime that was not committed by her. Kabir does not know much about the outside world. Kabir does not know his father, family, or what the outside world is like. The only thing that he does know is his cellmates, his mother, and that he loves being in the classroom because he feels close to actually being in the outside world. As he continues to age, he eventually gets kicked out of jail and is given to an imposter who tries to sell him. Kabir did not expect life outside of jail to be like this. As Kabir escapes he needs to find a way to prove he deserves to live happily ever after with a successful life. Will his determination pull him through this rough patch in his life and help him create a successful life for himself and his future family?

 

This story is a very heavy story that continues to go through ups and downs with lots of struggle along the way. Students who read this story will observe how Kabir was born into a hard life and has to find a way to make a successful life for himself after being given the chance to live a free life. Young readers will have personal growth through this reading by taking a moment to put themselves in Kabir’s shoes. This reading will help students understand that everyone has a different story and a journey. Some people are more blessed than others, so it is important to make sure that we use kind words and actions as we do not know what someone is going through or what they have been through. This story promotes students being successful readers through being able to read a difficult text that tests courage, emotions, and strength. Students will be successful readers through their ability to put themselves in Kabir’s shoes and realize that every person has their own story.

 

Born Behind Bars Link 

 

Healer of the Water Monster by Brian Young

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This Novel is written about a boy named Nathan and his grandma Nali who are both American Indian. This novel takes place in the summertime as Nathan is going to visit Nali at her mobile summer home on the reservation of Navajo. Nathan is not very excited to go visit his grandma because he knows during this time he will be very bored as there is no electricity or service where she lives, but something very exciting happens! Nathan finds a Holy Being from the Navajo Creation Story which is a Water Monster. Throughout the rest of this story, Nathan has to build the courage to save his new friend while also helping his Uncle.

 

This novel grows an understanding of students of another culture and a belief they have. Students can be more open-minded about another culture along with identifying and thinking of possible solutions to help Nathan with his problem. Respect can be given to Nathan for his courage in helping his friend and also being there for his Uncle. Students will grow as readers as they are able to identify how Nathan is courageous along with identifying a time when they had to show courage in a personal situation of their own. On top of being able to grow as a reader, students will grow in their respect of another culture they are or aren't familiar with and even take the time to compare this culture to their very own. 

 

Healer of Water Monster 

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KimberlyPorterx
Community Member

Three amazing SEL books for children ages 4-8 to help develop their social and emotional skills! 

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LamontRobinson
Community Member

In a world full of acronyms and a constant change in ways to educate, parents, teachers and caregivers must be fully equipped with what's new, what's useful and what's effective. Here you will learn about Mr. Lamont's top three SEL books for students of various developmental ages! 

 

 

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NateKosnich
Community Member

Content Warning: This article will list books that contain racism, violence, self-harm, eating disorders, and depression. 

 

1.) The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas

What list of YA SEL books would be complete without The Hate You Give? Written in 2017, this novel follows Starr Carter—a 16-year-old black girl from a poor neighborhood attending a rich, white private school. Starr’s world, already surrounded by violence, comes to a screeching halt when Khalil, a young black teenager, is shot and killed in front of her by a white police officer. As the only witness to the murder, Starr is forced to speak out against the media’s unfavorable depiction of Khalil as a violent thug, putting her right in the middle of her two very separate worlds. The Hate You Give pulls no punches in terms of racism, poverty, identity, and justice.

How does this book promote social-emotional learning in teenagers? Well, for one, The Hate You Give is a harrowing, yet all too realistic depiction of the inequalities that people of color face on a daily basis. Students who are from a place of privilege should develop empathy for the underprivileged after reading this novel—and understand the consequences that underprivileged people face just for being born in a certain place. Reading The Hate You Give will inspire advocates for change. Teenagers will enjoy dissecting the themes of the novel themselves, as the book offers a mature and realistic depiction of being a teenager.

Thomas, A. (2017). The Hate You Give. HarperCollins.

Buy it here!

 

2.) Wintergirls by Laurie-Halse Anderson

At this point, we’ve come to understand that Laurie Halse Anderson will bring some hard-hitting YA fiction to the table; Wintergirls is no exception. Written in 2009, this book follows 18-year-old Lia, a Wintergirl—not quite dead, yet not fully alive, frozen by anorexia and self-harm. After hearing the news that her ex-best friend, Cassie, has died due to complications with bulimia, Lia spirals even harder, further separating herself from her family, further pulling her away from the living world. Haunted by the death of Cassie, Lia is running out of options in this book that details grief, relationships with friends and families, and guilt.

Wintergirls really touches on 5 areas of SEL: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. Young readers might relate to Lia’s story, and if they don’t, then they will empathize with her struggle. Eating disorders have a besmirched stigma attached to them, but so many young people develop some sort of eating disorder at some point in their life. This book is a stark reminder that humans are not defined by their mental health struggles; we are all intricate, complex beings with emotions and feelings. Wintergirls explicitly deals with Lia’s growth as an individual, and young people should read about adversity, as they deal with adversity in everyday life.

Anderson, L.H. (2009). Wintergirls. Penguin Books (2010 Reprint).

Buy it here!

 

3.) Darius the Great is Not Okay by Adib Khorram

Written in 2018, Darius the Great is Not Okay has picked up some serious hardware, winning the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, the Heartland Booksellers Award for Young Adult/Middle Grade, and the Middle East Book Award for Youth Literature, along with other awards and nominations. The book follows Darius, an Iranian/American teenager with clinical depression who struggles to fit in with his peers. After learning that his grandmother in Iran has a brain tumor, Darius and his family travel to her country to connect with her before she dies. On this healing journey of self-discovery, making friends, and dealing with depression, Darius is forced to come into his own in a brand-new setting.

First, I would like to highlight the importance of literature that fights against xenophobia, especially as it seems like a huge point of contention in recent years. Young people should be exposed to many different cultures to understand and appreciate the nuances of different cultures. Darius the Great is Not Okay also encourages children to talk to their parents about their mental health struggles, reinforcing the idea that asking for help does not make you weak or small. This book is a great support for teens who are on a journey of self-discovery, all while touching on loss and difficulty in making friends—sounds like a perfect fit for young adult readers.

Khorram, A. (2018). Darius the Great is Not Okay. Dial Books.

Buy it here! 

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A_Sheline
Community Member

Counting By Sevens by Holly Goldberg Sloan, Dragonwings by Lawrence Yep, Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt



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GavonBaker
Community Member

three of my top SEL friendly books

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HaleyMcHaddon
Community Member

Alcohol and drug use is among the leading causes of death in adolescents. Worldwide, 155 million adolescents are current drinkers, those ages 15-19. In 2016, 13.6% of adolescents ages 15-19 experience heavy episodic drinking, males being most at risk (WHO, 2022).

Cannabis, commonly known as marijuana, is the most widely used drug amongst adolescents. About 4.7% of those ages 15-16 used it at least once in 2018.

The use of alcohol and drugs in adolescents has been associated with neurocognitive alterations, which leads to behavioral, emotional, social, and academic problems later in life.

 

Adolescent and young adult health (who.int)

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KamaldeepSingh
Community Member

According to the World Health Organisation and the World Bank, there are over a billion people in the world who are struggling with disabilities, and about 93 to 150 million of them are children? Reports further state that these individuals are 10 times less likely to go to school compared to other people.

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EmilyJayjohn
Community Member

If you are having a difficult time finding social and emotional books for your classroom, here are some good recommendations.

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EBiedron
Community Member

Due to an alarming growth in mental health problems among children and young adults, social emotional learning is necessary to support our students.

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SharlisaThackst
Community Member

When it comes to social emotional learning in an elementary curriculum, what is the best way to help students understand? By reading a story of course! Books can offer a great way to get the students attention and provide a way for the student to understand. This is made possible through you reading the story (auditory), the words written on the pages ( visual), or through the pictures!

Lets explore three great stories that help our students become more in touch with their own feelings and build empathy toward others!

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AaronMoots
Community Member

Respect is a value that encompasses a lot of other values and actions, and is often a value that needs to be taught to young learners before these learners can truly appreciate respect on its own. These three books I've looked at all focus on instilling values like perspective and empathy to ultimately encourage readers to value respecting not just others, but themselves as well.

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BentleyMalacos
Community Member

By viewing this post, you will be unleashing the possibility of expanding your teacher tool box by adding a new, intriguing instrument. This new tool is utilizing social and emotional learning (SEL) friendly books! To elaborate, this new tool could be extremely beneficial for a wide variety of students and can truly give rise to many wonderful outcomes for these children as individuals. Also, in this post you will find three awesome examples alongside a quick analysis of SEL-friendly book choices you can use in your classroom! 

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ChristinaShort
Community Member

This post is all about a few ideal children's literature selections to enhance social emotional development in children.

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TylerClaybaker
Community Member

Children are funny, kind, mean, and brutally honest. But who are they? This blog goes through three different books to allow your child to discover themselves. 

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MitchellGruber
Community Member

This Article is to take you into a deeper dive of children's SEL books and what they mean to educators, students and parents around the world. Take a glimpse into the look and life of those who have social emotional learning patterns.

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tr_jbates
Community Champion

The UDOIT developer community has been putting a lot of work into making UDOIT 3 more capable, easier to install, more stable, and easier to debug.  Check out the highlights!

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dsasaki
Instructure
Instructure

Navigating Canvas with JAWS

 

JAWS is a commonly used accessibility screen reader and is one of the screen readers supported for use with Canvas. This post will discuss some basics of using JAWS with Canvas.

 

Navigating through Canvas you can use JAWS shortcuts to locate, bypass, and select without having to move through all individual elements like any other website.  

Here is a link to a guide for JAWS shortcuts: 

https://dequeuniversity.com/screenreaders/jaws-keyboard-shortcuts

 

Page Regions

 

The Canvas website layout has a few landmarks/regions that make up the page layout.

In a course, you will have the following regions:

 

  • Skip to Content: The first element on any Canvas page that a screen reader user will hit is the “Skip to Content” link.  This bypasses all of the navigation items on the page.
  • Global Navigation: This is a list of links to access your account settings, courses, calendar, inbox and help menu.  Link to Global Navigation Canvas Guide
  • Course Navigation: This is a list of links to access different course areas like Assignments, Discussions, Modules, Grades, Course Settings, etc.  Link to Course Navigation Canvas Guide
  • Breadcrumbs List:  Shows where you are in a course
  • Main Content: After the Course Navigation you’re at the main content of your course link.  If you’ve just entered a course, the main content section will be your course’s home page.
  • Complementary Region (If there is any):  Complimentary content.  




Navigation Between Courses

 

If you’re trying to get to a specific course and you’re at your main dashboard, you can do as follows to get to a specific course:

  • Press “R” twice (this moves through regions of the page with JAWS), this will get you to the global navigation region. 
  • Use the down arrow until you hit “Courses” and press Enter.  This puts you in the courses tray (you will reach a close button first which closes the tray, then the tray heading <H2>, and then your list of courses). 
  • Use the up/down arrows to navigate your list of courses until you find the correct one and press enter.

 

Navigation Within Courses

 

Once you’re in the course, if you press “R”, the first region is the skip to content region (if you press enter, it will skip all of the global/course navigation and take you to the main region of the page).  If you do not use the skip to content link and press "R" again and this is your Global Navigation Region which JAWS will read how many navigation items there are, Press "R" again, you get the Breadcrumbs Navigation Region, this will show you exactly where you are in the course, Press "R" again, you get to the Course Navigation Region (List of links to areas of your course).  Once you get to the region you’re looking for, you can use the up/down arrows to navigate the buttons/links in that region.

 

Example:  If you want to get directly to your course modules from anywhere in a course, you can do the following:

  • Press “R” 4 times (this should get you to the courses navigation region)
  • Press “Down Arrow” until it reads Modules and press enter.  This will take you to the modules index page of your course
  • If you press “H” (this moves through Headings of the page with JAWS), it will take you to the <H1> on the page (every Canvas page has an <H1> at the top of the main content region).  If you press the “Down Arrow”, it will move you through all the elements of your Course Modules List.  This is where you can add modules, add module items, edit any existing modules, etc.

 

 

 

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constance_khoo
Instructure
Instructure

In the spirit of International Day of Disabled Persons on the 3rd December, read about tangible ways that Canvas can help you create accessible resources through a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) lens.

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tr_jbates
Community Champion

This is the first official open source release of the "Next Generation" UDOIT! It has been completely rewritten from the ground up to make it easier and faster to use. It's also more extensible, so we can more easily add new accessibility checks and other features.

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2 20 4,513
tr_jbates
Community Champion

This is the final UDOIT 2.x release!  It contains a number of feature enhancements and bug fixes.  We're also changing the way we interact with the community.

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doreneengland72
Community Member

Coranavirus and trying to get caught up in my classes.

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tr_jbates
Community Champion

This release is focused on improving the user experience.  Cidi Labs contributed most of the code for this release in response to requests from their customers, and we are extremely grateful for this contribution.  If you are attending CanvasCon next week, please visit them at their virtual booth!

Now, on to the changes.  The first one you will notice is that the Content and Scan for lists have been moved into an accordion widget titled Scanning Options.  The widget is positioned above the Scan This Course button in order to closely follow the layout of previous versions of UDOIT.

The New UDOIT Home ScreenThe New UDOIT Home Screen

 

When the scan is complete, the Welcome to UDOIT! and Scanning Options boxes will collapse, conserving vertical space.

Screenshot showing how the interface collapses after a scanScreenshot showing how the interface collapses after a scan

 

The report view has changed significantly.  Each section of the course where errors or suggestions were found will be listed on the left side.  The section selected when the scan completes is the Summary, which allows the user to show or hide all errors or suggestions or individual errors or suggestions in the report.

Screenshot showing the report filtering interface with some errors hiddenScreenshot showing the report filtering interface with some errors hidden

 

Selecting the Pages item in the left menu shows the portion of the report related to Pages.  The interface should be familiar from this point on.

Screenshot of the Pages section of the reportScreenshot of the Pages section of the report

 

The Unscannable Files section now detects more types of unscannable files.  These file types are customizable, so you can add to or remove from to the defaults if you so desire.

Screenshot of the new file types added to the Unscannable Files sectionScreenshot of the new file types added to the Unscannable Files section

 

Upgrade Instructions

  • Download UDOIT version 2.7.0
  • Test in a development or QA environment, not on production.
  • If you are still using PHP 7.1 or below, you must upgrade to 7.2 or 7.3.
  • If you're coming from a version older than 2.6.3:
    • (Self-Hosted) Update your localConfig.php file to make sure it's up to date with localConfig.template.php
    • (Heroku-Hosted) Update your Config Vars to include the new variables
    • back up your database and run "php composer.phar migrate"
  • Run "php composer.phar install"
  • (Heroku-Hosted) Follow the instructions in HEROKU.md

Features Added

  • Added ability to filter the report by error/suggestion type and view a single content section at a time. Thanks Cidi Labs! #498
  • Reworked the the way unlisted/private/deleted YouTube/Vimeo videos are handled. Now they show up in their own Suggestion instead of being marked for manual inspection in other Errors or Suggesions. #547
  • Added documentation for which folders need to be writeable by your webserver #548
  • Updated Quail to support all types of table structures #488
  • Unscannable File extensions are now configurable #474

Bugs Fixed

  • Fixed a memory usage issue with the Most Common Errors report in the Admin Panel #502
  • Cleaned up some old YouTube-related code from lib/UdoitUtils.php #491
  • Fixed issue where tables with <p> tags in them prevent U FIX IT from working #488
  • Large images no longer break out of the bounds of the preview pane. #451
  • Floated images no longer float out of the bounds of the preview pane. #449

Side note:  I tried to add proper headings to this post, but this software does not allow heading tags.  If you have any issues navigating the content of this post, please let me know.

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tr_jbates
Community Champion

A few institutions have contacted me over the last few weeks regarding an error they receive when launching UDOIT in Chrome.  The full error is "Missing Session information. Please refresh the page. Missing: base_url".  Here's how to solve it.

 

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tr_jbates
Community Champion

I'm back with another bugfix release!  If you are able, it would be most helpful if you could update your QA or Testing instance of UDOIT to this version; the last few bugfix releases were made possible by institutions testing out the code in their unique environments.  I greatly appreciate the help!

Upgrade Instructions

  • Download UDOIT version 2.6.4
  • Test in a development or QA environment, not on production.
  • If you are still using PHP 7.1 or below, you must upgrade to 7.2 or 7.3.
  • If you're coming from a version older than 2.6.3:
    • (Self-Hosted) Update your localConfig.php file to make sure it's up to date with localConfig.template.php
    • (Heroku-Hosted) Update your Config Vars to include the new variables
    • back up your database and run "php composer.phar migrate"
  • Run "php composer.phar install"
  • (Heroku-Hosted) Follow the instructions in HEROKU.md

Bugs Fixed

  • Changed "expire" key to "lifetime" for creating the session cookie. The old key was invalid, and was causing a PHP warning to be thrown. #530
  • Added a line to Quail to remove whitespace from HTML to eliminate false positive for missing table headers. #529
  • Updated html-minifier to a fork that fixes a warning in PHP7 #527
  • Updated to latest version of Composer #527
  • Changed misleading error when a syllabus_body is not returned from Canvas. If UDOIT is using a scoped developer key, an empty syllabus_body will display an error message to the user explaining the limitations of scoped developer keys in some installations of Canvas. If UDOIT is not using a scoped developer key, UDOIT tells the user that no accessibility issues were found in the Syllabus. #490

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