Accessibility and Accommodations

Federal law requires the university to provide reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities. The Director of the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity and Access serves as the ADA/Section 504 coordinator. For questions concerning services/accommodations for faculty, staff and students with disabilities, please call (270) 809-3155 (voice) or (270) 809-3361 (TTY). Office of IDEA website

For questions concerning services/accommodations for students with disabilities, please call the Office of Student Disability Services at (270) 809-2018 (voice) or (270) 809-5889 (TTY). Office of SDS website

Canvas

Canvas provides a user experience that is easy, simple, and intuitive. Special attention has been paid to making Canvas screen-readable. The Rich Content Editor encourages users to create accessible content pages (i.e. text formatting is accomplished using styles). Canvas is designed to allow limited customization of colors and schemes to be accessible for all users. The National Federation of the Blind granted Canvas the Gold Level Web Certification in 2010.

Find more information by visiting the Canvas Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT).

References and Standards

Web Accessibility Resources

• World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
  • Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
  • WAI Resources
  • WAI Checklist
  • WAI Techniques
• Section508.gov
  • Section 508 standards
  • Section 508 FAQs
• Usability.gov
  • Research-based Web Design & Usability Guidelines
• U.S. Department of Justice ADA Home Page

Tips & Training

• Trace Center - Designing More Usable Web Sites
• Web Accessibility in Mind (WebAIM)
  • Accessibility Tutorial
• Univ. of Washington DO-IT Program
  • Faculty Room
  • Accessible Web Design
• Frontend.com Usability InfoCentre
• AWARE Center
• Dive Into Accessibility
• Web Accessibility for Section 508 (Free online course by Jim Thatcher)

Tools

• A-Prompt Free Verification Software
• National Center for Accessible Media
  • Rich Media Resource Center
  • MAGpie (Free Captioning Software)
• Macromedia Accessibility Tools
  • Validating for Accessibility with Dreamweaver MX (video)
• Adobe Accessibility Resources
  • How to Create Accessible Adobe PDF Files
  • 'MakeAccessible' Plug-In