Using the UDOIT Accessibility Assistant in ISU Canvas

Description

This article provides instructions on how to use the UDOIT course-level accessibility checker to help instructors create more inclusive and usable course experiences for students in Canvas ISU at Idaho State University (ISU). UDOIT - pronounced "You Do It" - stands for Universal Design Online Inspection tool. Once you have enabled UDOIT in your course and accessed it from the Canvas menu, it will scan your entire course, generate a list of accessibility issues, and provide guidance on how to fix them.

Guide Navigation

Accessing the UDOIT Accessibility Assistant

  1. Once you access your course, locate the UDOIT tool in the left-hand navigation menu.
  2. Select the tool and it automatically scans your Canvas Course content and the Files you have uploaded for accessibility issues once per day. You can scan a course multiple times per day by selecting the Scan Now button in the upper right corner. The first time you access the tool, UDOIT will scan all of the content of your course (with the exception of quiz questions). For more information, see What Does UDOIT Look For?
  3. Once the scan is complete, select Home to access the accessibility scorecard and Issue Types in your course.
  4. Each Impact Category can be expanded to view the issue types within it. For each Issue Type, a link will be provided that brings the user directly to the UFIXIT interface to work with those particular types of issues.

Tip: If you do not see the UDOIT tool in the course navigation menu, follow these steps to enable it:

  1. Select Settings from the course navigation menu
  2. Select the Navigation tab at the top of the Settings area
  3. Scroll down to the section containing disabled tools
  4. Select the 3 dots next to UDOIT and select + Enable
  5. Select Save to add the tool to the navigation menu.

Understanding the Accessibility Scorecard

  • Ways to Get Started: Within the UDIOIT page, you can use the Ways to Get Started on the right of the Scorecard Home screen. This helps users focus on issues that are the same or similar type which makes the process of fixing them all in a similar way easier and more efficient. If your main goal is to make progress quickly, the Easiest to Fix issues are ones you can typically resolve right from within the UDOIT interface, without needing to dig in your course for additional content. 
  • Issue Types: UDOIT looks for accessibility issues and assigns them varying severity levels behind the scenes, based on their impact on users. Issue Types are logical groupings of accessibility issues that help users identify areas in need of improvement, as well as make it easier for users to remediate related issues quickly. These are typically related to a particular type of content like images, links, or tables. For each Issue Type, UDOIT will provide a link that launches a streamlined method of working through remediating any link-related issue it finds.
  • Impact Categories: The Issue Type groups are sorted into Impact Categories (high, medium, and low), based on how significantly they affect the user experience. Each Impact Category will display its own accessibility Score, as well as the Weight it holds in the overall Course Accessibility Score. If you want to focus on the issues that have the most impact on accessibility, you can start with the High Impact Category.

Fixing Accessibility Issues Using UFIXIT

The UFIXIT area of UDOIT is where you will review and address the issues found within your Canvas content. This will include issues such as naming links descriptively, providing alt text for your images, ensuring accurate color contrast, and checking videos for captioning. For a more detailed overview of the issues that UDOIT can scan for, visit What Does UDOIT Look for? Upon navigating to the UFIXIT area of UDOIT, users can actively monitor their progress made toward accessibility in their course, choose from several ways to tailor their views of issues flagged by UDOIT and begin remediating them.

  • The Review area shows the title of the issue, a brief overview as to why it was flagged, and steps needed to remediate it. 
  • Users are show what type of Canvas content the issue was found in as well as a link to navigate to that area of the course if needed.
  • Users are able to preview the item that was flagged. By default, the preview will show how the issue appears in the course.
  • Users are able to remediate the issue directly within the UFIXIT preview area. Note: Remediation options will vary depending on the issue type. In some cases, manual resolution may be needed in lieu of the immediate remediation steps typically provided by UFIXIT. Visit When is it appropriate to use "Manual Resolution"? to learn more about this functionality.
  • If an issue has been previously fixed, a message saying "Fixed" with a green check mark will appear.
  • Users can easily navigate to different issues, even if the issue currently shown has not yet been remediated and saved.

Learning More about Accessibility Issues

The ULEARN Accessibility Guide is a companion to the UDOIT Accessibility Assistant. It highlights each issue UDOIT can detect, explains how these issues affect students, and provides guidance on how to fix them. By focusing on accessibility and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles, the guide supports the creation of more inclusive and effective learning environment.

Frequently Asked Questions

When should I use UDOIT?

  • Use UDOIT Advantage at key points during course development:
    • While designing new content (modules, pages, assignments)
    • Before publishing a course for the semester
    • During mid-semester updates or instructional reviews
  • Tip: Building accessibility checks into your course development cycle reduces the need for time-consuming retroactive fixes.

What course content does UDOIT scan?

  • UDOIT scans the HTML for these content items:
    • Announcements
    • Assignments
    • Classic and New Quiz Instructions (cannot scan the questions themselves)
    • Discussions
    • Pages
    • Syllabus
    • Module URLs

What Issues does UDOIT it look for?

Can UDOIT fix flatbed scans of book pages?

  • Yes! UDOIT integrates with one of the premier accessibility partners, ABBYY FineReader, to provide an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) scan of your flatbed scanned text documents.

What does UDOIT NOT scan?

  • Linked Google Docs - but as workaround, users can download the file from Google, upload it into Canvas, scan and remediate the file, replace the original file on their Google Drive with the remediated one, and then use that file moving forward.
  • Quiz questions or quiz bank questions - At this time, it is not possible for UDOIT to check quiz questions or question banks, but it does check quiz descriptions.
 

Additional Resources

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