Documents

Ensure all documents are accessible and follow copyright laws.

Impact

Inaccessible electronic documents can create serious barriers for students, especially those with disabilities, by limiting their ability to read, navigate, or interact with course materials. These documents often lack proper formatting, text recognition, or compatibility with assistive technologies, which can lead to unequal learning experiences. Additionally, they pose legal risks under accessibility laws and may violate copyright if materials are improperly scanned or shared.

While PDFs are commonly used, PDFs are often not fully accessible and may raise copyright concerns. By partnering with the Library and using original, linked source materials through the Library’s Course Library tool in Canvas, faculty can provide more accessible content, ensure legal compliance, and create a more inclusive and engaging learning experience for all students.

How to

Enable Course Library in Canvas

  1. Go to your Canvas course.
  2. Select Settings in the left-hand menu.
  3. Select the Navigation tab.
  4. Scroll down to find Course Library.
  5. Click and drag it into the active course navigation area (or select the Enable or Move button).
  6. Select Save at the bottom of the page.

Students will see Course Library in their course menu.

Use the Course Library

You can:

  • Create a new list or link to an existing one.
  • Organize materials by week, module, or unit—whatever works best for your course.
  • Add:
    • Links to ebooks, journal articles, book chapters
    • Videos from library databases
    • Websites, Wikipedia articles, and more
  • Link directly to a section of links (e.g., "Go to your Week 1 readings").
  • Track how many students have viewed each item. 

Students can:

  • Track what they have read.
  • Uncheck items to re-review later, which is great for exam preparations.
  • See all readings in one place—no VPN needed off-campus.

 

Best practices

  • Canvas pages are recommended.
    Choose web pages over electronic documents where possible. Otherwise, choose Microsoft documents over PDFs, and then make the remaining PDFs as accessible as possible.
  • Avoid scanned documents.
    If you must use a scanned document, ensure it is OCRed properly (i.e., images of text converted into actual text). Copy the text into a text editor or a document to see if it still comes up as gibberish.
  • Test with accessibility checkers.
    Use tools like Microsoft Accessibility Checker and Adobe Acrobat’s accessibility checker to ensure documents are accessible as possible within those platforms.

Additional guidance

You can learn more about providing accessible documents:

EIR Accessibility Coordinator

Assistive Technology