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Boost Your Canvas Course Site Accessibility by Removing Outdated Content

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As a University of Minnesota instructor, you have likely heard about the new accessibility requirement for course materials outlined by the Department of Justice in their clarifications on Title II of the ADA : all content in course sites with student enrollment–such as academic courses, professional development sites, or resource sites your department created– must be digitally accessible by April 2026. This new requirement comes at a time in education where instructors are busy on multiple technological fronts (can we have a blog post without mentioning AI?). Yet here we are at another intersection of technology and teaching. This intersection brings about good for all learners. Research shows that making content accessible helps all of your students, not just those who use adaptive technologies to access content. While the task to meet the April 2026 deadline may seem overwhelmingly large, academic technology staff and the Office for Digital Accessibility are breaking it down in...
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Canvas: Remove Course Content Usability Testing - Key Findings & Recommendations

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Overview Academic Technology Support Services (ATSS) and the Office for Digital Accessibility (ODA) tested the usability of the Canvas: Remove Course Content article text and video with UMN instructors. Participants identified three key findings: time commitment, rationale, and archiving. The project team addressed the findings by making targeted changes to the article. Usability partnership & study process For this study, the Canvas: Remove Course Content article was selected for two reasons:  instructors and staff are preparing to meet the April 2026 digital accessibility deadline ATSS had heard from the academic technology community that some instructors are confused about removing vs. deleting content from a Canvas course With the University of Minnesota Usability Services team, our project team developed a focus question to guide our study: What motivates people to improve the accessibility of their course? We then determined the criteria for participant recruitment, ...
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GenAI Explorations: Conversation with Colin McFaddin

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  This fall and spring Extra Points will feature a series of conversations focused on how faculty and staff around the University of Minnesota are using Generative AI to do University work.  Colin McFadden, Technology Architect for the College of Liberal Arts, presented to the Emerging Technologies Faculty Fellows on the topic of GenAI in September. His comments are edited for clarity and length. In your role as Technology Architect for CLA, how do you use Generative AI? Colin McFadden: I use Generative AI day-to-day for both technical and non-technical work. When I’m working on software or hardware development, generative AI provides both code suggestions, and can help me think through complex requirements. I also love to have generative AI do an initial proofreading pass of documents or articles that I’m working on. I’m still learning where these tools are useful and where they’re not - for example, some programming languages or frameworks still present a challenge, and y...
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GenAI Explorations: Conversation with Dan Emery

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  This fall Extra Points will feature a series of conversations focused on how faculty and staff around the University of Minnesota are using Generative AI to do University work.  Adam Brisk, Academic Technologist with ITSS ATCD UMD, and Lauren Marsh, Academic Technologist with ATSS, interviewed Dan Emery, Assistant Director of Writing Across the Curriculum. Emery collaborates with faculty to enhance learning goals through writing, and this work informs his active and insightful participation in discussions about GenAI at the UMN. The following has been revised for length and clarity. As Assistant Director of Writing Across the Curriculum at the University of Minnesota, how do you use Generative AI? Dan Emery: My job in Writing Across the Curriculum serves two programs, the Writing-Enriched Curriculum Program and our Teaching with Writing series. In the context of my work with the Writing-Enriched Curriculum (WEC), I talk about AI with folks who are teaching with writing ...
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Explore Generative AI tools: Microsoft Copilot and Zoom AI Companion - September 2024 session recap

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This post summarizes the September 2024 Explore Generative AI tools: Microsoft Copilot and Zoom AI Companion session facilitated by ATSS . During the session, ATSS consultants presented an overview of the two AI tools, Microsoft Copilot and Zoom AI Companion - available to all UMN faculty, staff, and students - and explored use cases. Key Takeaways Our session goals were to: Understand the basics of Microsoft Copilot and Zoom AI Companion Explore how both platforms can be used in education through examples and use cases Zoom AI Companion What is Zoom AI Companion? Zoom AI Companion is a University-vetted opt-in suite of AI tools that enhance the in-meeting and post-meeting experiences. Meeting hosts (i.e., instructors) can generate: In-Meeting Questions Meeting Summary Smart Recording How is it used? By default, the Zoom AI Companion is set to OFF; users can change their Zoom settings to opt in. AI Companion works best if you are logged into your UMN Zoom account ; it does poorly if...
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Canvas Discussions Usability Testing: Key Findings & Recommendations

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Academic Technology Support Services (ATSS) partnered with Instructure , the parent company of Canvas, to conduct a usability study on some of Instructure’s most recent updates to the Canvas Discussion tool. The study aimed to understand user experiences to implement changes and/or improve training.  Usability partnership & study process Since 2015, the University of Minnesota academic technology teams have conducted usability studies to understand how instructors and students use different learning technologies. This work is carried out with internal and external stakeholders such as University of Minnesota academic technology leadership, the academic technology community , and our learning technology vendors. For this study, the Canvas Discussions tool was selected for two reasons: Instructure was redesigning the tool, and it’s used in approximately 25% of University of Minnesota academic courses as shown in the graph below. Discussions are heavily used in those courses: as o...
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Use FeedbackFruits Tools for Peer Learning: Basics - August 2024 session recap

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This post summarizes the August 2024 Use FeedbackFruits Tools for Peer Learning: Basics session facilitated by ATSS . During the session, ATSS consultants presented an overview of the four FeedbackFruits peer learning tools and explored how to create a FeedbackFruits assignment in Canvas. Session participants completed a FeedbackFruits assignment as a student. Key Takeaways Introduction to FeedbackFruits The University of Minnesota is in year three of its license with FeedbackFruits. While UMN licenses four of FeedbackFruits tools , our session focused on the two tools that most directly support peer learning:  Group Member Evaluation Peer Review Set up and use FeedbackFruits in Canvas Because FeedbackFruits is integrated into Canvas, some considerations should be kept in mind so that students are not confused by the information they see in Canvas compared to what they see in FeedbackFruits. A few important notes about FeedbackFruits assignments: You will start by creating a Canvas...
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