This post summarizes the session, Create Accessible Canvas Content, from January 9, 2025. Session facilitators–DM Lavoie, from the Office of Digital Accessibility, and Rebecca George-Burrs, from Academic Technology Support Services–teamed up to demonstrate how to apply the 7 Core Skills of Digital Accessibility in the Canvas Rich Content Editor (RCE). Use the table of contents to navigate to each of the core skills in this article: Use Headings to Format Text Format Accessible Lists Use Accessible Color Contrast Write Accessible Link Text Create Accessible Tables Use Alternative Text (alt text) for all Images Use Accessible Media Overview In order to meet the expanded Title II of the ADA , the UMN community is working to make our digital content accessible. For those using Canvas, the RCE provides tools to create accessible Pages, Announcements, Discussions, Assignments and Quizzes throughout a course site. In fact, the RCE provides ways to use all 7 Core Skills of Accessib...

  This 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.  Lauren Marsh and Sara Schoen ( Academic Technology Support Services ) interviewed Emerging Technologies Faculty Fellow Nicole Dillard from CEHD’s Organizational Leadership, Policy & Development department. The following has been revised for length and clarity. Tell us about your role in the College of Education and Human Development (CEHD), and how this is informing your work with generative AI. Nicole Dillard: I'm a faculty member in the Human Resource Development program, which is part of the OLPD (Organizational Leadership, Policy & Development) department. I teach both undergraduate and graduate courses, and I'm piloting my project in my undergrad course OLPD 3310: Identities in the Workplace. Prior to the fellowship, I don't think my role was significantly influenced by my u...

  This 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.  Lauren Marsh and Sara Schoen (Academic Technology Support Services) interviewed  Emerging Technologies Faculty Fellows Karin Quick and Kristin Shingler from the School of Dentistry. The following has been revised for length and clarity. Tell us about your roles in the School of Dentistry and how that is informing your work with generative AI. Karin Quick: I direct the division of dental public health in the School of Dentistry, and I also direct our global programs. The classroom part of our FFP project is embedded in the courses that I am responsible for and most of those I actually direct.   Kristin L Shingler: My PhD is actually in microbiology and immunology. In the School of Dentistry, I'm a teaching assistant professor, and I teach many of our basic science courses. I'm a...

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...

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, ...

  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 yo...

  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 i...