Tools, Teamwork, and Transformation—Enhancing Digital Learning

Work to ensure digital learning materials across the University are accessible continues to progress and improve the student experience. From partnerships with schools and units to document remediation and coaching to automated tools like Pope Tech, help is available to instructors at every step. And, with the University having recently released an updated digital accessibility policy on September 1, 2025, it is even more important to continue the momentum established by the Canvas Accessibility Project.

Achieving More Together

Advancements in improving accessibility within Canvas can be attributed to the introduction of the Pope Tech Accessibility Guide—an automated accessibility tracker that identifies areas needing accessibility improvements and allows users to self-remediate accessibility issues—and through engaging individual instructors who learned about the work and were motivated to enhance their courses. However, scaling to meet the need for improvement across the University required a broader, integrated support approach and ways to deepen this support within decentralized units.

Through tailored partnerships and direct support from staff remediating course documents and offering coaching on how to create digitally accessible documents, instructors’ understanding of the challenges related to accessibility—as well as the means to remediate those challenges—grew as they familiarized themselves with a foundation they could rely on. In two such instances, the entire Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications and the Global Health Studies department in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences have achieved zero accessibility errors in their Canvas courses. Work is also underway with several more schools and departments, including those at the Pritzker School of Law and the School of Communication.

Spotlight: Pope Tech Accessibility Guide

The Pope Tech Accessibility Guide has proven to be an achievable method for instructors to improve accessibility. The automated accessibility checker has been crucial to this work and is available to all instructors. The tool not only helps identify and correct errors in Canvas course sites, but it also provides essential data and user-friendly options for error correction. Pope Tech is available by default in all Northwestern Canvas courses. To get started with the tool, review this list of best practices, which also includes short walk-through videos to enhance your experience.

From Tools to Transformation: Faculty Voices on Accessibility

Noelle Sullivan, program director and professor in the Global Health Studies program, shared her experience, “Pope Tech made it so easy to incorporate accessibility best practices in my Canvas course, so I didn’t inadvertently forget anything. But the real magic has been our accessibility and IT teams, because they taught us not only what to do, but why we were doing it, and who it was meaningful to. The document remediation team addressed issues with my materials, so I started with a clean slate, which meant accessibility became less daunting. But better yet, they taught me how to incorporate those practices myself. It’s become second nature to me now.”

While the Pope Tech tools are highly impactful, the team understands that providing technology alone is not a sustainable solution for ensuring instructors are prepared to teach with accessible course materials. The project’s long-term goal is to prepare instructors to create fully accessible courses, with or without a real-time checker, to guide them at every stage. The Pope Tech tools serve as an enhancement for the direct support, consultation, and accountability that instructors can receive through the Mission: Accessible Challenge, a guided program available to all instructors. Additionally, instructors can now access a library of accessible Canvas course templates, document templates, and live and on-demand training resources to continue this critical work.

"This work and these changes have made me more cognizant of ensuring that all my students have the tools and resources they need to be successful in my courses,” said Desiree Hanford, a Medill professor. “No one is left behind, even unintentionally. Students don’t need to ask for anything because it’s already done, allowing them to focus on their work and not trying to figure out how to read an assignment or book chapter. It levels the playing field without students asking for it to be leveled.”

Everyone’s Responsibility and More Work to Do

The combination of instructor commitment, tools, the campaign, workshops, and training resources has driven a significant reduction in accessibility errors—at the end of Spring Quarter, Northwestern’s Canvas course sites were averaging fewer than two errors per course, down from an average of almost nine in fall 2023, and over 3,500 documents across 81 courses have been remediated—and will continue to propel the work forward.

Even with this progress, outstanding issues remain, which commonly include a lack of heading structure, low color contrast errors, and the need for appropriate alternative text—three of the seven key digital accessibility areas. The project team is reaching out directly to instructors with high instances of these errors to offer assistance. They also continue to connect with unit leaders to hold training sessions and work directly with departments to deliver tailored and unified support.

To recognize instructors and the impact of their work and to ensure students can identify courses where measures to prioritize accessibility are in place, the University maintains the Mission: Accessible Wall of Fame, a page highlighting instructors who complete the Mission: Accessible Challenge and offer courses that meet the seven core criteria for digital accessibility. With this information collected, students can locate classes that have fully accessible Canvas course sites before registering in CAESAR.

If you are an instructor and need assistance with your course, don’t hesitate to connect with the team and enroll in the challenge today.