Overview 

Canvas is the Montana Office of Rural Health and AHEC’s learning management system which is used for our online education center and our continuing education certificate center.  

This page contains information about the accessibility of the Canvas platform and was adapted from the University of Colorado Boulder. Those who create and share content in Canvas have a responsibility to ensure that content is created and provided in a way that makes it accessible to everyone in the course. 

General Accessibility 

Canvas’s desktop site is generally accessible to student users.  

Screen Reader / Keyboard-Only Users 

The Canvas website provides tips for screen reader and keyboard-only users. 

Please consult the Screen Readers and Browsers section of Canvas’s accessibility documentation to determine its current support for various screen reader and browser combinations. 

Specific issues to note are as follows. 

Document Viewer 

  • Screen readers do not announce the occurrence of an annotation when reading through the document. Annotations are read at the end of the document, and it is not possible to determine non-visually which part of the text they are linked to. 
  • JAWS users must hit Enter before they start typing when they want to leave a comment on an annotation, or else the focus shifts to the top of the page. 
  • Screen magnifier users need to select the comment before zooming in to see which part of the text it is linked to. Otherwise, the dotted line linking the comment to the text disappears upon zoom. 
  • If the annotated document is downloaded for review, it is recommended to use Adobe Acrobat for viewing the PDF, since the annotation comments may not be consistently displayed in generic PDF viewers. 
  • Note: students using screen magnifiers must go into full-screen view in View Feedback to view the annotation comments. 

Assignments 

After submitting an assignment, screen reader users may not receive a notification alert indicating the status of their submission. 
Workaround: The notification is located in the complementary region on the assignment submission page. 

Files 

The file tree is not easily navigable or consistently usable by screen reader users. 
Workaround: If possible, access content through Modules rather than Files. 

Screen Magnifier Users 

  • Users can enable high contrast mode under Account > Settings > Feature Options. Some interface elements may fail color contrast requirements when this mode is not enabled. 
  • Some aspects of Canvas’s column-based layout may be displaced at higher browser zoom settings, resulting in a confusing layout to read. 
  • When navigating through Modules, note that the “Next” and “Previous” buttons are located at the bottom right and bottom left of the page, respectively. They may be difficult to locate initially when using a magnifier. 
  • Many control elements, such as settings menus or notification toggles, are located on the far right side of the page from the element they modify. 
  • Many notifications, such as the successful submission of an assignment, are communicated through alerts that appear at the top of the screen rather than near the location the action was performed. 
  • In the document viewer, screen magnifier users need to select the comment before zooming in to see which part of the text it is linked to. Otherwise, the dotted line linking the comment to the text disappears upon zoom. 
  • In the document viewer, students using screen magnifiers must go into full-screen view in View Feedback to view the annotation comments.  
  • If an annotated document is downloaded for review, it is recommended to use Adobe Acrobat for viewing the PDF, since the annotation comments may not be consistently displayed in generic PDF viewers. 

 

** If you need further accommodation, please contact your course instructor for assistance. Please note the accommodations provided for online courses does not encompass basic technological assistance i.e., username and password reset.