For teaching staff at GSA Digital Accessibility is about ensuring the online learning environment and resources are easily accessible for all students and staff, including those with disabilities and specific learning differences.

All staff at GSA should have an awareness of the importance of accessibility, and strive to create accessible learning materials.

This post contains links and guidance on how staff can create accessible digital learning materials and best meet the requirements of the UK Governments’s Accessibility Regulations.

How do I create accessible content?

Structure Content 

Structuring digital content correctly helps make text compatible with screen reader software. This allows users with visual impairments to quickly find the most appropriate part of a document using a screen reader. By using text styles (headings), tables and lists appropriately when inputting text you can create accessible content in Canvas pages, Word docs, Powerpoint presentations and PDFs.
See our accessibility page on Structuring Content for more information.

Text Alternatives

Providing Text Alternatives for images, audio, and video will help make your documents accessible to all users. 

Descriptive Text in Links

Use of descriptive text in links and headings helps all users navigate text content efficiently. More information is available on our accessibility guide to using descriptive text in links and headings.

Check your content 

To check if your content meets accessibility guidelines you can refer to the Designing for Digital Learners checklist. Canvas has a useful built in Accessibility Checker Tool that can be used to verify if Canvas pages conform to the regulations. 

Further Information

If you would like further guidance, support or want to arrange a ‘virtual help’ session over Zoom, please get in touch with us LTHelp@gsa.ac.uk. We’re more than happy to help.