Digital Accessibility

What is Accessibility?

Accessibility is about ensuring that things can be used by as many people as possible, working towards equality of opportunity. Our commitment to inclusion is underpinned by both the UK Equality Act (2010) and the more recent Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018. 

This page is designed to support you with digital accessibility, providing you with the tools and guidance to ensure that the content you produce is accessible.

Make it Accessible

Converting files to alternative formats - SensusAccess

The University is running SensusAccess, a system that automatically converts documents into alternate formats, allowing you to:

• Convert image PDFs, JPEGS and other files into an e-book, text file, audio or braille.
• Combine more than one .JPG into a single file

Information can be found on the SensusAccess pages.

Accessibility checker in Canvas - Ally and accessibility checker

In Canvas you can use a tool called Ally. Ally checks how well your course content meets accessibility standards and provides guidance on what to do to improve accessibility. Ally can also generate alternative formats e.g. e-Pub, audio (text to speech). 

The Canvas Rich Content Editor has an accessibility checker that can be used as you edit Canvas pages. It will flag up issues like poor contrast and missing alt text.

Immersive Reader

Microsoft immersive reader uses a range of techniques to help aid the reading and editing of documents.  The immersive reader is available in Canvas, as well as several Microsoft applications including Teams, Office 365 (Word and Outlook), OneNote and Microsoft Edge. Further information about Immersive Reader can be found on the Microsoft website and on Canvas.

Readability and Accuracy

There are also tools that can support readability and accuracy. The University Digital Design Services website has information and links for further details.