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Digital Accessibility Tools

We provide tools and resources to help faculty and staff create, evaluate, and maintain accessible digital content in accordance with the ADA Title II requirements. This includes automated accessibility checkers, content remediation tools, and more.

Brightspace Ally

Built into Brightspace, Ally assesses the accessibility of posted course content and provides guidance on how to fix common accessibility issues. Accessibility score percentages and multicolored gauges indicate the accessibility of posted content, allowing users to prioritize fixes based on severity.

  • 0-33% (red) indicates very low accessibility and the content should be removed, replaced, or fixed immediately.
  • 34-66% (orange) indicates low to medium accessibility and the content should be removed, replaced, or fixed immediately.
  • 67-99% (light green) indicates the content somewhat passes the accessibility check, and should still be reviewed and fixed.
  • 100% (dark green) indicates the content is just about perfectly accessible!

Microsoft 365

SUNY Brockport is a Microsoft 365 campus, so everyone has access to Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and other Microsoft apps. These applications have built-in accessibility features and content checkers to ensure your documents are accessible to all who need them.

  • Work in the original, editable file whenever possible; it is easier to fix common accessibility issues there than to remediate a PDF.
  • If content will be posted in Brightspace, you can often copy and paste text with formatting directly into the Brightspace text editor rather than uploading a file. HTML content is preferred for accessibility.
  • Only make changes if you have the legal right to do so (Fair Use or your own work).
  • Use the built-in Accessibility Checker in Microsoft to find and fix issues like missing alternative text, low color contrast, or incorrect reading order. The location of the accessibility checker varies by app.

Adobe Acrobat

Making PDFs accessible can be complex, especially if they were created by scanning paper documents (image‑only PDFs). Adobe Acrobat Pro is available to faculty and staff for PDF remediation as needed. Submit a BITS Software Request for access to this tool.

  • Start with the source file (Word, PowerPoint, etc.) whenever possible; address accessibility issues there, then “Export to PDF” to retain accessibility fixes. Accessibility fixes may be lost if using “Print to PDF.”
  • If a PDF document can be replaced with a webpage or Word document, do that instead; this is preferred for accessibility remediation and users of assistive technology.
  • Image‑only (scanned) PDFs must be converted to text using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) before they can be made accessible.
  • Use Adobe Acrobat Pro’s Accessibility Checker to run a full check and address issues like missing tags, incorrect reading order, or missing alternative text.
  • Creating fully accessible PDFs often requires advanced skills in both Acrobat and the original software.

SensusAccess

SensusAccess is an automated file‑conversion tool that can quickly turn certain inaccessible documents into more accessible formats. It is in Brightspace and available to faculty and staff.

  • This tool converts inaccessible files into more accessible formats such as:
    • Word documents
    • HTML documents
    • Tagged PDFs
    • Audio books
    • E‑books
    • Digital Braille
  • SensusAccess provides a preliminary accessibility fix, but users will still need to check and remediate documents for full accessibility.
  • SensusAccess does not replace the need to create accessible documents from the start.

Kaltura

Kaltura Capture is Brockport’s free video recording tool, available in Brightspace for students, faculty, and staff. This tool allows users to record videos and automatically generate captions and transcripts, which can then be edited for accuracy.

  • Automated captions and transcripts may vary in accuracy and do not meet ADA standards.
  • All captions and transcripts should be reviewed and edited to ensure 99% accuracy. Clear, correct captions can improve accessibility for all viewers.
  • Videos from Kaltura can be shared directly into your course with captions included. Caption files generated from Kaltura can also be downloaded and uploaded to other video streaming platforms.
  • For full instructions, see the Kaltura Capture Faculty Guide in Brightspace.

WAVE by WebAim

WAVE (Web Accessibility Evaluation) is a free tool from WebAIM that checks web pages for accessibility issues and shows the results directly on the page. WAVE highlights errors, alerts, and accessibility features so users can find where problems occur. WAVE is also available as a browser extension in Chrome, Firefox, or Edge.

  • It is important to remember WAVE is an automated tool and manual review is always needed.
  • Common issues found by WAVE are missing alternative text, low color contrast, skipped heading levels, and missing form labels.
  • When using WAVE, review icons and side panel results, then fix issues in your content editor or source code. WAVE cannot fix identified accessibility issues automatically.