ansrAccess®️: The Spellcheck for Accessibility

When was the last time you published something with a typo in it? Probably not recently. Spellcheck more or less solved the problem of typing errors so long ago that most of us don't even think about it anymore. Unless we are dealing with autocorrect on our phones. 

Now a more difficult question, geared toward my online instructors and instructional designers: when was the last time you published an online course page with a missing alt tag, a skipped heading level, or a video that accidentally didn’t have captions? 

I had the pleasure of speaking with an accessibility expert from a large public university last week, and something he said resonated with me. A course, or course page, with "small" errors like missing alt tags and skipped headings isn't just less accessible; it's less usable. In the same way that a page full of typos is less usable for anyone who sees it, a content page lacking alt tags or headings is less usable for anyone who needs them to have a pleasant online course experience. This gap in understanding has always been present among individuals who are just learning about accessibility (me in 2016). What's new is how much attention the gap is getting among everyone. 

Due to deadlines set by the U.S. DOJ, priorities have been shifting for online course content teams, ed tech teams, instructors, and support staff. In the product world, companies have been shifting their roadmaps and product offerings to ensure accessibility by adding new features and layouts, beefing up existing accessibility tools, or creating new tools and automations focused on accessibility. 

Just as institutions were moving toward the 2026 deadlines, it was announced that the deadlines were extended to 2027. Some institutions let out a sigh of relief, while others felt like the wind had been taken out of their sails. For me, it was a mix of both. There was a brief pause, a “what happens now?” moment. Maybe that summer vacation I had been postponing until Fall could actually happen! 

Independent of whatever reaction anyone had, most institutions began looking at the extension like extra time given on an assignment. Some went back to treating the extension as a reprieve, or taking it as a sign that the accessibility deadline will never actually happen. I like to think of the extension as an opportunity to define sustainable accessibility workflows, review tools more thoroughly, and give more time for training staff. Or maybe it’s time to review a tool that is like a spellchecker for accessibility within Canvas. 

Meet ansrAccess

ansrAccess, a new accessibility tool on the rise that can be leveraged within Canvas, aims to be that spellchecking friend. Created by the team at ansrsource, ansrAccess is a one-stop shop for accessibility remediation. It checks every portion of course content for accessibility errors, much like the grammar or spell check tool in Microsoft Word that flags grammar and spelling errors. 

ansrAccess does more than just check for errors. It also: 

• Assists instructors, instructional designers, and technologists in fixing the errors in their courses. 
• Audits the existing courses in Canvas and provides users with a dynamic and useful dashboard for tracking accessibility concerns. 
• Provides a reporting function for Canvas LMS admins. 

ansrAccess walks the user through the critical fixes needed in their course, one item at a time. It reviews headings, links, images, and files across the course and surfaces guidance for the issues it finds. As the user learns what is inaccessible, they also learn how to make the content accessible. ansrAccess tells the user what WCAG requirement is in question and gives them guidance on how to correct the issue. With this model, creating accessible content in the future gets easier for instructors, instructional designers, and technologists - they are learning as they go. 

Planning for accessible content

For some institutions, WCAG compliance is brand new territory, which can feel scary and daunting. In addition to having to learn about the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), instructors, instructional designers, and support staff also need to figure out what it means to implement the guidelines and then roll out a plan for training. 

Speaking from personal experience, getting everyone on board to make course content accessible is not an easy task. It's a job in and of itself, and requires time, money, and the right people to make it happen smoothly. 

ansrAccess is designed to lessen the burden of the resources needed. When you are working in ansrAccess, you get the feeling that the tool wants to make accessibility easier for you and your teammates. How does it do that? 

• It leverages AI to make remediation as efficient as possible, cutting down on human hours spent remediating troublesome content. 
• It is affordable so that institutions can stay within their technology budgets. 
• It is intuitive and user-friendly. 

Right now, a majority of institutions are experiencing budget cuts in some way or another. People are wearing many hats and taking on projects that might be out of their scope of work. Whether it’s an instructor who already has too many students or a member of the academic support staff who is juggling too many tasks, asking someone to do one more thing – like ensuring course accessibility – may feel burdensome. ansrAccess gives instructors and support staff the tools they need to handle accessibility quickly and without stress. It is integrated with Canvas via LTI. It is right there, within Canvas, for faculty and staff to use. 

ansrAccess + Canvas 

The ansrAccess vision is for every user within the Canvas LMS to have a fully accessible and engaging digital learning experience. We want accessibility and the digital learning experience to be seamless. As seamless as the grammar and spell-checking tools in Microsoft Word or Google Docs, but less annoying. Being able to see the accessibility items that need to be corrected in one place and being able to click through them to fix them is amazing. Seeing an accessibility score that increases when a broken link has been fixed? Even more rewarding. 

What is cool about this tool is that it combines the efficiency of AI with human oversight. You can review the AI generated alt tag to make sure it’s accurate. The dashboard tells the user where they need to go to improve their accessibility score and how to do it. And even better, if the amount of remediation is too much (e.g. a ton of documents that need to be remediated), ansrAccess has an option to get assistance remediating the documents. Whether an institution needs an accessibility consultation in conjunction with the integration of the tool or assistance with large scale document remediation, ansrAccess is designed to give you access to the support your organization needs. 

How ansrAccess works 

Whether the course content is created within Canvas pages or is set up with the use of modules, ansrAccess can review it. 

ansrAccess reviews the following components within a Canvas course: 

• Canvas course files (PDFs, PPTX, .doc) 
• Canvas HTML Pages 
• Images in pages, quizzes, and assignments 
• Audio and video files 
• External links on Canvas pages 
• STEM assistance with files and formulas 

ansrAccess scans the content in a Canvas course and generates a checklist of: 
a) What content has passed WCAG requirements  
b) What needs attention through Auto Fix  
c) What components need manual review 

It continuously monitors courses, provides audit logs, and gives admins a dashboard view of all the courses being monitored. It can provide automated remediation of PDFs, Word files, PowerPoint presentations, and audio and video files. It can also provide alt tags for images and formulas, as well as assisting STEM instructors in remediation of handwritten documents. For students, it provides alternative formats for download. 

Getting started 

When it comes to accessibility and course design, each institution has a different approach. One approach is a “train the trainer” approach, where one person trains support staff on the tools and processes that are being put in place so accessibility standards can be met. Another is to have a team of accessibility experts reviewing all the courses that are about to go live for the up-and-coming semester and making the fixes themselves. 

It doesn’t matter which approach you use; each approach takes time, and trying something new takes courage. Whether it's a new process or a new tool, taking a leap into the unknown requires the ability to roll up your sleeves and dive into the work. Having a tool like ansrAccess in your toolbox can help instructors, designers, and staff embrace the new workflow or approach. And just like with spellcheck and grammar check, ansrAccess will help your team become more aware of accessibility errors, and eventually it will get easier to make accessible content from the start. 

Even though the work may be hard, it is well worth it. When I am in the weeds with adjusting color contrast or fixing the heading structure on the page, it helps me to think of the people who will benefit from these extra edits - the visually impaired students who may be using a screen reader or those who may experience low vision, or even color blindness. The great thing about accessible design is that once the content is accessible, everyone benefits. In my example with color contrast adjustments, the text I am adjusting in the PowerPoint slide will be easier to see for everyone – not just the visually impaired student. With the headings on the page, every student will now have definitive sections of content. The effort it takes to make content accessible improves the experience for all students. 

Experience ansrAccess 

Where does your institution stand right now in terms of accessibility? Is there a tool that is already running, quietly piling up issues nobody has time to fix? Or is there a tool that is partially helping, but there is still content that needs remediating? Or maybe there is no plan at all yet? All three possibilities are common and OK, all three are reasonable places to start, and all three can benefit from ansrAccess. 

If you want to schedule a demo of ansrAccess or simply have questions, please reach out to us by emailing accessibility@ansrsource.com. We would love to hear more about your accessibility needs.