Guidance for Making Your Syllabus Accessible

This page provides guidance on the basics of making your syllabus accessible. Find information about additional support, including who to contact with more complex questions, on the "Resources" section. 

Choose your format

Decide whether to put your syllabus in a Canvas page (preferred) or in a Word document (also viable). Because we now have a Canvas feature that allows students to download any page in Canvas into a variety of formats, instructors do not need to post a downloadable syllabus to fulfill the Syllabus Requirement Policy.

  • If using a Canvas page, go to your course navigation menu and click on "Syllabus." Once you are on the Syllabus page, click the "Edit" button on the upper right and enter your text.
  • If you wish to use a template, know we currently have an Accessible Syllabus Template in Word, and that a Canvas syllabus template is coming soon.

Delete outdated or unnecessary sections

Delete any text or sections you do not need, such as the content now included in the University Course Policies page. Doing this before applying headings and other accessibility measures will save you time. For a list of required content, visit Syllabus Essentials.

Apply Headings

  • Add headings using built-in Heading Styles (Canvas pages, Word, and most document editing software have "Heading" Styles already in place). Headings are used in a hierarchical manner, and will be nested: the page title is Heading 1, primary section titles are Heading 2, subsection titles are Heading 3, and so on. Don't skip heading levels (for example, going from Heading 1 to Heading 4); if you want to change the visual look of a heading, edit the Style. 
  • Learn how to use headings in the Headings & Document/Page Structure module, and for format-specific guidance, see the Headings in Canvas and Headings in Word modules. 

Apply Alternative Text to Images

  • Add alternative text to images, charts, and illustrations to convey meaningful information. When determining what to write for alt text, think about the purpose the image serves and what information would be missing if the image did not load. Convey this information concisely; do not include “image of” in text. 
  • Learn more in the Alt Text for Images learning module, and in the Images in Canvas and Images & Alt Text in Word supplementary modules. 

Format Tables

  • Use tables for organizing data (not for layout). To format tables, provide a caption and define the top row and/or first column as headers. 
  • Learn how in the Tables & Layout learning module, and in the Tables in Word and Tables in Canvas supplementary module. 

Format Lists

  • Use built-in styles for bullets and numbered lists to organize lists of information. 
  • Learn how in the Tables & Layout learning module, and in the Formatting Text in Word supplementary module. 

Font and Color Contrast

Make Links Appropriately Descriptive

  • Links should provide a clear indication of where they go. Common best practices are to ensure that link text is descriptive, that links that go to different pages have different link text, avoid pasting the full URL onto the page, and (in most instances) avoid using link text like "here" or "link".
  • Learn how in the Hyperlinks module, and in the Descriptive Hyperlinks in Canvas and Descriptive Hyperlinks in Word supplementary modules. 

After you apply these principles:

  • Run an automated accessibility checker. If in Canvas, use Pope Tech. Run an automated accessibility checker, which can help catch many types of accessibility issues (but will not catch all of them).  
  • Do not convert your syllabus into a PDF if you have made it in Word. PDFs tend to be the most challenging and time-consuming format to create accessibly and to fix issues in. If you wish to have your file as a digital document instead of a web page/Canvas page, keep the file in the format it was created in as often as possible.