In support of Western’s commitment to accessible course content and the updates to Title II ADA , the Center for Instructional Innovation (CII) and Academic Technology are offering assistance to faculty. We have a small team of student employees, who have been trained on WWU's accessibility concepts and tools, who can help review and improve accessibility in Canvas courses.
Assistance can be requested; however, our ability to accommodate requests will be limited.
Assigned student employees will only be assigned to courses they are not, and will not, be enrolled in, and all work will be completed in a duplicate copy of a course being taught in a future term.
When reviewing requests for accessibility support, we will consider the following:
- Accessibility Goals: Clear description of faculty motivation and objectives for improving accessibility.
- Accessibility Needs: Evidence of a significant number of accessibility issues from errors identified through a Pope Tech scan (Accessibility Dashboard).
- Co-Facilitator of Improvements: A willingness to be an active co-facilitator with our team as the subject matter expert, since some improvements will require your knowledge of the course content.
- Course availability: Agreement to provide a future course (not currently being taught) during the term when support work takes place.
- Preparation: Confirmation that the Link Validator tool in Canvas has been run to resolve broken links before accessibility work begins.
We anticipate being able to offer this support throughout the 2025–26 academic year.
Priority will be given to courses with the greatest needs, including those with large enrollments, GUR status, or accessibility-sensitive content.
