Accommodations in Canvas

Supporting students with disabilities through academic accommodations supports equity, inclusion, and access at PSU. Accommodations remove barriers to learning, foster belonging, and support student success. This article focuses on using Canvas’s technical settings to implement common academic accommodations.

Each term, faculty receive a Faculty Notification Letter when a student activates their accommodations. The letter lists the student’s approved accommodations (e.g., 1.5x extended time), but does not include medical information. Faculty and students are responsible for discussing how approved accommodations will be implemented in the course. Faculty may not ask students to disclose diagnoses or provide medical documentation. Discuss accommodations privately and respectfully, such as over email or in a one-on-one meeting.

If you use timed quizzes or exams in Canvas, you may need to provide extra time for students with approved accommodations. You may also need to adjust quiz availability and/or assignment due dates.

Use Canvas moderation settings to manage quiz accommodations for individual students. The process and available options vary depending on whether you use Classic Quizzes or New Quizzes.

In Classic Quizzes, use the Moderate This Quiz page to update the settings for individual students. Changes must be made for each quiz. You can adjust settings for:

• Extra attempts.
• Extra time (only available for timed quizzes).
• To unlock future attempts.

In New Quizzes, use the Moderate tab on the Build page to update the settings for individual students. You can adjust settings for:

• Additional attempts.
• Extra time or no time limit.
• Reduced answer choices.

You can assign different due dates to assignments, discussions, and quizzes for individual students with accommodations without changing the due dates for the rest of the class.

• Assignments:
  • Assign access to a specific student or a group of students in Assignments
  • Adjust availability dates in Assignments
• Discussions:
  • Assign access to a specific student or a group of students in Discussions
  • Adjust availability dates in Discussions
• Quizzes (both Classic and New Quizzes):
  • Assign access to a specific student or a group of students in Quizzes
  • Adjust availability dates in Quizzes

Some accommodations may require small but important adjustments in the Canvas Gradebook to ensure students are not penalized for approved accommodations, such as extended deadlines or flexible attendance. Review the following settings as needed:

• Add alternative due dates for individual students using the + Add option in assignment and quiz settings.
• Remove or override late submission deductions for students whose accommodations include extended deadlines.
• Excuse assignments that should not count toward the student’s grade.
• Manually adjust scores if Canvas applies automatic deductions that should not apply.
• Verify that “Missing Submission” policies don’t automatically assign zeros for excused work.

Ensuring students can access course content in formats that work for them is critical. The least restrictive formats include:

• Pages built directly in Canvas
• Google Docs (shared with view access)
• Word documents (Canvas has a built-in viewer)
• Links to external pages and resources

Avoid scanned, unformatted PDFs whenever possible.

Whenever possible, create course materials directly in Canvas using the Rich Content Editor (RCE). The RCE generates accessible HTML content and includes a built-in accessibility checker.

• Use the Accessibility Checker in the Rich Content Editor. 
• Manage alt text and display options for images embedded in the Rich Content Editor.

While this list is not exhaustive, these practices cover many common and high-impact accessibility considerations:

• Use built-in heading styles (H2, H3, etc.) to organize your content.
• Use built-in list tools to create numbered or bulleted lists.
• Add brief, descriptive alternative text to images in Canvas, documents, or slides.
• Use videos with accurate captions.
• Create descriptive hyperlinks (e.g., “Canvas Accessibility Checker” instead of “click here”).

Learn more about creating accessible course materials.

Students with accommodations may need captions, transcripts, or alternative ways to access video content.

• Use MediaSpace to host and share videos you create.
• Edit captions in MediaSpace to correct errors in automatically generated captions. .
• Avoid using the Canvas recorder. Its available options do not provide an adequate way to accurately caption videos.  

If your course releases modules to the class on a weekly schedule, you can provide early or extended access to students whose approved accommodations require it. Use Canvas’s Assign To feature to give individual students access to a module before or after it’s available to the rest of the class. There are two ways to use Assign To to provide early or extended access:

• Option 1: Give students advanced access to the module. You can assign the module to students with accommodations before it becomes available to the rest of the class. However, it is important to note that you will need to manually unassign the student(s) when the module opens to the rest of the class. Canvas doesn’t offer a way to set this up in advance.
• Option 2: Create a duplicate module for student(s) with accommodations. Assign the duplicate module to only the students who need early access. Once the module becomes available to the rest of the class, those students will see both the original and duplicate module. With this option, make sure to let students know in advance that they will see two versions of the module.

Some students may need to attend class remotely as part of their accommodation plan. You can use Zoom within Canvas to broadcast live sessions or record them for later viewing.

• Schedule a Zoom Meeting in Canvas
• Join a Zoom meeting from a general pool classroom

When discussing accommodations with students, always use private communication channels rather than public course areas. Canvas provides tools for communicating privately with individual students.

• Use the Canvas Inbox to send private messages.
• Use assignment comments to respond and provide feedback on individual submissions.

If you have questions about how to implement an accommodation in your course, you can contact the DRC or the Office of Academic Innovation directly for support. While the DRC focuses on student support, OAI offers faculty consultations and usability reviews, as well as resources on accessibility. OAI can help troubleshoot, clarify course design ideas, and collaborate on solutions that uphold both student access and course integrity. Submit a request here.