Accessibility in STEM Courses
Ensuring that all students in a course have equal access to course materials and content is a crucial part of complying with Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and is a sign of quality teaching. This means that students with disabilities, whether they are disclosed or not, should not have to wait around for versions of files that are compatible with assistive technology and consider a variety of needs and barriers.
This proactive approach is necessary for all courses, but instructors of subjects relating to science, technology, engineering, or math may need to consider some discipline-specific aspects to digital accessibility.
First, master the basics
Before tackling these more advanced topics, familiarize yourself with digital accessibility fundamentals. This will help you understand the rest of the advice in this guide.
If you have not already done so, check out the sources that seem most relevant and helpful to you:
- Top Tips for Accessibility: A list of fundamental concepts of digital accessibility for content creation with definitions and links to more information.
- Taking Steps to Title II: A Digital Accessibility Crash Course: A recorded webinar outlining our obligations under the ADA and introducing fundamental concepts of digital accessibility with an example of creating an accessible PowerPoint.
- Accessibility in 5: A video archive that goes into more detail about various concepts within five minutes or less.
- 8 Steps to Course Accessibility: A resource to help instructors organize their time while they work on making a course more accessible. Includes information on various tools that can help.
Alternative text and graphics for STEM content
Writing quality alternative text for content like diagrams, infographics about processes, and data visualizations can feel daunting because they contain so much content. How can you accurately convey enough information to understand the visual without making the alt text impossibly long?
For a graph, start by saying what the graph represents and defining the X and Y axes (both the variables and the scale) before giving a brief description of the general data. Depending on the purpose of the image, that might mean identifying high and low points, trends, etc. It's helpful to remember that a lot of the analysis will likely occur in another part of the content (text, dialogue, etc.), allowing the alt text to be brief in accordance with best practices. Remember that text contained within an image will not be read by assistive technology, so if the title of the graph is part of the image, that should be the first thing the alternative text defines.
For other types of complicated diagrams, first identify what the image is or provide a brief summary, and then describe the image from general to specific or sequentially, as the content demands. Focus on what the image conveys instead of getting hung up on the details of shapes (e.g. A hydrogen atom as opposed to a circle containing the letter H). What is the actual information that the image provides and what does it teach you? Focus on content that is not replicated in text around the image to avoid alt text that is too long.
If you don’t feel comfortable with information that is missing from the alternative text in order to keep it concise, you might provide a short summary in the alt text and have an accompanying document or appendix with longer image descriptions. Remember there will also be cases where students have accommodations for other formats such as tactile graphics and will be relying on a combination of those and the alt text you provide.
What about a situation where analyzing the visual is an important component of an assignment? Remember that the purpose of alternative text is to provide access to purely visual content: It does not have to provide an analysis if that would be counter to the purpose of the image. For example, most students can tell at a glance if a photograph of a leaf is yellow with brown spots instead of green with white spots and whether the line on a graph trends up or down. Making the image accessible means replicating that information. The analysis comes into play when the student takes that information and explains what sort of pathogen might be impacting the leaf or what the implications of the graph are.
Rendering mathematical equations
Make sure any content that contains mathematical equations renders them in a way that can be perceived by somebody who is having the equation read aloud to them by assistive technology such as a screen reader. The two most common ways of doing this are inserting fragments of the typesetting language LaTeX or the HTML-based language MathML into a file or document. The equation should visually look like text and be selectable, but it will be perceivable for all students.
Many programs contain equation editors that will rely on one of these languages to allow you to add or edit equations smoothly within the file. In Canvas, the Rich Content Editor has a tool called Insert Math Equation that lets you select equations or paste in LaTeX code. In Microsoft products, you can find the word Insert at the top and then locate “Equation” to open a tool that allows you to insert and edit them. You can also use the MathType add-in if you have access to it. Pressbooks also supports LaTeX equations.
AI tools such as Navigator Chat can take an image of your equation and give you the LaTeX code for you to copy and paste into another program, but be sure to evaluate the output for accuracy.
Starting from a LaTeX document
Starting from a LaTeX file and converting it into a PDF is a common workflow, but there are a couple of things you need to do to ensure that the resulting PDF will contain the necessary metadata to make it structured and readable for someone using assistive technology.
First, you will need to install a recent version of LaTeX that was released on or after November 1, 2025. Then, familiarize yourself with instructions on how to generate a tagged PDF from the LaTeX Tagging Project. Finally, you will want to review the output and add alternative text or tags that were missed. You can do this by opening the PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro, running the accessibility checker, and fixing any issues you uncover. It may be helpful to become more familiar with PDF accessibility. There are PDF remediation tutorials on YouTube, but please note that our standard is WCAG 2.1 A and AA.
Handwritten notes
Many STEM instructors take handwritten notes in class and post images or screenshots of them on Canvas. This can be a valuable study tool, but an image that is filled with dense text excludes students who use assistive technology, have low-vision, have certain learning disabilities, or other reasons.
You can make these resources more accessible by using technology to run optical character recognition (OCR) to convert images of text to text or to convert an image of a formula to MathML or LaTeX. The goal is to end up with a file type that is more compatible with assistive technology, such as a Word document. Navigator Chat can help with OCR, or you can find another tool online that works for you. Regardless of the quality of the tool, the output will not be perfect and must be edited. Equations can be especially challenging with OCR, and you may still have images of graphs or diagrams that require alternative text.
You might also choose to record the relevant parts of your lecture and use Navigator to create a transcript that you edit. Then the recording and transcript could accompany the notes as a form of audio description.
Some instructors may find that Microsoft Word is a good option for their handwritten notes and that after class they can use Ink to Text, Shape, and Math Equations to create a sole version to post online. Just remember to add alternative text to hand drawn shapes.
Conclusion
Accessible STEM courses are achievable by remembering best practices with alternative text, considering the accessibility of formulas, and keeping in mind how various students might need to access course materials and notes. For additional help, request an accessibility consultation with CITT and specify your specific questions in the form. We are always happy to do our best to help!