
Making Events Accessible — a checklist
Upcoming Events:
National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM) Speaker Series
Please join the Johns Hopkins Employees with Disabilities ERG for a weekly speaker series in October to celebrate National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM)!
October and November Digital Accessibility Events
Topic: Remediating Inaccessible Documents Using Prep by Continual Engine
November 13 from 1-2 pm ET
Presented by Kamran Rasul, Assistive Technology and Alternative Format Consultant, Student Disability Services
Come and learn about our newest document remediation software resource, Prep by Continual Engine! When compared to other document editing software, such as Acrobat Professional, this one has cut our document preparation by half (in most cases). This includes tagging and remediating text, images, tables, and math content and produces PDF, HTML, and docx formats.
Join us to view our live demonstration of Prep!
Register for Prep by Continual Engine Demo
Topic: Ally for Canvas Fix Your Content Day (FYCD) Fix-a-Thon
November 18, 2025 — All day long. Fix-a-Thon Zoom meeting from 11 am to 1 pm
On Fix Your Content Day, faculty and instructional staff engage in an exercise to promote the importance of making course materials accessible and inclusive. Participants will use the Ally for Canvas tool to identify and fix accessibility barriers in as many Canvas course documents as possible in the 24-hour period from 12 AM to 11:59 PM on November 18th! Instructors and course staff can work with colleagues to find easy wins in improving the Ally scores of course documents! Ways to do so include:
- Removal of old and unused files that can improve your Ally scores
- Substitute image-only PDFs with actual text articles
- Use ALT text to describe informational images
- Make your PDFs accessible by adding tags and heading
- Improve color contrast in documents to make them more readable
Join us for a file Fix-a-Thon on Nov. 18 from 11 am to 1 pm as we fix our documents. Come for part of the session or all of it! See how many files your division can fix in a 24-hour period! Challenge other divisions to do the same!
Register for Fix Your Content Day Fix-a-Thon
Topic: Creating Accessible Materials with Canva (not Canvas!)
November 19, 2025 from 12-1 pm
Presenter: Anushka Jajodia, Visual Communications Designer, JHU School of Nursing
This session will share practical tips for creating accessible slides, documents, and flyers in Canva, the online graphic design tool. We’ll cover how to make text readable with proper font choices and sizes, ensure strong color contrast, add alt text to images, and structure content with clear headings and logical reading order. You’ll also learn how to write descriptive link text, provide alternatives for QR codes, and export files so text remains selectable and usable by assistive technology. The goal is to give you straightforward, actionable steps to make your Canva designs accessible and inclusive for all audiences.
Register for Creating Accessible Materials with Canva
Recorded Digital Accessibility and Disability Events
Technical Topics:
- Manual Accessibility Checking for Non-Programmers (September 2025) Manual Check Slides
- Creating Accessible PDFs from InDesign (October 2025) InDesign Slides
- Quick Accessibility Check for Non-Programmers (August 2025) Quick Check Slides
- Creating Image Descriptions Using AI Tools with Kamran Rasul, Student Disability Services (July 2025) Creating Image Description slides
- Designing for All: Making Data Visualizations More Accessible with Pete Lawson, Sheridan Libraries (June 2025) Data Visualization slides
- From Promise to Practice: AI and Accessibility with Dr. Claire Brady (April 2025)
- Communication Access — Accessibility Open Office Hours (Feb. 2025) Communication Access Slides
- Assistive Technology Overview — Accessibility Open Office Hours (November 2024)
- Siteimprove Platform Demo (November 2024)
- Creating Accessible Event Flyers and Announcements (October 2024) Accessible Event Flyer slides
- Planning Accessible and Inclusive Events (October 2024) Accessible Meeting slides
- Intro to Siteimprove (October 2024) Intro to Siteimprove slides
- Demystifying STEM Accessibility for Students Who Are Blind or Low Vision (April 2024)
- Digital Accessibility: A User Perspective (May 2024)
- Best Practices for Accessible Content Creation (JHU Be an Ally Event, April 2023)
- Social Media Accessibility (JHU Be an Ally Event, April 2023)
- Creating Accessible Word and Powerpoint Files (JHU Be an Ally Event, April 2023)
- Practical Strategies for Enhancing Digital Accessibility at JHU by Prof. Jonathan Lazar (May 2023)
- Inclusive Teaching: Math Accessibility, Part 1: Math as a Language (November 2023)
- Inclusive Teaching: Math Accessibility, Part 2: Equation Creation Tools (November 2023)
General Disability Topics:
- Ableism and Unconscious Bias, Part 1 (February 2022) (For JHU community only)
- Accessible and Inclusive Meetings, Events and Conferences webinar (JHM Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Health Equity webinar, March 2022) Link to event slides
- Demystifying Disability — a Fireside Chat with Emily Ladau (JHU community event, July 2022)