| name | canvas-accessibility-auditor |
| description | Accessibility audit and remediation for Canvas LMS courses. Scans content for WCAG violations, generates prioritized reports, guides fixes, and verifies remediation. Use when asked to "audit accessibility", "check WCAG compliance", "fix accessibility issues", or "run accessibility review". |
Canvas Accessibility Auditor
Full accessibility audit cycle for Learning Designers: scan course content, generate prioritized report, guide remediation of fixable issues, re-scan to verify fixes, produce compliance summary.
Prerequisites
- Canvas MCP server must be running and connected.
- Authenticated user must have instructor, TA, or designer role in the target course.
- For UFIXIT integration: the course must have a UFIXIT report page (generated by your institution's accessibility tool).
Steps
1. Identify Target Course
Ask the user which course to audit. Accept a course code, Canvas ID, or course name.
If not specified, prompt:
Which course would you like to audit for accessibility?
2. Scan Course Content
Run two scans in parallel if possible:
Scan A -- Direct content scan:
scan_course_content_accessibility(course_identifier, "pages,assignments")
This checks all page and assignment HTML for:
- Images missing alt text (WCAG 1.1.1, Level A)
- Empty headings (WCAG 2.4.6, Level AA)
- Tables missing headers (WCAG 1.3.1, Level A)
- Non-descriptive link text like "click here" (WCAG 2.4.4, Level A)
Scan B -- UFIXIT report (if available):
fetch_ufixit_report(course_identifier)
If the UFIXIT page exists, parse it:
parse_ufixit_violations(report_json)
3. Generate Prioritized Report
Combine results from both scans. Call format_accessibility_summary if using UFIXIT data.
Present issues sorted by priority:
## Accessibility Audit: [Course Name]
### Summary
- Content scanned: 20 pages, 15 assignments
- Total issues: 12
- Auto-fixable: 8 | Manual review needed: 4
### Level A Violations (must fix)
1. **Missing alt text** -- 5 images across 3 pages
- Page "Week 1 Overview": 2 images
- Page "Lab Instructions": 2 images
- Assignment "Final Project": 1 image
2. **Tables missing headers** -- 2 tables
- Page "Grade Scale": 1 table
- Page "Schedule": 1 table
3. **Non-descriptive links** -- 3 instances of "click here"
- Page "Resources": 2 links
- Page "Week 3 Overview": 1 link
### Level AA Violations (should fix)
4. **Empty headings** -- 2 empty heading elements
- Page "Week 5 Notes": 1 empty h3
- Page "Midterm Review": 1 empty h2
### Manual Review Required
- Color contrast: Cannot be checked automatically (requires visual inspection)
- Video captions: Cannot be verified via API (check in Canvas media player)
- PDF accessibility: Cannot be parsed via API (use Adobe Acrobat checker)
4. Guided Remediation
For each auto-fixable issue, walk the user through the fix:
For missing alt text:
- Call
get_page_content(course_identifier, page_url) to retrieve the HTML
- Identify the
<img> tags without alt attributes
- Ask the user for alt text descriptions (or suggest based on surrounding context)
- Call
edit_page_content(course_identifier, page_url, new_content) with corrected HTML
For non-descriptive links:
- Retrieve the page content
- Show the current link:
<a href="...">click here</a>
- Suggest descriptive replacement:
<a href="...">Download the syllabus (PDF)</a>
- Apply fix after user approval
For empty headings:
- Retrieve the page content
- Show the empty heading
- Ask: "Remove this heading, or add text to it?"
- Apply the chosen fix
For tables missing headers:
- Retrieve the page content
- Show the table structure
- Ask: "Which row/column should be headers?"
- Convert
<td> to <th> elements and apply
Always ask for user confirmation before modifying any page.
5. Re-scan Modified Pages
After remediation, re-run the scan on modified pages only:
scan_course_content_accessibility(course_identifier, "pages")
Report: "Fixed 8/12 issues. 4 remaining require manual review."
6. Generate Compliance Summary
Produce a final summary suitable for stakeholder reporting:
## Accessibility Compliance Summary
**Course:** [Course Name]
**Audit Date:** [date]
**Auditor:** AI-assisted audit via Canvas MCP
### Results
- Total content items scanned: 35
- Automated issues found: 12
- Issues remediated: 8
- Issues requiring manual review: 4
- WCAG Level A compliance: Partial (manual review items remain)
### Remediation Actions Taken
- Added alt text to 5 images
- Fixed 3 non-descriptive links
- Removed 2 empty headings
### Outstanding Items
- Color contrast review needed (pages with colored text)
- Video caption verification (embedded videos)
- PDF accessibility check (uploaded PDFs)
### Recommendation
Course content meets automated WCAG 2.1 Level A criteria after remediation.
Manual review of color contrast and multimedia is recommended before publishing.
MCP Tools Used
| Tool | Purpose |
|---|
scan_course_content_accessibility | Scan pages and assignments for WCAG issues |
fetch_ufixit_report | Retrieve institutional UFIXIT report |
parse_ufixit_violations | Extract structured violations from report |
format_accessibility_summary | Format violations into readable report |
get_page_content | Retrieve page HTML for remediation |
edit_page_content | Apply accessibility fixes to pages |
list_courses | Find available courses |
Example
User: "Run accessibility audit for CS 101"
Agent: Scans all content, generates the prioritized report.
User: "Fix the missing alt text issues"
Agent: Retrieves each affected page, asks for alt text descriptions, applies fixes, re-scans.
Limitations
- Cannot check: Color contrast, video captions, PDF accessibility, audio descriptions, keyboard navigation
- These are flagged as "manual review required" in every report
- Remediation is per-page: Each fix requires a full page content read and write cycle
- No undo: Page edits via the API do not create Canvas revision history -- back up pages before bulk fixes
Notes
- Pairs well with
canvas-course-qc for comprehensive pre-semester review.
- Run after major content updates or course imports.
- UFIXIT integration depends on your institution having UDOIT/UFIXIT installed.
