Improve Your Accessibility Score Using TidyUP

So, you have run Ally and need to improve your accessibility score. One easy way is to get rid of old files that are cluttering up your modules and folders. If you import your course from previous semesters and just keep adding new files without cleaning up old ones, lots of old files full of inaccessible materials (especially images and pdfs) can pile up in your Canvas courses and Ally will read them as inaccessible, whether or not you or your students are using them. 

Similarly, students can find or be confused by the presence of old files or older versions of files. So why not just get rid of them? 

IU instructors have access to a tool in Canvas that easily does just that! TidyUP is a tool that is free to use, which you can load into your canvas course to help you remove only the files that you are not using (TidyUP will not and cannot delete a file that is linked to content in your course). It’s simple to use and relatively harmless (with two caveats).  

1. Add TidyUP to your Canvas course navigation by adding it through the Settings Navigation tab (find TidyUP and enable it and save).  
2. Click on TidyUP in your course navigation and click the green “Scan Course” button 
3. After your course finishes scanning, it will display the results. Next to each unused file will be a red trash can icon. Files that are in use will not have this icon and cannot be deleted through TidyUP. 
   

Caveats:  

1. TidyUP cannot detect if you are using a file as part of a quiz. If you use images in your quizzes, save them somewhere you will not be tempted to delete them.  
2. Once deleted, files are gone!*
   

* This also is not as scary as it sounds however: if you have previous versions of your Canvas course, you can still find your files there. Or—better perhaps—you can use the “Download Selected” button before the Delete button and save a copy of your files. Also, as a last resort, you can use the /undelete feature in Canvas. But saving a copy of your files is probably your best bet.  

To learn more about using TidyUP in your Canvas course, read our Knowledge Base article, watch How-To videos from Cidi Labs, or contact the CITL with questions or for a personal teaching consultation.