Tools and Resources

Our team is here to provide MIT staff, faculty, and students with online resources to help ensure that users with disabilities can access MIT’s digital environment, including websites and course materials.  

Document conversion

SensusAccess is a self-service document conversion tool available to all MIT students, staff, and faculty. SensusAccess converts pre-existing documents into accessible formats, creates audio files, and converts static documents to editable text.

• SensusAccess (MIT Disability and Access Services)

Creating Accessible Documents

Accessible Math Information and Tools

Harvard’s guide to Accessible Math (Harvard University Digital Accessibility Services)

Adobe Acrobat Pro

• Create and Verify PDF Accessibility (Adobe)

Microsoft Word

• Microsoft Word: Creating Accessible Documents (WebAIM)

Excel

• Accessibility best practices with Excel spreadsheets (Microsoft)

Google

• Make your document or presentation more accessible (Google)
• Mark Up Headings in Google Docs (YouTube Video by Luis Perez)
• Introducing accessibility in typography (Google)

Pages

• Creating accessible documents, spreadsheets, or presentations with Pages (Apple Support)

Do It Yourself Captioning Tools

Amara is a free, public online captioning tool.  It also has a paid version with more functionality, and an enterprise option as well.

CADET (Captioning and Description Editing Tool) is a free desktop captioning and audio description editing tool for Mac and Windows.  It was created by the National Center for Accessible Media at WGBH in Boston. They have a series of YouTube tutorial videos on how to use CADET.  

YouTube generates captions automatically for videos that are uploaded to YouTube channels.  YouTube autocaptions do not meet accessibility standards for accuracy, since they are machine-generated, and contain errors and limited punctuation.  However, you can edit YouTube autocaptions to create more accurate captions for your videos.

Accessible Slide Decks

Powerpoint

• PowerPoint Accessibility (WebAIM)
• Making Presentations Accessible for All (W3C)
• Use the Accessibility Checker in Microsoft Office Products (YouTube Video by Texas Governor’s Committee on People with Disabilities )
• Make your PowerPoint presentations accessible to people with disabilities (Microsoft)

Keynote

• Creating accessible documents, spreadsheets, or presentations with Keynote (Apple Support)

Online Conferencing Tools

Zoom

• Managing manual captions
• Using closed captioning in Zoom Rooms
• Using audio transcription for cloud recordings

WebEx

• Webex Web App Accessibility Features

Open Learning Resources for MIT Faculty

MIT Open Learning instructional videos, including information about accessibility

Polling and Response Tools

Poll Everywhere

Poll Everywhere Accessibility Standards Poll Everywhere has thoughtfully incorporated accessibility into their design. If you use Poll Everywhere as part of a presentation, read aloud the question and response options in addition to showing them in writing, and share the link to the poll in the web conference chat.

Google Forms

Google Forms (University of Minnesota)

Chat and Communication Tools

• Piazza Lite is a more accessible version of the Piazza tool
• Accessibility in Slack

External Evaluation Tools

• WAVE Toolbar from WebAIM
• ANDI from the United States Social Security Administration
• Axe DevTools from Deque

All inquiries are welcome at accessibility@mit.edu.