Panorama Overview

All courses now include the Panorama accessibility tool to help promote full student inclusion in Dakota State University courses.

The Panorama Digital Accessibility Platform provides organizations with the unique ability to correct the accessibility of their digital content and provide alternative formats for users with learning disabilities. Panorama integrates seamlessly with D2L Brightspace. It provides instructors with scorecards and badges to help ensure content is as accessible as possible.

Panorama is a tool that can help faculty check and improve the accessibility of their course documents. The tool integrates into your course shell to assess the accessibility of your course documents and D2L itself then provides feedback and instructions to help make your documents accessible for all.

Panorama has many useful tools including:

• An Accessibility Checker
• A Course Overview and Analytics Report 
• An Alternate Formats Tool
• An Easier way to Add Alt-Text to Reused Images
• An Accessible Design Tool for Canvas Pages
• An Enhanced Accessibility Experience Widget

Check out this overview video by clicking the link below. Please note that the video references a different LMS than Dakota State University's D2L.

Panorama Overview

One of the most noticeable differences is that Panorama examines documents in addition to course content. Also, the reporting interface allows faculty to better track the progress they have made. Finally, students benefit from the alternate formats feature. 

The South Dakota Board of Regents D2L Committee and the Academic Affairs Council chose to change to the Panorama tool after a great deal of testing and evaluation. They felt that Panorama offers a lot more features and innovation to help you make your materials accessible for your students.

Don’t worry – you don’t have to fix everything at once – and we promise you won’t need to learn whole new programs or learn to code. Panorama is just a tool to help start the conversation about how you can ensure that your materials are inclusive for all students. In fact, many accessibility practices actually make it easier to manage documents.

For example: In addition to word processors having built-in tools for headings, lists and tables, captions are useful for students of all levels, and practices such as adding alternative text to your graphics can actually help you clarify the information you are going to share.