Panorama for Digital Accessibility 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 all major LMS platforms, including Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, and D2L Brightspace.
Locating the Panorama Tools
Panorama supports DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPTX, PDF, HTML, TXT, GIF, XLS, XLSX, ODT, ODP, ODS, and RTF file types. Instructors and Students can access Panorama tools in LMS courses where Panorama has been made accessible. Users can then accesses either a document's Alternative Formats or Accessibility Report.
- Alternative Formats are accessible by Students and Instructors of a course by selecting the colored icon of a document in the LMS.
- Accessibility Scores are accessible by instructors of a course by selecting the colored icon of a document in the LMS.
- The blue circle is for student view.
- The green hexagon is for accessibility scores greater than 70%.
- The yellow triangle is for accessibility scores between 30% and 70%.
- The red octagon is for accessibility scores less than or equal to 30%.
- The grey prohibition sign is for documents with disabled alternative formats.
Using the Accessibility Report for LMS Documents
When a file is uploaded into the course, an Accessibility Score is automatically assigned to the accessibility of the document. Instructors can use the score and the flagged issues to improve the accessibility of the document for other Users.
- After you upload a new file into your LMS course, Panorama will automatically scan the file and generate an Accessibility Report that will include an Accessibility Score for the file.
- Users can view the name of the file, the file type, the Accessibility Score, and the number of flagged issues within the report.
- View Issues help Instructors identify accessibility concerns flagged by the Panorama AI, the severity of the issues, and tips on how to resolve them in order to improve the overall Accessibility Score of the document.
- Instructors can drag and drop the updated document into Dropbox to upload an improved version of the document that should be available to Students.
Viewing the Alternative Formats
Alternative Formats give Users access to different versions of the LMS document, which Panorama automatically generates. Users can select the file type that works best for them. Instructors can also toggle Visible to Students ON or OFF, which allows them to enable or disable student access to individual files.
- Below is the list of available Panorama Alternative Formats:
- Source File: View the document in its original format, suitable for download viewing.
- PDF: View the document in PDF format, suitable for both online and download viewing.
- Text File: View the document in a pure text format without any formatting styles, suitable for both online and download viewing.
- Immersive Reader: Allows for customizations to text preferences, grammar options, and reading preferences while following along with the audio playback.
- Gradient Reader: Enhances visual word recognition when reading by providing a guiding color gradient.
- EPUB: View the document in the ebook format, suitable for any ebook reader application.
- Braille: View the document in the braille format, suitable for download viewing (a braille reader is required).
- Audio Podcast: Audio playback for documents, suitable for both online and download listening.
- OCR: Convert images with text into machine-encoded text that can be searched and read by screen readers.
- OCR PDF: Text within images and GIFs inserted into a document can be searched and read aloud by screen readers.
- OCR Text: Recommended for those who’d like plain text, the OCR tool will extract and display text within images and GIFs as a TXT file.
- OCR Audio: Extract text within images and GIFs into an MP3 text-to-speech audio player.
- Math Formats: Convert documents containing math equations into LaTeX, clear text (i.e., numbers and symbols to words), or MP3 files.
- Latex: Convert documents into LaTeX document format.
- Math Audio: Convert documents into printed English, including numbers and symbols.
- Math Audio: Convert documents to MP3.
- Language Translation: Translate a document automatically to over 100 languages, which can be downloaded.
Accessing Advanced Panorama Reporting and Configurations
Advanced Panorama reporting is available to Administrators and Instructors through the Panorama LTI tool. Instructors and Administrators can use the reports to identify trends in Panorama issues and usage. Administrators can also access Panorama's advanced configurations to customize the LMS's behavior.
- Instructors and Administrators can access the User Engagement and Course Reporting reports in available courses. In addition, metrics such as average Accessibility Scores, Alternative Format Downloads, and Accessibility Issues help them identify trends in the usage of the Panorama Platform.
- Administrators can access Institution Reporting to identify system-wide trends that can be addressed through increased usage of Panorama or user training.
- Administrators can access Panorama Advanced Configurations through the gear icon from the left-hand navigation menu of the LTI window.
Things to know
1. To automatically land on the Course Report after clicking Panorama inside your LMS, download the Panorama browser extension. Installing the extension is not required if your institution uses Canvas or Moodle.
2. Creating a portal account in Panorama is not required but allows users to access the Panorama LTI App without logging into their LMS. To learn how to create a Panorama portal account, please click here.