Course Materials Workflows
A collection of the ways in which our faculty create digital content.
Workflow Name | Purpose/Context | Input | Authoring Platform(s) | Output/Distribution | Barriers to Remediation | Examples | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Handwritten Notes → PDF | Lecture notes posted after class | Written text + math | GoodNotes | PDF uploaded to Canvas | Tedious to type out note after the fact, excessively difficult to type out notes in the moment. OCR software and AI transcription unreliable for math. |  Screenshot of handwritten lecture notes generated with GoodNotes |
| 2 | Annotated Notes → PDF | Lecture notes posted after class | Written + typed text + math | Notability | PDF uploaded to Canvas | Tedious to type out note after the fact, excessively difficult to type out notes in the moment. OCR software and AI transcription unreliable for math. | Screenshot of after-class notes PDF, partially typed, partially handwritten |
| 3 | Annotated Notes → PDF | Lecture notes posted after class | Written + typed text + math |
| PDF uploaded to Canvas | Tedious to type out note after the fact, excessively difficult to type out notes in the moment. OCR software and AI transcription unreliable for math. Some annotations do not have easy equivalents when notes are typed. | Screenshot of lecture notes generated using multiple tools
|
| 4 | Typed Course Resources - Pages | Lecture notes posted after class, other course resources provided to students | text + math | Pages | PDF uploaded to Canvas | Pages equation tools lack accessible math export or HTML export; remediation requires external math tools | Screenshot of reference sheet provided to students showing tables, columns, and heavy math notation |
| 5 | Presentation Slides | Lecture notes posted before/after class | Typed text + math + images | Keynote | PDF uploaded to Canvas | Use of multiple text boxes destroys reading order; no way to set reading order manually. “Styles” in Apple products do not canonically map onto structural headings. | Screenshot of lecture slide showing multiple text boxes, math notation, and headings |
| 6 | Homework templates | Files for students to duplicate and use for homework | LaTeX | Overleaf | Overleaf project (containing .tex file) |
| Screenshot showing Overleaf LaTeX editor and PDF output |
| 7 | LaTeX code for student use | Raw LaTeX code for students to duplicate and use to complete assignments | LaTeX or other code | Microsoft Word | docx file uploaded to Canvas (students eventually use Overleaf) |
| Screenshot showing LaTeX code in a docx file |
| 8 | Course Assignments |
|
| RStudio |
|
|
|
| 9 |
|
| text + math notation | Microsoft Word | docx file posted as is or exported to PDF |
|
|
| 10 |
|
|
| Jupyter | Jupyter notebook containing ?? |
|
|
| 11 | Course communications | Information sent to students by Announcement/email in a variety of contexts | Text | Canvas HTML | HTML sent to student email or viewed on Canvas | Faculty need to ensure links are descriptive; headings may be necessary depending on length of message |
|
Purpose / Context
Describe what the material is for and where it appears in the course.
Examples:
lecture slides used during class
lecture notes posted after class
homework assignment distributed through LMS
in-class worksheet
research notes for publication
course webpage content
Output / Distribution
Describe the produced object, its format, and how students receive it.
Examples:
PDF uploaded to Canvas files
HTML Canvas page
PowerPoint file downloaded from LMS
printed handout
webpage hosted outside LMS
Barriers Examples
What makes this artifact difficult to produce accessibly?
“export tool does not generate tags”
“requires manual Acrobat tagging”
“OCR unreliable for mathematics”
“author must understand LaTeX tagging packages”
“workflow optimized for visual presentation rather than document structure”
“Software does not natively support structural headings”