Anastasia Kurdia Inducted to Northwestern IT’s ‘Mission: Accessible’ Wall of Fame

Northwestern Engineering’s Anastasia Kurdia is creating more inclusive, usable, and inclusive digital learning opportunities for students on the Canvas Learning Management System.

Kurdia recently completed the Northwestern Information Technology Mission: Accessible challenge for the COMP_SCI 150: Fundamentals of Computer Programming 1.5 course and has been inducted to the Mission: Accessible Wall of Fame.

“While we are not writing code when developing Canvas sites, we are still building software for people,” said Kurdia, a professor of instruction and assistant chair of computer science at the McCormick School of Engineering.

“It’s important that accessibility features are readily available for the students who rely on them,” said Kurdia. “And it’s also important, especially in a foundational computer science course such as CS 150, for every student to see that the diverse needs of users must be considered in software development process.”

Kurdia ensured that the CS 150 Canvas course now meets seven core accessibility criteria: proper heading structure, meaningful hyperlinks, descriptive alternative text, correct use of tables for data with captions and row/column headers, sufficient color contrast with page background, navigable lists, consistent inclusion of captions and/or transcriptions with audio or video media.

“We greatly appreciate Anastasia’s dedication to making Northwestern’s digital learning environment more accessible and inclusive to all students,” said Victoria Getis, senior director of teaching and learning technologies at Northwestern Information Technology. “This accomplishment is great progress, and we will continue increasing the accessibility of course site pages and content created inside the Canvas platform.”