diff --git a/lms/envs/common.py b/lms/envs/common.py
index ac03fe7117..eb8c3020d5 100644
--- a/lms/envs/common.py
+++ b/lms/envs/common.py
@@ -2187,6 +2187,9 @@ CSRF_COOKIE_SECURE = False
 
 REST_FRAMEWORK = {
     'DEFAULT_PAGINATION_CLASS': 'openedx.core.lib.api.paginators.DefaultPagination',
+    'DEFAULT_RENDERER_CLASSES': (
+        'rest_framework.renderers.JSONRenderer',
+    ),
     'PAGE_SIZE': 10,
     'URL_FORMAT_OVERRIDE': None,
     'DEFAULT_THROTTLE_RATES': {
diff --git a/requirements/edx/base.txt b/requirements/edx/base.txt
index df3b53ee52..f5455c8fa5 100644
--- a/requirements/edx/base.txt
+++ b/requirements/edx/base.txt
@@ -166,7 +166,7 @@ nose-exclude
 nose-ignore-docstring
 nose-randomly==1.2.0
 nosexcover==1.0.7
-pa11ycrawler==1.6.1
+pa11ycrawler==1.6.2
 pep8==1.5.7
 PyContracts==1.7.1
 python-subunit==0.0.16