What is Ally?
Ally makes it easy for instructors to update their course content to make it more accessible. The tool integrates into each Canvas course and will scan course materials and give each file, document, and image an accessibility score. Ally will also scan Canvas "Pages" content and provide an accessibility score. Instructors can then see which content in their course needs improvement from an accessibility standpoint. Ally provides step-by-step instructions for how to fix the accessibility issues it detects.
What will instructors see in regards to Ally in Canvas?
Gauges:
Instructors will see different colored gauges to the right of their course content. Each gauge color represents the level of accessibility of each piece of content. The level of accessibility is determined by how many issues are present within the content. A lower score indicates more issues, while a higher score indicates fewer issues. Ally will give each piece of content a numerical score ranging from 0% (not accessible) to 100% (perfectly accessible). The colored gauges reflect this score. Students do not see the gauges.
Instructor Feedback Panel:
Hovering over the gauges will show the accessibility score of a particular piece of content. However, the gauge can be clicked on, which will open what is called the Instructor Feedback Panel. This is where more detailed feedback about the accessibility issues, as well as how to fix them will be shown. The Instructor Feedback Panel will open with a preview of your file on the left side of the screen, and Ally's detailed feedback on the right. In the preview of the file, Ally will highlight in red certain accessibility issues such as images missing an alternative description, text with insufficient contrast, and tables that are missing headers. All other accessibility issues will not be highlighted in the preview, but will be noted in the detailed feedback Ally provides. The Instructor Feedback Panel will also provide step-by-step directions for how to resolve each type of accessibility issue.
Course Accessibility Report:
The Course Accessibility Report is generated automatically by Ally and gives instructors an overview of how accessible their entire course is. The report is a compliment to the gauges and further helps instructors make the necessary accessibility updates to their course content. It can be added to the course navigation menu for easy access. The Course Accessibility Report helps instructors determine which pieces of course content have the most severe accessibility issues. Students do not see the Course Accessibility Report.
The report will show three things:
- An overall accessibility score for the course
- A list of the different types of course content present in the course (PDFs, Word Documents, PowerPoints, etc.)
- A list of all accessibility issues currently present in the course content
What will students see in regards to Ally in Canvas?
Students will see download arrows to the right of each piece of content in their Canvas courses. Clicking the download arrows will open up an alternative formats window where the desired format can be downloaded. The alternative formats Ally provides are tagged PDFs, HTML, ePub, electronic braille, audio, and translated versions of documents. Students do not see anything regarding accessibility scores in their Canvas courses.
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