Ally is a tool that is embedded in Canvas that is designed to convert the format of media for students to use in your course. We refer to these as Alternative formats. These alternatives give students options to meet many kinds of needs. There are lots of reasons to convert format. Alternative formats provide greater opportunity for everyone to access the information they need in the way they need or want it. As an instructor, you can create your content without having to worry about converting it to alternative formats for your learners!
As an instructor, what can Ally do for me? Course accessibility reports give instructors vital feedback about the accessibility of the content within their courses. Ally can check individual documents, or you can review a comprehensive course report. Specifically, Ally will check the following types of files, images, and documents within a course:
- PDF files
- Microsoft® Word files.
- Microsoft® PowerPoint® files.
- OpenOffice/LibreOffice files.
- Uploaded HTML files.
- Image files (JPG, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TIFF)
- WYSIWYG/VTBE content. ...
- YouTubeTM videos embedded in WYSIWYG/VTBE content.
Course reports provide detailed feedback through little gauges that indicate the accessibility of content as outlined in the graphic below:
How can I fix my gauges if Ally reveals problems? The course report will provide detailed information on how to fix typical problems that it finds.
For a complete system tutorial, download the Learn_2020.pdf file available on the right side of this screen.
For your reference, click here for a short student introduction video on how to use Ally.
Ally help for instructors can be found here –
The following links provide instructions to update the problems that the course report identifies:
Add Headings to a document
Fix Text Contrast
Add Image Descriptions
Tag a PDF
Remove Harmful Content
Scanned PDFs
Ally Quick Start
Course Accessibility Support