To support the UD Accessibility initiative on campus, a tool called Ally has been enabled throughout Canvas. This tool will assist faculty in making their course content accessible. Integrated seamlessly into Canvas, Ally will give you information regarding how accessible your course materials are using the WCAG accessibility standards. Besides checking your files (PDFs, images, Office documents, HTML), guidance is provided to help you improve your files accessibility.
Ally also provides your students with alternative formats such as an audio file. Based on the original file, these formats are created for you and found conveniently through the menu beside the file. There are many uses for these alternative formats that can help improve the learning experience for our students here at UD. Remember though, these alternative formats are only as good as the original file. So let ALLY’s guidance help you make sure all your course content is in accessible format.
How does this work? Uploading new content into your course or any existing content that already exists will be checked. Ally will scan the file and produce an accessibility score. This score is symbolized by a little gauge next to the document/image (on the Canvas page, the modules list, and in the Files list). The gauge will be red, yellow, or green depending on the score.
IMPORTANT: The information Ally provides to faculty, regarding each file and the accessibility score it provides, is only available for the instructor to see. STUDENTS do not see these indicators. Students can see the alternative formats automatically produced.
To learn more about Ally, read the quick-start-guide found in the new open Canvas Accessibility Overview course. You can also sign up for an upcoming workshop: Canvas: Overview of Ally on January 31st or February 6th. To register see our Canvas Workshops page.
Questions can also be addressed to canvas-info@udel.edu.
