What is Ally?
Ally is a tool in Canvas that benefits all students by helping to improve the accessibility and usability of course materials. Ally seamlessly integrates into Canvas and automatically checks the accessibility of course content. It provides feedback and step-by-step instructions for how to remediate specific accessibility barriers, and it enables students to access alternative formats of your course content, such as audio recordings and/or translated versions of text documents.
What you'll see in Instructor view
In a Canvas course, Ally displays a small gauge indicator next to each piece of content in a module, or a file added using the Rich Content Editor (such as an image). These indicators are almost exactly like a stop light. When the indicators are dark green, your content is ready to be accessed by students of all abilities. If you see a red or orange indicator, there are elements of the item or its presence in the course that are not accessible and would benefit from attention. Depending on the color of the indicator, Ally provides feedback to guide you toward remediation of the problem it's identified.
Further, each course also has an overall accessibility “score” that is only visible to the instructor and Stan State Canvas administrators. The score is an informational guide only. It will not be used for personnel or formal course evaluation purposes.
Need help fixing your content?
Do you need help making your course content more accessible and wish there was someone who could help? Well, worry no more! OAT's team of remediation experts are available to help make your content accessible for you. Simply submit a work request form, upload the files, and we'll get right on it!
- Submit Accessibility Work Request
- Learn more about our Accessibility Services
Make your content accessible to all learners
Your class is full of diverse students with unique learning abilities. Providing them with more accessible content means they can choose formats that work best for them: HTML for improved reading on mobile phones, Electronic Braille for the visually impaired, and Audio for learning on the go. Ally automatically scans your original content and performs a series of steps to make them more accessible.
Ally automatically creates these alternative formats for all of your course files and makes them available for you and your students to download. Your original file will not be affected by the alternative formats.
Ally and accessibility support
Contact oatsupport@csustan.edu if you have questions about Ally or need help with making a specific piece of content accessible.
Learn about Ally one fix at a time. Walk through accessibility scenarios, and see how Ally feedback helps you improve inclusive learning in your course
- Ally accessibility indicators
- Add alternative descriptions to image files
- Best practices for image descriptions added through Ally for Canvas
- Remove potentially harmful content
- Scanned PDFs: An enemy to accessibility
- Add a library reference
- View all file accessibility issues
- Add alternative descriptions to PowerPoint images
- Add headings to a Word document
- Add headers to your data tables in Word
- Export a Word document as a tagged PDF
Additional Resources
Updated: October 27, 2023