Ally Accessibility - Faculty Resources

STEP 1: Start in Canvas with the Rich Content Editor's Accessibility Checker Links to an external site.

You can use the Accessibility Checker to design course content while considering accessibility attributes. Common flagged items include missing alternative descriptions for images, text color contrast, heading levels, missing table captions and headers, and incorrectly formatted lists. Update this content using Canvas' Accessibility Checker and it will remain "fixed" when you import course content/copy a Canvas course for next semester.

STEP 2: Create accessible documents (PDF, Word, PowerPoint, etc.) at the start

Significantly improve accessibility as you create documents by doing these five things:

• Add Headings to Documents Links to an external site.
• Add Headers to Document Data Tables Links to an external site.
• Fix Text Contrast Links to an external site.
• Provide Alternative Text for Images Links to an external site.
• Save your document as a Tagged PDF Links to an external site.
  • or Replace your document Links to an external site.

Blackboard Ally is available in many different languages. Availability includes the Ally interface, as well as the alternative formats, including the audio format.

The audio alternative format is made available in a voice that reflects the language of the source document. It uses the most appropriate accent based on the location of the Ally deployment. For example, a user in North America would receive a North American English accent, a user in Europe would receive a British English accent and a user in Australia would receive an Australian English accent for an English document.

Blackboard Ally is available in these languages.

• Arabic
• Catalan
• Danish
• Dutch
• English, US
• English, UK
• Finnish
• French
• French, Canadian
• German
• Hebrew (Ally interface only at this time)
• Irish
• Italian
• Maori (Ally interface only at this time)
• Norwegian Bokmål
• Norwegian Nynorsk
• Polish
• Portuguese
• Portuguese, Brazilian
• Spanish, American
• Spanish, Colombian
• Spanish, Mexican
• Swedish
• Turkish
• Welsh

Ally is supported on the same browser as the Learning Management System (LMS) it is accessed from.

1. 1. Google Chrome™
   2. Mozilla Firefox^®
   3. Microsoft Edge^®
   4. Internet Explorer^®
   5. Safari^®

When you copy a course, all alternative formats and instructor feedback will also be available in the new course. There can be a delay before everything is moved over to the new course.

In many cases, improving the accessibility of course content benefits all students, including those without a disability. Accessibility is often closely connected to the quality and usability of the course materials.

Example 1: Having a proper digital copy of a document instead of a scan makes the document more usable for all students. It might make the document easier to read, especially for low-quality scans, and it also allows students to search through the document and find specific content, copy and paste sections of the document, and so on.

Example 2: The Semantic HTML alternative format is fully responsive and mobile-friendly and makes it easier for all students to consume to content on their mobile device. The ePub alternative format makes it easy to change the visual display of a document and allows for annotations and highlighting to be added. The audio alternative format can be used during a commute, on a run, etc. The translated version alternative format can help second language students.

Example 3: Having a video with captioning or a transcript will make the video more usable for all students. It allows the student to search through the video and find specific parts, the video can still be watched in high-noise environment (for example, commuting), and so on.

Example 4: Having an image with a quality description can make the image more usable for all students. It can help clarify the content of the image and how it connects to the surrounding context, it makes the image searchable, and so on.

Example 5: Providing a good heading structure for a long document makes the document more usable for all students. It provides additional structure, which makes it easier to work through and process the content. It also allows for a Table of Contents to be generated, which can improve the navigability of the document.

The only difference you'll see within your course is that Ally provides an accessibility score for your files. The score is shown by a gauge icon next to your course files. Select the gauge to view and improve your file accessibility.

Students see a menu to the left or right of each document. From this menu, they can select Alternative formats to access available versions they can download. Although they can download alternative formats of your files, it is best to improve the documents through the instructor feedback.

More on Ally for student Links to an external site.

The original file stays in your LMS. Ally doesn't store a copy of the original, move the original, or delete it.

Ally’s accessibility checklist is based on WCAG 2.1 AA Links to an external site. (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines). This is an international accessibility standard, and most of the legislation and legal requirements worldwide aligns with this standard.

Additionally, Ally also adds a number of additional checks on top of this that start to target the usability and quality of the course materials a bit more.

Ally includes content it can’t check for accessibility issues, such as ZIP archive and XML file, under “Other” in the institutional report. This content does not receive an accessibility score, does not contribute to the institution’s accessibility score and does not have an indicator or option to download alternative formats in the User Interface.

More on the institution report for admins Links to an external site.

Contrast checks verify whether there is sufficient contrast between the text color and its background color. Text with poor contrast can be difficult to read for everyone, but especially for students with visual impairments such as color blindness.

Ally uses the contrast requirements specified as part of the WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines Links to an external site..

Use the Colour Contrast Analyser from The Paciello Group Links to an external site. any time to check your content.

When an alternative format for a content item is requested for the first time, Ally generates the alternative format on demand. In most cases, it generates within 1-2 minutes.

As soon as it is generated, the alternative format is downloaded. Ally then caches the result, so any additional requests for the same alternative format can be served and downloaded from cache immediately.

Ally automatically picks up on any existing or new materials, runs it through the accessibility checklist, and makes the alternative formats available to both the student and the instructor.

• Ally doesn’t enforce a file size limit. There may be cases where the algorithm fails to generate alternative formats for certain large files.
• Keep the original content to fewer than 100 pages to generate an OCR format for scanned documents.
• Limit content to 100,000 characters for the audio format. This character limit typically corresponds to at least 30 pages or several hours of audio.
• Limit content to 30,000 characters for the translated format.
• Limit to 50MB fixed files uploaded through the Instructor Feedback panel.

Ally detects password-protected content and gives the content a 0% accessibility score. Ally then provides guidance to help remove the password through the instructor feedback. Ally doesn't generate any alternative formats for password protected content, as we can’t get access to the actual content.

Ally only includes LMS content that requires authentication for Canvas, Blackboard Learn, and D2L Brightspace. Ally doesn't include LMS content that requires authentication in alternative formats for Moodle, Websites, or WCM, as we can’t get access to the actual content.

D2L Brightspace content URLs need to point to the course content area.

You can turn off alternative formats for individual content items, if you want. You can enable it again later.