Anthology Ally for Canvas

Instructor feedback is available directly within the course pages. Each type of content checked by Ally has an accessibility gauge next to it.  Hovering over the icon will tell you the score, and clicking on it will take you to the detail page for fixing that content.

Instructor Feedback Video:

You can also view and fix issues course-wide by enabling the course report in course navigation.

• Click on Settings in the Canvas course menu.

• Select the Navigation tab.

• Scroll down to the hidden items and find Ally Course Accessibility Report. Drag this to the active items, or click on the three dots menu and select Enable.

• Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the Save button. Ally Course Accessibility Report should now be visible in the course menu.

• Select Ally Course Accessibility Report in the course menu:

This brings up the dashboard view for the course. The pie chart shows all of the types of course content. The next sections show content with the easiest issues to fix and low scoring content. These are easy ways into using the tool to make the greatest impact in the course.

Your Ally score may be affected by a number of files that have been copied over from semester to semester but are no longer actually in use in the course.

Before fixing potentially obsolete files in Ally, use TidyUp to remove unused files. This will increase your overall course score, as older files are likely to be less accessible.

View the TidyUp tutorial.

As long as the scan is good quality, nothing further is needed to meet universal design goals. The red, low score dial will remain but these do meet the minimum requirements for universal design. Please see PDF – Scanned for information on ensuring a good quality copy.

Students can download an alternative format (OCRed PDF) as a more accessible version to use with their assistive technology. Do not disable the alternative formats option, as this provides universal design for scanned PDFs.

Instructors can also use Ally as a text recognition tool for PDFs being shared on other platforms besides Canvas. Simply upload files to a Canvas course and download the OCRed PDF from the alternative formats menu.

Video: Downloading Alternative Formats in Canvas

Ally detects images that have a flicker or refresh rate high enough to cause seizures. These images are disabled with a course. Students will be able to choose to play them manually, but they will not begin automatically without warning.

Ally prompts you to delete the image from the course. If it is essential instructional material, you will need to provide an alternative for students who may experience seizures.

This image is missing alternative text. All images should have basic alternative text. Additional descriptions may be needed to make complex images fully accessible, but this is beyond the Universal Design goals.

• To add an image description, look for the low score dial next to the image and click on it.

• Clicking on the icon brings up a detail page on the image. A preview of the image is displayed on one side of the page, and a guide for fixing the issue is on the other side. If you need more details, you can select “What this means” and “How to write a good description” for tutorials.
• Write a short description in the text box below Add image description and click Add.

• There is also an option to mark the image as decorative instead of adding a description. Only use this feature if the image truly does not add any meaning that you expect students to get from the image.

You will receive a confirmation that the alternative text has been added, along with an updated score and accessibility gauge for the image.

Although Ally automatically meets the Universal Design Goal for scanned PDFs in Canvas, leaving them as they are will not improve the accessibility of these documents or improve your course’s accessibility score. Ally provides prompts to guide you in finding digital copies to replace the scans.

• Click on the low score icon next to a PDF on a Canvas page to go directly to the instructions on fixing an individual file.

• Once you click on a specific file, a detail screen will load with a preview of the PDF on one side and details about the error on the other. Click on How to fix this to see prompts for fixing the file.

Option 1: Upload a Digital Version

The first step asks if you can get hold of an original or text-based version of the file. This is the preferred way to resolve issues with scanned PDFs, as a digital original will be much higher quality than a scan.

• If you do have an original or digital version, select Yes to continue to upload a new version.

Option 2: Add a Library Reference

• If you do not have an original or digital version, select No to continue to other options.
• The next option is to add a library reference. If available, this will give students another way to get a more accessible version of the file.

Ally automatically meets Universal Design Goals for all PDFs in Canvas, both scanned and digital originals (unless the scan is poor quality). Any remaining PDF errors in Ally relate to standards that make PDFs fully accessible.

Although Ally’s instructions suggest converting to another file format, this is not recommended. These errors require Adobe Acrobat Professional to edit the PDFs effectively. Please see PDF – Converted from Other Programs for more information on full PDF accessibility with Acrobat Professional.

Errors include:

• This document contains tables that are missing headers.
• This document does not have the correct language set.
• This PDF is missing a title.
• This PDF is untagged.
• This image does not have a description.

Complex images require a long description as well as a basic description as alternative text. The long description may be in the body of the text, the notes section of a PowerPoint slide, or linked in an appendix. See Long Description for more details on providing meaningful descriptions for complex images.

Long description is a full accessibility requirement. Additional support is available for students with full accessibility accommodations.