What is Anthology Ally?
Anthology Ally is a Canvas plugin that allows you to check for accessibility within an entire Canvas course and prompts you with instructions on fixing problems. It can scan the course shell and documents uploaded into the course, fix scanned PDFs, and allows students to convert documents into a format that works for them. This makes Anthology Ally a great Universal Design tool for both instructors and students.
How to Read the Scores
Ally uses gauges for low, medium and high-scoring content.
Although you will see a score for your course, our primary purpose as a campus is to focus on Universal Design Goals from the Electronic Accessibility Rubric. Following the rubric may not result in a perfect score in Ally. For example, Ally will provide the minimum needed for a scanned PDF, but the score will not improve.
We will focus, at least initially, on prioritizing the errors listed in the rubric regardless of scores. The tutorials on this page focus on these errors.
Start Using Anthology Ally
Enable Ally in the Course Menu
- 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.
View the Course Report
- 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.
View Instructor Feedback
Instructor feedback is also 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:
Remove Unused Content
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.
Using Ally for Universal Design Goals
Recognize Text in Scanned PDFs
If you have scanned PDFs in your course, you will see an error that says This PDF is Scanned.
- Click on the error from the Course Report to see a list of files in the course that are scanned PDFs.
- You can also click on the low score icon from a PDF linked 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.
Option 3: Text Recognition
If the scanned PDF is the only option available, Ally will recognize the text in the PDF and make it available as a download option for students in the alternative format menu. Note that this will not improve the score in Ally. However, as long it is a good quality scan, the recognized text version will provide a universally designed PDF that will work for most students.
Do not disable alternative formats in the course so the more accessible version will be available for students.
Downloading the Updated PDF
- The PDF with recognized text will appear as OCRed PDF in the alternative formats dropdown menu. This download menu appears next to the file in Canvas.
- In the Alternative formats options, select Download OCRed PDF. If you can select text, the document has recognized text.
Video: Ally Alternative Formats
Describe Images
This image is missing alternative text. You can find all images without alternative text in the Course Report. The screenshot below shows the image listed in the list of Content with the easiest issues to fix.
- You can also see this as feedback on the course page. Look for the gauge icon 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.
