Using Ally to Create Accessible Courses

ALLY supports accessibility in Canvas in a few exciting ways:

Each course has an "Accessibility Report" option in the left navigation. Visible only to instructors, this pinpoints parts of the course that would be challenging for students with disabilities, and provides guidance on how to fix them.
When uploading content, 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.
When you click on the gauge you'll be walked through an explanation of the problem and guidance on fixing the problem. The Ally Cheat Sheet explains these messages Links to an external site..
When you add a file to Canvas, ALLY will produce alternative formats. To view/access those formats, you click on the little editing wheel. Currently, the following formats are provided:
- Tagged PDF
- HTML
- ePub
- Electronic braille
- Audio
Ally allows Canvas administrators to run institutional reports to monitor institution-wide accessibility improvement over time. This feature is planned to be offered to content creators at the course level in the near future.

One important thing to note is that Ally is still under development and more features are added frequently.

Video: Ally Overview - a quick overview of how content creators can use Ally. Note: some features have been updated. (7 mins)

Video: Ally Student view - a quick overview of how students can take advantage of Ally. (2 mins)