Getting Started

Introduction to Ally: A Quick Tutorial

What Ally actually does

Using Ally

Step 1: Find the accessibility score

How to fix a red/yellow Ally score

Step 2: Open the feedback panel

Tip: Check your whole course at once

Step 3: Refer to the Remediation Decision Tree

Remediation Decision Tree

Ally Sources

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Introduction to Ally: A Quick Tutorial

Ally is an accessibility-checking tool built directly into Canvas/bCourses. It's the single most useful tool for this project, because it will diagnose most of your content's accessibility issues for you automatically.

What Ally actually does

For you (the instructor): scans your course content and tells you what's inaccessible and how to fix it
For students: automatically generates alternative versions of your files (audio, ePub, electronic braille, translated versions, and more) so students can access the same content in a format that works for them

Ally is automatically set up on bCourses, and runs in the background on any content that's already on your coursesite.

Using Ally

To measure accessibility, Ally assigns your content an accessibility score. Each score is composed of both a numerical number and a colored gauge that reflects the number.

Accessibility scores are determined by the severity of issues in each file. A low score indicates the file has severe or multiple accessibility issues; a high score means there are minor or no accessibility issues.

Scores range from Low to Perfect. The higher the score the fewer the issues.

Low (0-33%): Needs help! There are severe accessibility issues.
Medium (34-66%): A little better. The file is somewhat accessible and needs improvement.
High (67-99%): Almost there. The file is accessible but more improvements are possible.
Perfect (100%): Perfect! Ally didn't identify any accessibility issues but further improvements may still be possible.

Four gauge icons showing accessibility score levels: Low (0–33%) in red with the needle pointing low, Medium (34–66%) in orange with the needle pointing straight up, High (67–99%) in light green with the needle pointing high, and Perfect (100%) in dark green with the needle at maximum.

Step 1: Find the accessibility score

Go into any Canvas course and look for the small gauge icon that appears next to files and content items; this indicates its current accessibility score.

This score is only visible to instructors, students never see it. What students do see is the "Alternative Formats" download icon, which is separate from the score and lets them grab an audio, ePub, or braille version of the same file.

How to fix a red/yellow Ally score

Once you know the accessibility score, you can begin to explore the accessibility issues and improve your content to raise the score. Accessible documents are important for all audiences, and Ally gives you the tools to understand common issues and improve your course files.

Step 2: Open the feedback panel

Find a content item and select the Accessibility score indicator to view the instructor feedback panel.

This panel will show:

The specific issues found in that file (e.g., "This item contains text with insufficient contrast")
A "What this means" button for each issue: selecting it gives a short, plain-language explanation of the issue and why it's significant
A "How to" button with step-by-step instructions: these change depending on the file and issue, so a PDF might walk you through "How to Make a PDF Tagged" specifically

You can also select "All issues" to see every problem in the file at once and decide what to fix first if there are several.

Tip: Check your whole course at once

You don't have to hunt file-by-file. Canvas/Ally also gives you a course-level view: the Course Accessibility Report provides a detailed overview of accessibility issues for all course materials in one place. This is the fastest way to triage an entire course at the start of a term, you can see everything red/orange at once instead of clicking through every page individually.

Step 3: Refer to the Remediation Decision Tree

Remediation Decision Tree

Start with the question: “Is this content created by someone else?” If YES, ask: “Can you find this content through the UC Berkeley Library website?” If yes, replace the content with the UCB Library permalink. If no, go to the remediation question below. If NO (you created the content), go directly to the remediation question. Remediation question: “Do you have the time, resources, and desire to remediate this content?” If yes, find the appropriate guide and remediate this content. If no, ask: “Is there an accessible alternate for this content that achieves the same learning outcomes?” If yes, replace this content with the accessible alternative. If no, this content needs to be removed until an accessible version is available. A side note reads: “Lots of quick fixes only take minutes! Check the remediation guides for more info!” If you can only use a single alt text field with no room for a separate description, here’s a condensed all-in-one version: Flowchart: If someone else created the content and it’s available through the UC Berkeley Library website, replace it with the library permalink. Otherwise, if you have the time, resources, and desire, remediate it using the appropriate guide. If not, replace it with an accessible alternative that achieves the same learning outcomes, or, if none exists, remove it until an accessible version is available. Note: many quick fixes take only minutes; see the remediation guides.

Ally Sources

Information on this page was adapted from:

Read the official Ally documentation at https://help.anthology.com/ally-lms/?lang=en

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