Improve the Usability and Accessibility of Your Content Your class is full of diverse students with unique learning abilities. Providing them with more accessible original content means they can choose formats that work best for them: HTML for improved reading on mobile phones, Electronic Braille for the visually impaired, and Audio for learning on the go. Ally automatically scans your original content and performs a series of steps to make them more accessible:  Generates alternative formats for students to download Provides accessibility scores Gives instructors feedback on how to improve your accessibility score As an instructor, there is no action required for Ally to perform these tasks. Through the Ally integration, any documents within a Canvas course will automatically be processed. Typically, you should see your accessibility score within 15-90 seconds. This may take longer if your content is complex, or if you have a lot of course content and it is being assessed all at once. FYI, Ally is a tool that runs in the background of your course and Accessibility results are only viewable by instructors, TA's, and admins; they are not available to students. Additional Resources: Accessibility Checklist Adoption Toolkit Ally Basics Ally Quick Start Alternative Formats In-Browser Preview Alternative Formats Ally creates alternative formats of your course files based on the original materials. These formats are made available to students alongside the original content in your course, so students can find everything in one convenient location. Instructors do not need to do anything for the alternative formats to be created, this happens as part of the Ally process. To see the different formats available, select the Alternative Formats link next to the file name. Choose any of these options and then Download to get an example of what will be available to students.  Accessibility Score Indicators Ally measures the accessibility of each file attached to your course and shows you at-a-glance how it scores. Scores range from Low to Perfect. The higher the score, the fewer the issues.  Low: File is not accessible and needs immediate attention.  Medium: File is somewhat accessible and should be improved.  High: File is mostly accessible but could be improved.  Perfect: File is fully accessible. No improvement needed. For files with Low to High scores, Ally shows you the issues and gives a step-by-step guide on how to fix them. Find a file and select the Accessibility score. Follow the steps in front of you to go step-by-step. Select All issues to see every issue in the file and decide what issues to fix first. Select All issues if you want to see how much each fix will improve the accessibility of the file.   Instructor Feedback Ally provides you detailed feedback and support to help you become an accessibility pro. Learn about accessibility issues, why they matter, and how to fix them. Green is the goal!  Select the Accessibility score to open the instructor feedback. Follow the steps in front of you to go step-by-step. Select All issues to see every issue in the file and decide what issues to fix first. Select All issues if you want to see how much each fix will improve the accessibility of the file. Course Accessibility Report The course accessibility report acts as a complement to the existing accessibility indicators. It provides an accessibility summary and overview at the course level. The Accessibility Report option displays in the course menu. The report shows instructors this useful information: Accessibility score for the course Distribution of course content by content type List of all issues identified in the course Instructors see their course content items that have issues. Instructors can then access the instructor feedback from the report to fix the issue. The report helps instructors determine priority and gives options for order of fixing. For example, content with most severe issues first or start with content that's easiest to fix.

Ensure that your documents and presentations stay accessible when converting to PDF Although keeping your content in the original source file is the best way to ensure the document remains accessible, many instructors prefer to export their documents and presentations as PDFs. When exporting as PDF, it's important to check your export settings to make sure that the PDF will be tagged. This makes sure the PDF is easy to navigate. If a PDF isn't tagged, the file gets a low accessibility score indicator. Select the Accessibility score indicator to learn more and add a description. 1) Tag a PDF To tag a PDF in Acrobat, choose All tools > Prepare for accessibility > Automatically tag a PDF. This command works on any untagged PDF, such as one created with Adobe PDF Printer. Acrobat analyzes the content of the PDF to interpret the individual page elements, their hierarchical structure, and the intended reading order of each page. Then, it builds a tag tree that reflects that information. It also creates tags for any links, cross-references, and bookmarks you added to the document in Acrobat. The Automatically tag a PDF command adequately tags most standard layouts. However, it cannot always correctly interpret complex page elements' structure and reading order. These elements include closely spaced columns, irregular text alignment, non-fillable form fields, and tables that don’t have borders. Tagging these pages using the Automatically tag a PDF command can result in improperly combined elements or out-of-sequence tags. These issues cause reading order problems in the PDF. 2) Save the file as a tagged PDF. Microsoft Word: Select File and Save As. Select PDF from the File Format menu. Select Best for electronic distribution and accessibility and select Export. PowerPoint: You can't save PowerPoint files as tagged PDFs. Upload the PowerPoint file instead. LibreOffice Writer and Impress: Select File and Export as PDF. Select Tagged PDF (add document structure) and Export bookmarks in PDF Options. Select Export. 3) Upload the updated file to your course. If you still have the instructions open in the instructor feedback panel, select Next and Browse to upload your file. If you don't have the instructor feedback pane open, select the Accessibility score indicator next to the file in your course and select Browse to upload your file. Upload the original source file Another option is to replace the PDF with the original source file. For example, the Word document or PowerPoint file. Select How to tag a PDF and select Yes. Select Upload original document. Select Browse and upload the original source file. Add a library reference It might be difficult for you to find the original source file. Reaching out to your library or accessibility services before the start of the term can help make sure students who need those formats don’t fall behind. You can also add a library reference to Ally to help your students. Select No when asked if you can get hold of a text-based version. Select Yes when asked if the document or presentation can be found in the library. Fill out as much information in the Ally feedback form as you can and select Add reference. After you add the library reference, students can access the document information by going to the file, and selecting Alternative formats from the menu next to the file name. Select Library reference. Alternative formats If you select No to both the text-based and library questions in the Ally feedback, Ally generates alternative formats for students to use. Unfortunately, this is not a final solution so it won’t improve the score. You will still want to tag the PDF when possible. More on alternative formats for students