Improve the usability and accessibility of your course content
Ally is integrated and works seamlessly within Elearning to gauge the accessibility of your content. Ally for Elearning provides guidance and tips for lasting improvements to your content accessibility. With Ally for Elearning, you will receive feedback on the accessibility of your content and be provided guidance to help improve content accessibility with Ally's step-by-step instructions.
In addition to providing you with insight to your content accessibility, Ally automatically creates alternative versions of your files. This allows students to choose the type of file they want that best suits their needs.
Ally for Instructors Quick Start Guide
Accessibility score indicators
Ally checks accessibility for your new and existing course content. To measure accessibility, Ally assigns your content an accessibility score. Each score is composed of both a numerical number and a colored icon/gauge that reflects the accessibility score of the item.
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 necessary.
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.
Ally Accessibility Score Indicators
Accessibility scores
Ally automatically checks the accessibility for any new and existing course content. Only instructors and members of the instructional support team can view your course’s accessibility score. The score is intended to be a simple indicator to aid in the prioritization of remediation and is not a means of instructor evaluation.
Only instructors and members of the instructional support team can view your course’s accessibility score. The score is intended to be a simple indicator to aid in the prioritization of remediation and is not a means of instructor evaluation.
Please take a moment to explore the accessibility score of your course content items, looking for items that are scored as “Low” or “Medium.” Ally will provide clarification on why the item has been flagged as a concern and offer steps to remediate the problem. Follow the steps provided in the Instructor Feedback to resolve the issue. If you are unsure about how to solve the problem, contact the accessibility team for guidance.
Currently, Ally checks the following types of files for common accessibility issues:
- PDF files
- Microsoft Word files
- Microsoft PowerPoint® files
- OpenOffice/LibreOffice files
- Uploaded HTML files
- Image files (JPG, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BPM, TIFF)
- HTML pages created within D2L
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 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 can see the course content items that have issues and 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.
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.
How to view your File Accessibility Scores
Navigating Instructor feedback