Introduction:
After accessing the Ally Report for your course (Tools > Ally Report), you can begin to make the necessary changes to files within your course. Making these changes is important to ensuring all learners can access your materials.
Step-by-Step Instructions:
- 1. To begin, select "Content" next to “Overview” on the top ribbon. Here, you can view each file uploaded into your course along with the accessibility score.
- 2. Once in this area, your accessibility scores for the files uploaded into your course will automatically show from lowest to highest score, with 0% being the lowest and 100% being the highest. To change the order, you can click on “Score”, and it will instead order the scores from highest to lowest.
- If preferred, you can also sort the files by “Issues”. This will sort the files in your course by the number of issues found instead of the overall accessibility score.
- 3. Next, click on a file from the list you wish to work on. You may click anywhere in the cell to open the score report for that file.
- 4. Once you have the report open for the desired file you will be able to see the file’s accessibility report score in the top right. If the file has multiple issues, you will be able to see “All issues” in small text next to it. Clicking on this will show you all issues found within the file.
- 5. If Ally has identified an issue with the file, it will show the percentage along with two options you can select per issue: “What this means”, which explains the reason for the issue, and an option catered to what the accessibility issue was (i.e., a file missing an image description may show “How to write a good image description” as the second choice). Additionally, if applicable, Ally will highlight throughout the document every instance of the issue occurring. You can click through these highlights by using the arrows at the top-middle of the document ribbon, shown below.
- 6. Next, resolve the identified issue. This process will be different depending on the type of accessibility issue that was identified. Some common issues and fixes are listed below:
- “This image is missing a description”: Add a description to the image briefly describing what it contains if it is part of the lesson. If this image is for decoration and does not contain content needed for the assignment, then you may click the “Indicate image is decorative” button. Please only select this option if the image is decorative as ReadSpeaker (screen reader software for visual impairments) will skip the image otherwise, and learners may miss important information.
- “This item has empty headings”: Remove heading lines that are only used for decorative purposes. If the heading line is used to separate content within the document, adding an appropriate title will resolve the issue. Empty headings may mislead learners using ReadSpeaker within your course and lead them to believe that information was skipped or missing.
- For more common accessibility issues and their solutions, please see this article on improving content accessibility.
- 7. Finally, review your accessibility report one more time to ensure all current content has been reviewed for accessibility issues, and that the content has been successfully edited for accessibility. It is recommended that you periodically check your accessibility report when new files are uploaded to your course.
Note: depending on the file type, you may be able to fix most accessibility issues inline, or you might need to fix the problems offline and reupload the course file.
Why Should Ally Be Used?
Anthology Ally provides you with a report to help make your course more accessible to a wide array of learners. This also helps your course remain inclusive to learners. Additionally, Ally also helps you understand why an item was flagged for low accessibility and how you can edit it to make the document more accessible.
Additional Resources:
Support:
For additional assistance, contact our COLTT Help Desk at 956-665-5327 or 956-882-6792.