Ally Resources for Instructors

Ally is a tool integrated in Canvas that helps instructors enhance the usability and accessibility of their course content. It provides feedback and guidelines for improving accessibility of course materials and generates alternative formats of course content for students. For a brief introduction, see:

• Ally Quick Start for Instructors (4 min read)
• Ally Overview for Instructors (1.5 min video)

• Why is SJSU using Ally?

  • SJSU’s institutional philosophy emphasizes our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility and belonging for all students. BlackBoard Ally (3 min video) is a key component to helping San José State University enact this commitment as well as adhering Section 508 federal policy.

    While Ally is designed with the needs of students with disabilities in mind, it’s actually a tool that has the potential to positively affect the experience of all the students in our courses. Alternative formats enable students to choose the version of a course material that best suits their learning needs, accounting for temporary or undiagnosed conditions and whether they are English Language Learners. For example, captioned video content may be useful not only for a student who is Deaf or Hard of Hearing, but also students who do not have quiet, distraction-free environments in which to learn.

    Through course accessibility reporting and instructor alerts, Ally enables faculty to design courses that are inclusive of all students' needs.

• What are the alternative formats Ally automatically provides for students?  

  • Ally automatically generates a variety of alternative formats including ePub, Electronic Braille, Tagged PDFs, HTML, MP3, BeeLine Reader, and translated versions.

    It is important to note that not all documents are able to be converted (e.g.,password protected content and videos). Further, not all documents or pages have the same alternative format options.

• Can my students see my BlackBoard Ally score?

  • No, students cannot see your score or any score indicators on any of your content. Students only see the “A” icon that signifies that there are various alternative formats available for that document or page. 

• How long do the alternative formats take to generate?

  • A first-time conversion request may take a few minutes to generate. After that, the alternate version is cached so the next time someone requests it, the file appears instantly.

    Ally Alternative Formats (3 min video).

• What are the top 5 accessibility issues that are found in Canvas Courses? 

  • The Top 5 Accessibility Issues (16 min video) are images missing descriptions (ALT text), scanned PDFs, untagged PDFs, missing headings and contrast issues.

• What are some best practices for creating accessible course content?

  • When creating course content from scratch, follow these Content Creation Accessibility Best Practices. You’ll find guidance on creating accessible text documents, slide-based presentations, HTML and WYSIWYG content (including Canvas Pages), video content and PDFs.

    In addition, use the Ally Accessibility Checklist as guidance for future course content design.

• My course has a lower Ally score and I would like to make changes that will quickly improve its accessibility. What should I do first? 

  • Focus on your “easy to fix” content first.

    1. Go to your Ally Course Report tab in your Canvas course.
    2. On the top right, click on the “start” button next to “Content with the easiest issues to fix”.  
       
       Many of these “easy to fix issues” require you to add some quick ALT text or fix the headings in your documents. 
• I thought I added ALT text to most images in my course, but Ally tagged them as missing ALT text. What’s going on?

  • This is most likely because the image file in your files tab is missing the ALT text. You most likely added it to the image in your Canvas page/assignment/quiz after uploading it. Unfortunately, these are separate files and both need to have ALT text. More on Adding Image Descriptions in Ally. In the future, always add the ALT text at the moment you upload the image. 

• Why is my YouTube video flagged for missing captions? I know it has captions already!

  • If the captions on your YouTube video are automatically generated and NOT edited for accuracy, the video will be flagged. To fix this, edit your YouTube video captions. If you'd like assistance locating captioned video content, please contact your library liaison.

• Where can I find more Ally resources about fixing my content? 

  • Ally Help for Instructors has excellent resources, tutorials, and videos demonstrating how to fix content. If you need further assistance, please open an iSupport ticket.

Looking for more resources?

Please see Instructor FAQs for Ally for more answers to more common questions.

You might consider joining the Ally User Group which provides community for those using Ally. You'll find common questions addressed there and you can post your own questions for support from the Ally community.