ALLY for LMS is a tool provided to all schools at Columbia University to help improve the accessibility of Canvas course sites and resources. It is a teaching tool designed to help faculty and staff to evaluate the accessibility of course sites and to complete basic remediation tasks. It is already fully integrated with Canvas/Courseworks.
Key Features
ALLY for LMS (ALLY) is used to assess the accessibility of Canvas pages, including the documents, presentations, media files, and other content used in course sites to deliver instruction. Key features include:
- Institutional reporting for purposes of Section 508 compliance
- Course reporting, including feedback on accessibility issues found in course content
- Guidelines for basic remediation of accessibility issues (web-based content as well as files)
- File conversion to Alternative Accessible formats (semantic HTML, ePub, audio, e-braille, tagged PDF, et al.)
How to Access
The ALLY Accessibility Report is accessed from the Canvas course navigation menu once it has been made visible from the Settings>Navigation page. Once enabled, users have access to the full functionality of the tool: they can generate reports, as well as complete basic remediation tasks by following the step-by-step instructions provided within the tool. Some content will need to be downloaded to complete the remediation (e.g., PDFs, .ppt, .pptx, and media files). Alternative text can be added directly to images from within ALLY.
Alternative Formats
Faculty and students can generate alternate versions of course files and documents. This capability enables users to engage with content in file formats that are better suited to their teaching or learning needs. For example, any Canvas page can be converted into an ePub for reading as an e-book on a tablet, or listened to as an audio file.
To access alternative formats in your course: click on the icon on any Canvas page, to the right of its title. For more information on this topic please see our educational technology fact sheet on Alternative Formats.
To view or save this document, click on the image below or navigate to: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G4CFdtzZrrM-J5NNyUHpVNOEHjHBFnxHGfdf0-V47bs/edit?usp=sharing