A More Accessible Canvas Site Is Just a Few Clicks Away

As previously announced, the Office of Digital Learning is promoting Easy Fix 2024 – an initiative designed to improve course accessibility with a series of small, simple changes.

The first Easy Fix demonstrates how to use Canvas’s built-in accessibility tools. These simple and efficient tools can help you fix complex problems quickly by locating accessibility issues in your files and offering suggestions for resolution. By using the tools, you’ll have a better chance of ensuring your course content is as accessible as possible.

Canvas Tools

Canvas Accessibility Checker

The Canvas Accessibility Checker alerts you to issues with text color, captions, alternative text description for images, table headers, and list formats.

1. Go to a page in your Canvas course and click Edit.

2. Select the Accessibility Checker icon.

3. The checker will present any issues in a sidebar, while still displaying your Canvas content. Make the needed changes. Click Apply.

When using the Accessibility Checker, you’ll need to review every page in your course as the checker cannot scan your entire course at once.

Ally

Ally is an accessibility tool that automatically assesses your course’s digital files, including images, PDFs, Word documents, and PowerPoints. It will also provide alternative formats for your students when possible.

There are two ways to use Ally: selecting your file or using an Ally course report.

Selecting Your File

1. Go to a page in your Canvas course that contains a digital file, which will display a gauge icon to the lower left of the image or file name.

2. Click the gauge icon and Ally will show you the issues associated with the content (eg, missing headings, missing image descriptions, etc.).

3. Review Ally’s suggestions for fixing the issues. Some suggestions can be made immediately in Canvas (eg, adding alternative text to an image), and some will require working on a file outside of Canvas (eg, adding headings to a Word document).

4. Make the needed changes. If you’re making changes to a file, drag the edited file where it says Drop file to upload or click the Browse button and select the file. Click Add.

Using Ally Course Report

(Ally Course Report not appearing in your Course Navigation menu? See our Canvas support article How to use Ally Course Report feature to learn more.)

1. Select Ally Course Report from your Course Navigation menu (the menu on the left-hand side of your screen that is associated with your course).

2. Review your overall Course Accessibility Score at the top of your screen. Ally will automatically show you an Overview of your course, where you can see easily fixable content, low-scoring content, and remaining issues. Click the Content tab to see every piece of your Canvas content automatically ranked from least to most accessible.

3. Fix your content by clicking on each file that does not have a 100% Ally score. A 100% Ally score will say 100% under the Score column and will have a corresponding gauge that is dark green. Inside the gauge, the internal needle will indicate 100% by pointing to the bottom right of the gauge. You can select these files either from the Content tab or by returning to the Overview tab and clicking the Start button associated with Content with the easiest issues to fix, then moving on to Fix low scoring content, and then starting on any Remaining issues. Click the file title or the gauge icon to review the file’s Ally recommendations.

4. Review Ally’s suggestions for fixing your content. Some suggestions can be made immediately in Canvas, and some will require working directly with the files (eg, adding headings to a Word document).

5. Make the needed changes. Click Add.

As you seek to improve the accessibility of your course, we encourage you to view the Ally Resource Guide for an overview of Ally and access to ODL support resources.

Easy Fix 2021 Refresher

If you want more simple, quick accessibility tips, head to our Ally Resource Guide. You’ll find information on Ally, as well as our Easy Fix 2021 campaign, which addressed image descriptions, contrast issues, missing titles, headings, and converting Word documents to PDFs.