Resolving Accessibility Issues in Your Moodle Course Using Ally

Microsoft Edge

Ally is a tool offered at OCCC to help you make your online course materials more accessible. Directly integrated into Moodle, Ally checks your course content. It then provides you with a report rating the accessibility of the various components of your course. Most documents are created in a word-processing program such as Word or PowerPoint before they are converted to a PDF. Many programs create PDF files, but few produce structured or tagged PDFs. PDF tags are hidden labels that clarify the structure of the document (e.g., table, heading, paragraph, etc.). Untagged PDFs do not contain any of this information and can cause the content to be misinterpreted. To start, select **Reports** and **Accessibility report**.

Green arrows pointing to the Reports tab in the top menu and to the Accessibility report link in the Reports section.

The Course accessibility score page gives the percentage of the course that is accessible. If the score is in green, then your course is accessible. Scores range from Low to Perfect. The higher the score, the fewer the issues. The score icons appear next to compatible file types and are only visible to you. Your students do not see the score icons. • - 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 possible.

Dashboard view of the course accessibility report showing a 74% accessibility score at the top, a content-type chart on the left, and green arrows pointing to the View button, the Start button for fixing the easiest issues, and the Start button for fixing low‑scoring content.

**View** The **View** button takes you to a content screen showing accessibility issues. The start buttons take you to the **Content with the easiest issues to fix** and the **Fix low scoring content** pages. The following example uses the **Content with the easiest issues to fix**. Click on the content that needs Atl. Text (alternative text).

Green arrow pointing to the top file in the accessibility report list, showing its issue count and low accessibility score.

Add a description and then click **Add**. If the image is not relevant to the course or text, then select the **Indicate image is decorative** button.

Green arrows pointing to fields in the accessibility checker panel, including the Add image description box, the Add button, and the Indicate image is decorative option beside a slide titled CLASSICAL with a list of important piano composers.

After a description is added, the accessibility score for that image will increase. That content will that be removed from the list of content needing to be fixed.

Accessibility checker panel showing a 92% score with a green arrow pointing to the gauge, alongside a slide titled CLASSICAL 1750–1825 with the heading IMPORTANT PIANO COMPOSERS and illustrated composer figures along the bottom.

Resolving Accessibility Issues in Your Moodle Course Using Ally

Microsoft Edge

Add a description and then click **Add**. If the image is not relevant to the course or text, then select the **Indicate image is decorative** button.

After a description is added, the accessibility score for that image will increase. That content will that be removed from the list of content needing to be fixed.