It is now the second week of the Spring 2022 semester and if you’re teaching a course this term you may have noticed a new course menu item, Accessibility Report. Many of you may also recall me referring to an upcoming ALLY tool that would provide more information to faculty, well, this is it! I’m so pleased to say that we now have this tool enabled across all CI Learn experiences. The purpose of this post is to highlight its features and uses while also providing insights into some of the questions you may have.
What is the Accessibility Report tool?
This course-level tool gives you an overview of the accessibility of your course based on the content, including guidance like “easiest issues to fix” and “fix low scoring content.” It is meant to provide insight into how accessible your course content is and to help you understand various improvements that can be made to make your course more inclusive and accessible to all learners.
Who can see it? Who can use it?
The Accessibility Report is only visible to instructors and those with Edit access in your course. This information is not available to students. Students’ use of ALLY remains unchanged (i.e., generating Alternative Formats).
Why should I use this tool?
I acknowledge that the ‘why’ of accessibility isn’t intuitive for many but my hope is that you consider this a starting point to empower you, as CI faculty to learn and understand another way to optimize the student experience by building understanding and improving your practice over time.
I ask that you partner with me and together through our shared dedication to CI students we can push back the visible and invisible barriers to learning and move CI closer to reaching our campus equity and inclusion goals.
Where can I get support and ask questions about the Accessibility Report tool?
- Be sure you’ve read the Overview of the Acessibility Report in CI Learn/Canvas
- Refer to the ALLY in CI Learn subcategory of the TLi KnowledgeBase. There are currently some related articles available and more will be added in the coming weeks.
- Schedule an Accessibility and Inclusive Design (AID) Support Session with me, the TLi Lead for AID support.
How does the Accessibility Report align to TLi strategic goals?
When Teaching and Learning Innovations established our Strategic Plan, we articulated Accessibility and Inclusive Design (AID) as one of our four, core areas (along with Academic Technology, Learning Design, and Academic Media). Our AID efforts treat accessibility and inclusion as intentional design decisions, and the Accessibility Report is an enabling technology in that process. In other words, the more you use the Accessibility Report and make the recommended improvements to your course content during the design process, the more learner-ready your content will be. In our Strategic Plan, one of TLi’s initiatives is to promote equity and inclusive excellence in teaching and learning. We are working toward this initiative by promoting the use of enabling technology, like the Accessibility Report, as well as the AID support we offer through consultations and guides.
