Accessibility: For Ally’s software accessibility information, see below.
What Is It?
Ally is a software that integrates into the learning management system Moodle, and focuses on making digital course content more accessible. Ally helps build a more inclusive learning environment and improve the student experience. All content uploaded to Moodle is analyzed, checked against WCAG 2.1 accessibility standards, and creates accessible alternative formats such as audio, ePub and electronic braille. Afterwards, Ally provides how-to guides to improve the accessibility of each item uploaded.
Why is this useful?
In a study, only 4.5 percent of 1,857 accessibility educators consider themselves ‘experts’ on the subject, while 66.1 percent claim to have some understanding,’ and 10.7% say they are ‘not knowledgeable’ (Shinohara et al. 2018). In the United States, roughly 11 percent of students pursuing higher education have at least one disability (Skomsvold 2014), and it was reported in a 2018 European Student Survey (Hauschildt, Gwosc, and Vögtle 2018) that 18 percent of higher education students have a disability or chronic sickness. The results of these studies suggest that training and tools are needed to help create accessible digital content. Ally will take the guessing game out of not knowing if your content is properly accessible. Ally will check all content uploaded to Moodle, and even check resource links to make sure they are still working correctly. As Carleton continues with making the IDE plan operational, Ally helps take a step in the right direction with IDE in mind and aligns with Carleton’s IDE Goal 3, “Establish and sustain the resources and practices necessary to provide an equitable environment for all students, staff, and faculty to thrive.” In addition, Moodle with the help of Ally will align with Section508, which states, all federal agencies, and those who receive federal funding, by law are required to develop, maintain and use information and communication technologies that are public-facing to be accessible for people with disabilities.
How to Get Started?
Ally is available to all courses in Carleton’s Moodle and enabled by default. If you are not seeing the Ally symbols to the right of the titles to your files 
, you may need to first turn it on for each individual course in which you wish to use Ally. Use the tool to review course materials, checking both uploaded content and content that is directly in Moodle (e.g., Moodle Pages). Students, by clicking on the black A next to the course materials, will gain access to alternative file formats that allow for listening to content, reading with different font colors for easier focus, and other specialized options. Supported file formats include pdf, Microsoft Word and Powerpoint, OpenOffice/LibreOffice files, uploaded HTML, image files (jpg, jpeg, gif, png, bmp, tiff).
Resources:
Ally Quick Start for Instructors
Ally’s Accessibility Checklist
Carleton Resource for Students (pdf)
Link to slides for Ally (2023)
Looking for more information on the alternative formats?
Software Accessibility
Accessibility: Anthology’s most recent accessibility conformance report for Ally (October 2025) rates it as supporting WCAG 2.2 Level A and AA. That rating covers Ally’s own interface, like the instructor feedback panel and the alternative formats menu. It doesn’t describe the accessibility of the course files Ally checks. Read Anthology’s Ally accessibility page for the full report.
References:
Hauschildt, Kristina, Christoph Gwosc, and Eva Maria Vögtle. 2018. Social and Economic Conditions of Student Life in Europe: Eurostudent VI 2016-2018; Synopsis of Indicators.
Shinohara, Kristen, Saba Kawas, Andrew J. Ko, and Richard E. Ladner. 2018. “Who Teaches Accessibility? A Survey of US Computing Faculty.” Paper presented at the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Skomsvold, Paul. 2014. Profile of Undergraduate Students: 2011-12. Web Tables. NCES 2015-167. National Center for Education Statistics.