Concordia University-St Paul is committed to providing web-based information and services in an accessible manner to all users, including persons with disabilities, pursuant to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 508. To support this mission, the Curriculum & Instruction Center partners with the office of Student Accessibility Services to deliver accessible content within the LMS whenever possible.
Ally is an accessibility tool that integrates into the LMS to support faculty in identifying inaccessible content within their courses and providing students with alternative format options. Ally is enabled system-wide by default and available to all faculty and students. Learn more about Ally by reviewing the below information or by visiting the Ally of LMS Help for Instructors page.
Ally will assess the accessibility of the content within your course and assign accessibility score indicators (not visible to students). These indicators provide instructors with a quick view of the accessibility levels in their courses. Instructors can click on an indicator to view explanations and suggestions for accessibility improvements. For more information on Ally score indicators and improving accessibility, please visit the Ally Accessibility Scores page.
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Low (Red, 0-33%): Needs help! There are severe accessibility issues. |
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Medium (Amber, 34-66%): A little better. The file is somewhat accessible and needs improvement. |
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High (Light Green, 67-99%): Almost there. The file is accessible, but more improvements are possible. |
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Perfect (Dark Green, 100%): Perfect! Ally didn’t identify any accessibility issues, but further improvements may still be possible. |
Ally automatically generates alternative formats of your course files (PDF, DOC, PPT, and HTML) and makes them available to you and your students. Alternative formats do not affect the original file and are automatically generated without any additional instructor action. Users can download the below-listed alternative formats. For more information on alternative file formats and options, please visit the Ally Alternative Formats page.
Ally provides instructors with a Course Accessibility Report, which provides an overview of all the content and corresponding accessibility information. From this report, instructors are provided with steps to improve the accessibility of a course. For information on accessing and interpreting the Course Accessibility Report, please visit the Ally Course Accessibility Report page or review the below information.
CSP's current LMS, Blackboard Learn, natively contains accessibility features that are in compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA as well as the Section 508 standards in the United States. This includes a mobile responsive design, screen reader compatibility, and global keyboard shortcut compatibility.
For more information on this, please visit the Accessibility in Blackboard Learn with the Ultra Experience page.
CSP's coming LMS, D2L Brightspace, natively contains many aspects of accessibility for users both when creating and accessing content on the platform that is in compliance with current Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA as well as the Section 508 standards in the United States and the Hamonised European Standard EN 301 549 V2.21.1. This includes a mobile responsive design, screen reader compatibility, global keyboard shortcut compatibility, multiple math equation writers (graphical, LaTeX, MathML, and Chemistry), creation tools based on VPAT Version 2.4 INTL, and more.
For more information on this, please visit the Accessibility Standards at D2L page.
