'I'm responsible for learning materials'

Wanting to make your digital teaching content more accessible?

If your learning materials or digital documents aren't accessible they're preventing students from accessing the information you want to share. You are responsible for improving the accessibility of your content.

How to improve Minerva content with Ally

We know that you’re making every effort all year round within your local areas to improve accessibility for both staff and students, but you can help focus your efforts by getting involved in Fix Your Content Day by clicking the accessibility indicators in your course in Ally on 18 May and making the suggested accessibility improvements.

The Ally tool inside Minerva will help you make your learning materials more accessible. Watch the video here to get a feel for the basics of Ally. Or jump straight to the advice from Anthology, the maker of Ally, that explains all about how to use it.

On Thursday May 18, each fix is logged per institution in a live league table hosted by Anthology – so you can see how the University of Leeds fares in real time!

Ally: How to fix common issues

Ally will flag all kinds of potential issues. Try these resources from the Ally site to see how to solve the problems you might see most often.

Accessible digital content helps everyone to learn.

Resources

Use these resources to start making your learning materials more compliant.

Digital Education Systems Help

There are a range of guides covering how best to use Minerva and get to grips with Ally.

Word document accessibility checklist

Simple fixes can make a big differences to Word document accessibility. Make quick improvements here.

PDF accessibility checklist

PDFs are one of the biggest causes of digital accessibility difficulty for people. See how to approach them.

PowerPoint accessibility checklist

PowerPoint's internal accessibility checker provides a good foundation, but there are a few other things to consider, too.

Video accessibility checklist

Using video in learning materials is great. Accurate captions and transcripts that convey visual and audio information are key.

Understand inclusive teaching

Digital accessibility is important, but it's only one strand of inclusive teaching. The University is committed to ensuring that teaching meets the needs of our diverse student population.

Inclusive Teaching website

Support about how to embed inclusivity into what you do. Learn how the University is aiming to embed inclusivity into all taught student education.

Principles of inclusive pedagogies

Read the principles of inclusive pedagogies, a working definition for how we approach and understand inclusive learning and teaching at Leeds.

Updating your 2023/24 Minerva Modules

Minerva modules for 2023/24 will be made available to staff in early June, to provide as much time as possible for areas to be built before teaching begins in October. Due to technical challenges, and to encourage the annual review of teaching content and provide the best student experience, content will not be automatically copied from the previous instance of a module. Copy tools make it easy to reuse material from previous years, particularly 2022/23 modules, which are already being delivered in Ultra Course View. Support and guidance will be available from June to help you with the copying process.

By taking part in Fix Your Content Day, you can start to look at your module areas and consider what changes you may want to make prior to the 2023/24 academic year.