Have you added an Ally in your Blackboard course(s)? With Universal Design and accessibility coming into sharper focus, it is more important than ever to have an Ally on your side. Ally is a tool in Blackboard that helps with accessibility in your online courses.
Ally is instrumental in:
- Providing guidance to instructors about how to improve the quality of their content, and
- Providing students of all abilities with immediate access to content in formats that may be more suited to their specific needs.
Watch Blackboard Ally Four Courses video
How does it work?
Blackboard Ally’s workflow is embedded in your day-to-day Blackboard interactions:
- Blackboard instructor adds course content.
- A WCAG 2.0 AA compliant automated accessibility checklist is run against the uploaded content
- Taking place in background: Blackboard does a full structural/visual analysis to learn the semantics of all documents (Headings, heading structures, paragraphs, footers, tables, lists, mathematical formulas etc. are identified).
- Ally produces alternative accessible versions: Semantic HTML, ePub, audio, electronic braille and OCR versions of all scanned documents. The student will access these versions with a click of their mouse or a tap of their finger.
- Ally provides the instructor feedback about accessibility of course content and guidance on how to fix.
Interested in Using Ally?
Reach our to your instructional designer or sign up for a fully-online self-paced faculty development session.