Ally

Blackboard Ally is a content accessibility service licensed directly from Blackboard. It is designed to help instructors improve the accessibility of their course content. Blackboard Ally provides accessibility checks for Course and Lesson content, provides suggestions for improving content and provides alternative accessible formats to enable learners to use the format that best meets their requirements.

Your class is full of diverse students with unique learning abilities. Providing them with more accessible original content means they can choose formats that work best for them: HTML for improved reading on mobile phones, Electronic Braille for the visually impaired, and Audio for learning on the go. Ally automatically scans your original content and performs a series of steps to make them more accessible.

Alternative Formats

Ally automatically generates these “Alternative Formats” for all your course files and makes them available for download to you and your students. Your original file will not be affected by the alternative formats. The translated version is an opt-in format and may not be available in all courses.

Alternative Indicators

Ally integrates with Brightspace and provides feedback within your course workflow. Log-in to your course and you will find the Ally indicators next to your files or content.

Click the indicator to view your accessibility feedback. Follow along step-by-step to improve your original file. Green is the goal!

Your course files and content will now have color “dials” next to them. They indicate the file’s level of accessibility and are there to help you prioritize which files you want to fix first. Don’t worry, your students can’t see them. If you hover over the indicators, you will see if the accessibility score is “low,” “medium,” or “high.” Click the indicator to see the Instructor Feedback panel. This displays the percentage score, specific issues affecting the file and instructions for improving the file.

The Instructor Feedback panel contains the following information:

• Accessibility score percentage for the entire file with the corresponding color and gauge icon.
• A link to a list of all issues in the file, with a Fix button that you can use to fix, save and upload the file with the improved accessibility score.
• A description of the issue and how to fix it.
• An upload window that you can use to drag-and-drop a new version of the file or browse to the updated file.

For more information, see Blackboard Ally Help.