What is Blackboard Ally?
Ally is a tool that helps faculty improve the accessibility of course documents. With Ally, students view course documents in a variety of formats that support different learning needs. Ally is integrated into the Blackboard Learning Management System (LMS) and automatically provides alternative formats of certain course documents. Ally offers step-by-step guidance to faculty when a course document or content needs improvement.
Ally Instructor Help Page: https://help.blackboard.com/Ally/Ally_for_LMS/Instructor
Ally Instructor FAQs: https://help.blackboard.com/Ally/Ally_for_LMS/Instructor/FAQs
Ally Student Help Page: https://help.blackboard.com/Ally/Ally_for_LMS/Student
Ally Student FAQs: https://help.blackboard.com/Ally/Ally_for_LMS/Student/FAQs
Ally for Faculty
Ally automatically measures the accessibility of PDF, Word, OpenOffice, HTML or PowerPoint files uploaded to Blackboard. Ally provides an accessibility score for the file with a visible gauge. The accessibility gauge indicates the degree to which a file meets WCAG2.1 accessibility standards. The gauge icons are visible only to the course instructor and are shown below:
Low: File is not accessible and requires immediate attention to correct accessibility issues.
Medium: File is somewhat accessible. The file could be improved.
High: File is accessible. There are non-critical issues to be improved.
Perfect: File is accessible. No improvement needed.
Note: Ally and other accessibility checkers use programmed algorithms and may not identify all accessibility issues. Click here for additional information on creating accessible resources.
Ally for Students
For PDF, Word, OpenOffice, HTML or PowerPoint files in Blackboard, Ally produces several alternative formats of the original file such as electronic braille, audio, or tagged PDF. Students may download a file version best suited to their needs by opening the drop-down menu next to the file and choosing the "Alternative Formats" option. If an alternate document file such as a translation to another language is not appropriate for the course (i.e. a language course), faculty may turn off that format for the document.
Please note: Students are not able to view the Ally gauges on your files.