A great feature offered by Ally is the course accessibility report. This report allows faculty to easily view all content for a course. This report includes and overall accessibility score for a course, a section containing content with easy issues to fix, a section containing content that is the lowest scoring, and content organized into categories based on their accessibility issues. The report provides the best way for faculty to identify inaccessible content and for faculty to replace that content.
To Run the Ally Course Accessibility Report:
- Access your Blackboard Learn course.
- Under the Course Management menu, select Course Tools.
- Select Accessibility Report.
In the top left-hand corner of the accessibility report is an overall accessibility score for a course. This is an average score based on the course content’s accessibility scores.
Low (0-33%): Needs help! There are severe accessibility issues.
Medium (34-66%): A little better. Course is somewhat accessible overall, but needs improvement.
High (67-99%): Almost there. Course is accessible but additional improvements are possible.
Perfect (100%): Perfect! Ally did not detect any issues with the course’s content.
Fixing your Content
The Ally accessibility report categorizes content into 2 different categories to help instructors decide which content they would like to fix first.
- The first is content with the easiest issues to fix, which contain documents that have easy to fix issues such as adding headings and adding image descriptions.
- The second is content low a low accessibility score.
Start with the Easiest Issues First
- Select Start button and begin fixing any course content. Typically this is going to be images, documents without headings, etc.
- Common issues will include missing alt text for images, and missing headings for documents, slides, etc.
To Add Alt Text for Images
To Upload a New Document:
If you are missing headings, you can download the document, add headings and re-upload the document.
Request Help Fixing your Content
The Technology and Learning Program (TLP), in conjunction with the Office of Accessible Technology Services (OATS), offers a turnkey solution for improving accessibility of course materials.
- You submit a ticket through TeamDynamix for help with course accessibility.
- TLP contacts you to confirm prior to starting the work. OATS may also contact you to request access to Google documents.
- TLP copies all course content into Box, one of our campus cloud storage solutions.
- OATS accesses the materials from Box and remediates (fixes) as much of the materials as possible while also compiling notes and suggestions.
- TLP sets up a meeting with the faculty member to return documents and discuss pending action items and suggestions. Please do not skip this step. We may need you to add alternative text or other contextual information.