Blackboard Ally
Blackboard Ally is a tool that helps you make your course content in Blackboard accessible to all users. It does this by:
- Automatically scanning course content and providing accessibility scores and feedback on how to improve the accessibility of the content.
- Generating alternative accessible formats for uploaded files that users can download for their personal use.
Ally does not scan nor provides alternative formats for any student-generated content or files.
Ally’s accessibility checklist is based on WCAG 2.1 AA (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines). Ally performs further additional checks on top of this that start to target the usability and quality of the content.
For further information about Blackboard Ally, watch the overview video for staff (2:28).
Why is this important?
It is important to make sure all content uploaded to the web, including files on your Blackboard sites, are fully accessible by following the training and guidance provided by the Web Accessibility team. Then when you create or view your course content in Blackboard you can follow the guidance provided by Ally on how to further increase the accessibility of the files if necessary.