TABLE OF CONTENTS

• What is Ally?
• Create alternative formats of course content
  • Download alternative formats
  • Use the Ally File Transformer
  • What types of alternative formats does Ally generate?
• Improve the accessibility of your course content
• Use Ally's Accessibility Score Indicators to determine the accessibility of your content
• Use Ally's Instructor Feedback to improve the accessibility of your content
  • Access the Feedback Panel
  • Preview your file
  • Follow Ally's step-by-step guidance to improve your file accessibility
• Utilize Ally's Course Accessibility Report
  • Access your Course Accessibility Report
  • View your Course Accessibility Report
  • Choose What to Fix First
• Accessibility Resources

What is Ally?

Ally is a tool within myLesley designed to improve the usability and accessibility of your course content. Providing accessible content allows your students to choose the formats that work best for them, including HTML for improved reading on mobile phones, Electronic Braille for the visually impaired, and Audio and ePUB files for learning on the go. Ally automatically scans your course content, and performs a series of steps to make it more accessible. Ally:

• Generates alternative formats for students to download.
• Provides accessibility scores for your content.
• Gives instructor feedback on how to improve your accessibility score.

For more information go to the Ally Quick Start for Instructors support page, or watch the Ally Overview for Instructors tutorial video:

Create alternative formats of course content

Ally automatically creates alternative formats of the content you add to your course. These alternative formats are made available with the original file, so everything is in one location. 

Download alternative formats

Ally scans the content in your course and provides alternative formats for the following types of content:

• PDF files (PDF)
• Microsoft Word (DOC, DOCX)
• Microsoft PowerPoint (PPT, PPTX)
• Content created in Blackboard (Ultra Documents, Items in Original Course View)

You and your students may access alternative formats of your files by selecting the file you wish to access and clicking the Alternative Formats icon.

You will then be provided with a list of Alternative Formats. Select your desired format and click Download.

Your file will download. This may take several minutes.

Use the Ally File Transformer

The Ally File Transformer allows you to upload a course file and download it in an alternative form, allowing you to personalize your learning experience to better fit your needs, devices, and learning preferences. 

To access the Ally File Transformer from within myLesley, click on the Assist link in the global navigation menu. 

After uploading your file, pick an alternative format that best suits your current task or situation.

What types of alternative formats does Ally generate?

Based on the original file or content type, Ally may generate the following types of alternative formats:

• OCR'd PDF: Makes scanned documents searchable, more readable, and accessible to users on a screen reader
• Tagged PDF: Improves use with assistive technology (currently for Word and PowerPoint files)
• Immersive Reader:Aids in reading comprehension and grammar skills.  (Internet access required)
• Audio: MP3 version for listening on a computer or mobile device
• HTML: Mobile-friendly version for reading in browsers or mobile devices
• Electronic Braille: BRF version for tactile reading on electronic braille displays, other braille reading devices, or within braille software
• ePUB: For reading and annotating on mobile devices or e-book readers 
• BeeLine Reader: Enhanced version for faster and more focused on-screen reading
• Translated Version: This alternative format provides a machine-translated version of the original content into a total of 50 different languages. Supports PDF, Word, PowerPoint and HTML documents.

For more information and details about each of the Ally alternative formats, including how to use them, go to the Alternative Formats support article or watch the Ally Alternative Formats tutorial video.

To find out more about what students see, go to Accessing Alternative Formats of Documents in myLesley.

Improve the accessibility of your course content

Both Blackboard Ultra and Blackboard Original courses are designed to be accessible to all users. The Accessibility Overview in Blackboard Ultra video provides an overview of Blackboard's accessibility options. Additional information may be found on the Blackboard Ultra: Accessibility Overview support page.

As you create your course and upload content, you want to be sure that all elements of your course are accessible to your students. Some best practices include:

• Write clearly. Use plain language whenever possible.
• Ensure that your text is legible. Choose a font and size that is easy to read. 
• Use color and contrast wisely.  Avoid using color as the only way to convey information and ensure that there is sufficient contrast between the background and foreground of your text or graphics.
• Add alternative text descriptions to images. 
• Use proper heading styles and structure. Use your program's built-in heading styles and be sure that your headings follow a logical and hierarchal order.
• Use your program's built-in formatting tools to create bulleted and numbered lists.
• Avoid using tables, if possible, and present your data in a different way, such as bulleted or numbered lists. Tables should be used only when your information or data is too complicated to describe with text.
• Use descriptive links that convey clear and accurate information about the destination.
• Don't upload scanned PDFs! When you scan a text, such as a book, journal article, newspaper article, etc., the resulting document is an image of the text. These scanned PDFs are considered completely inaccessible to all users.
• Ensure that all PDFs are properly tagged. 
• Ensure that any media you share is captioned or a transcript is available. 
• If you are sharing documents or presentations (ex Word, PowerPoint), run the Microsoft Accessibility Checker to ensure that your content is accessible before you share it.

Review the Accessibility Checklist for more information about creating accessible content.

Use Ally's Accessibility Score Indicators to determine the accessibility of your content

Ally measures the accessibility of your course content and shows you an overall accessibility score for each file. The scores range from Low (red icon) to Perfect (green icon). The higher the score, the fewer the issues. These indicators are only visible to the instructor - students do not see the accessibility score indicators.

Low: File is not accessible and needs immediate attention.

Medium: File is somewhat accessible and could use improvement.

High: File is accessible but could be improved.

Perfect: File is accessible. No improvement needed.

At this time, the following file types are checked for accessibility:

• PDF
• Microsoft Word (DOC, DOCX)
• Microsoft PowerPoint (PPT, PPTX)
• Image files (JPG, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BPM, TIFF) 
• Uploaded HTML files
• Content created in the Blackboard (Ultra Documents, Items in Original Course View)
• Embedded YouTube videos

Accessibility scores are determined by the severity of issues in each file. A low score indicates that the file has severe or multiple accessibility issues whereas a high score indicates that the file has minor accessibility issues.

In addition to your accessibility score, Ally provides information to help you improve your content and overall accessibility.

Use Ally's Instructor Feedback to improve the accessibility of your content

Ally provides detailed feedback and support to help you improve the accessibility of your content. You will learn about the accessibility issues, why they matter, and how to fix them. 

Access the Feedback Panel

Click the Accessibility Score next to your file to open the Feedback Panel. 

The feedback panel will display a preview of your file's content as well as detailed feedback and support to help you fix any accessibility issues.

Preview your file

The instructor feedback's preview shows the content for PDFs, Word documents, and PowerPoints. For the most common accessibility issues, it will highlight where in the file the issues can be found. For example, if your images are missing descriptions, the highlights show every place in the file where the image descriptions are missing. 

Highlights are provided for the following issues:

• Images without an alternative description
• Text with insufficient contrast
• Tables without headers

You may also use the preview tools to explore the accessibility issues in your document:

• Move through the document preview page by page.
• See how many times a specific issue appears in the document.
• Jump between the issue highlights.
• Hide or show the highlights.
• Zoom the preview content in or out.
• Download the original file.

Follow Ally's step-by-step guidance to improve your file accessibility

For files with low to high accessibility scores, Ally shows you all of the issues and provides step-by-step guides on how to fix them. 

For files with multiple accessibility issues, the most severe issue is displayed first. Click All Issues to see a list of all accessibility issues found in your document. This will show you how much you can improve your score by fixing each issue. 

Select an accessibility issue. Ally organizes feedback in a decision tree so that you can read the instructions and respond to the prompts. You will learn what the issue is, why it matters, and how to correct it.

Click What this means to find out more about the issue and why it is important. Click How To for instructions on how to fix your issue.

Ally will assist you with the following tasks:

• Add Headers to Document Data Tables
• Add Headings to a Document
• Add Image Descriptions
• Add a Library Reference
• Fix Broken Links
• Fix Text Contrast
• Remove Potentially Harmful Content
• Scanned PDFs
• Set the Correct Document Language
• Tag a PDF

In most cases, you will fix your file using the program you used to crate it (ex Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat). Once you have fixed your accessibility, upload your updated file to replace the existing one.

For more information, go to the Instructor Feedback Panel support article or watch the View File Accessibility with Ally in Blackboard tutorial video.

Utilize Ally's Course Accessibility Report

Ally’s Course Accessibility report allows you to see the big picture as well as specific details about the accessibility of your course content. 

Access your Course Accessibility Report

Ultra Course View

To access the Course Accessibility Report in Ultra Course View, go to your Details & Actions menu and click on View course & institution tools.

From your list of Books & Tools, select Accessibility Report.

Original Course View

To access the Course Accessibility Report in Original Course View, go to your course Control Panel, select Course Tools, and select Course Report.

View your Course Accessibility Report

The Overview tab shows the accessibility score for your course, groups course content by type, and lists all accessibility issues found in the course.

Course Accessibility Score

At the top of the report is an accessibility score for the entire course. Scores range from Low to Perfect. The higher the score the fewer the issues. 

Low (0-33%): File is not accessible and needs immediate attention.

Medium (34-66%): File is somewhat accessible and could use improvement.

High (67-99%): File is accessible but could be improved.

Perfect (100%): File is accessible. No improvement needed.

All Course Content

The All Course Content section shows all content in your course grouped by content type. Click View to view the content and start fixing issues.

Currently, Ally checks files in these formats: 

• PDF
• Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx)
• Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx)
• Uploaded HTML files 
• Image files (JPG, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BPM, TIFF) 
• YouTube Videos 

Ally also checks content types created through the content editor.

Ultra Course View:

• Ultra Document
• Folder
• Learning Module
• A link to a Forum
• Web Link
• Embedded LTI application

Original Course View:

• Content Folder 
• Content Item
• Learning Module
• Lesson Plan
• A link to a Forum 
• Web Link 
• Embedded LTI application 
• All other WYSIWYG content types including Blank page and Module page 

Choose What to Fix First

The Course Accessibility Report gives you the option to decide which content to fix first. You can to start with content that's easiest to fix, content with the lowest accessibility scores, or scroll down to Remaining Issues for a list of remaining issues in order of severity.

Select an issue to review all of the content that has that specific issue. Select the content item to open the Instructor Feedback Panel to fix the issue.

Accessibility Resources

Accessible content makes it easier for everyone to read and access your materials and can improve the overall quality and usability of your course. The following resources will assist you in creating accessible content.

Accessibility Checklist

View the Accessibility Checklist for detailed information on creating accessible content. The checklist includes general accessibility information as well as detailed information for improving accessibility in myLesley, PDFs, documents (Microsoft Word), presentations (Microsoft PowerPoint), and multimedia.

Ally Resources

Ally has put together a series of resources to help you improve your content's accessibility.

• Ally's Accessibility Checklist [PDF]: Download Ally's quick start reference for creating more accessible course content.
• Ally Remediation Cheatsheet: This resource details common Ally error reports and how to fix them.
• The Book of Ally: This free download highlights accessibility stories from colleges and universities worldwide.