Accessible content benefits everybody but is essential for those who specific needs and preferences.
The Public Sector Bodies (Web and Mobile) Accessibility Regulations 2018 opens a new window opens a new window requires that the digital resources that a University publishes must be accessible to W3C WCAG 2.1AA Web Content Standards opens a new window. This includes the learning and teaching materials that we share through Learn Ultra.
While Learn Ultra will not do all of the work for you, Blackboard Ally is a suite of tools which helps:
- an instructor to make their courses and learning and teaching materials more accessible;
- students to gain access to automatically generated alternative formats of the files that you upload to Learn Ultra.
This guide will outline the features, functions and metrics in Blackboard Ally, such as Alternative Formats and Course Reports.
See Anthology’s Blackboard Ally quick-start guide for Instructors opens a new window for more information.
Accessing your Course Report
Every Learn Ultra Course has Blackboard Ally enabled by default. This means that each Course has a dynamically generated Course Report that provides:
- an overview of the types of content uploaded to the course;
- a summary of identified accessibility issues;
- advice on how to correct identified accessibility issues;
- a wizard to help address ‘easy to fix’ issues.
To access your Blackboard Ally Course Report
- Select ‘View course & institutional tools‘
- Select ‘Accessibility Report‘
Attention: Only those with the Instructor role can view the Course Accessibility Report
Addressing easy to fix issues
Understanding Ally Accessibility score gauges
When you upload content into Learn Ultra, you will receive an automatic accessibility score in the way of a gauge icon. By clicking on the icon, you will receive information about how the score has been determined and advice on how to address the identified issues.
Attention: Only those with the Instructor role within a course can see the Ally Accessibility Score gauges.
0% – 25% displays a red icon. This indicates low accessibility.
50% displays an orange icon. This indicates medium accessibility
75% displays a lime green icon. This indicates reasonable accessibility
100% displays a dark green icon. This indicates reasonable accessibility
Understanding Ally Alternative Formats
Every Course in Learn Ultra has Blackboard Ally automatically enabled. This means Students can download automatically generated alternative format versions of the learning and teaching materials that you upload.
Students will see an ‘A’ icon (shown below) when alternative formats are available.
Attention: Ally Alternative formats are automatically generated and therefore may result in loss of data or changes to how information is presented. As a rule of thumb, the more accessible and structured that your learning materials are, the better that the results from the conversion process will be.
| Alternative Format | Useful for | Drawbacks |
| Tagged PDF | Preserving visual layout Printing | Will not reflow when accessed on a small screen (mobile device) |
| HTML | Access on devices where Microsoft Office is not installed | May lose style and formatting. |
| ePub | Reviewing learning materials on eReaders, such as Kindle. | May lose style and formatting. |
| Electronic braille | Those who are blind or hard of sight. | Will lose style and formatting. Can only convert text. |
| Audio | Those who are blind or hard of sight. Those who prefer to listen to text rather than read. Commuting students (e.g. driving) who cannot read while in transit. | Will lose style and formatting. Can only convert text. No control over voice of reader or speed of reader. |
| BeeLine Reader | Those who wish to remove distractions, improve legibility by changing font and background colours. Neurodiverse students (e.g. dyslexic, dyspraxic) | Will lose style and formatting. Can only convert text. |
| Microsoft Immersive Reader (see Microsoft’s Guidance) | Those who wish to remove distractions, improve legibility by changing font, text size, colour and hear the text read back at a pace of their choosing. Neurodiverse students. Students studying with English as a second language | Will lose style and formatting. Can only convert text. |