Blackboard Ally

Blackboard Ally supports Deakin University to be more inclusive and improve the student experience in relation to usability, accessibility, and quality. It integrates into CloudDeakin and provides you with an accessibility score for each resource in your course. It automatically checks your resources against WCAG 2.1 accessibility standards and provides guidance on how to improve your resource accessibility.  

Blackboard Ally allows users to:

Create AI-powered alternative formats for course resources; 
Review content against WCAG 2.1 accessibility standards;  
Achieve a score course and use feedback provided to make your content more accessible; 
Gain insights on their resources and any accessibility challenges.

AI elements

The AI components within Blackboard Ally leverages machine learning to analyse the content against the WCAG 2.0 accessibility standards. It then provides an accessibility score to indicate the degree to which it meets the standards.  

With a single click, you can eliminate low bandwidth, vision, and language barriers for students.  Blackboard Ally can transform your course materials into accessible formats at a click of a button.  

List of functions

Some key features:

Provides accessibility score using traffic light system with easy-to-follow instructions to remedy ‘low-scoring content’
Lists alternative formats to make your content accessible
Option to download for use at a later stage to support users with unreliable internet access

Support resources

Deakin Resources:  
Blackboard Ally CloudDeakin Guide: a step-by-step guide to show you how to access and use Blackboard Ally.

Vendor Resources:
Blackboard Ally (external): guidance for you from a student, instructor, or administrator perspective,

Examples

The use cases below showcase some ways in which you can use Blackboard Ally in your practice:  

Maximise accessibility

Accessibility in CloudDeakin – improving access to unit content with BB Ally

As a teacher I want my unit resources to be accessible, so all my students are able to engage with the learning materials and develop their knowledge throughout the unit.

My students should be able to access and engage with accessible learning materials to actively participate in their learning.

Example practice considerations when aiming for accessibility of content in your CloudDeakin unit site:

Blackboard Ally (BB Ally) is integrated with CloudDeakin.
All content within CloudDeakin will be automatically reviewed by BB Ally. BB Ally will give an immediate rating on how accessible the content is and provide guidance and tips to enhance the accessibility of each resource.
BB Ally can be used to generate alternative formats such as a tagged PDF, HTML, ePub, etc. While providing alterative access, these generated formats will only be as accessible as the original CouldDeakin content (e.g. a poorly structured HTML page will convert to a poorly structured PDF).

Maximise accessibility

Access to video content – captions and transcripts to maximise student accessibility of multimedia content (with Kaltura Reach or Ai-Media services)

As a teacher I can ensure my multimedia resources have captions and transcripts so students can choose how they review the resources.

My students can use captions or transcripts to have alternative access to content in multimedia resources.

Example practice considerations when aiming for accessibility of video content:

Automated captions for DeakinAir video and multimedia:
- Kaltura Reach uses automated speech recognition to generate captions for DeakinAir multimedia resources
- captions can be added to any resource that has been created using DeakinAir or uploaded to DeakinAir
- captions can be edited to correct inadvertent errors.
Human-generated captions and transcripts can be requested through Ai Media for DeakinAir (or DeakinVideo) multimedia resources
Captions and transcripts aim for all students to have equal access to multimedia resources. Through meeting this accessibility requirement, it allows all students to choose how they interact with their resources.

Maximise accessibility

Maximise accessibility via tool choices – accessibility is always evolving

As a teacher I can choose tools and features that help maximise accessibility now, and keep an eye to the future for teaching tools that show promise in improving their accessibility features.

My students will progressively have better access to their learning due to continuous digital tool improvements.

Example practice considerations for continuous improvements in accessibility of learning and assessment content:

When you have a choice of digital tools, consider at the time which one offers more accessibility given current needs (this is an evolving area, so one tool with better accessibility features today, may be surpassed tomorrow).
Sometimes you might compare specific accessibility features between tools, e.g. which videoconferencing tool provides more reliable captioning on recordings.
Some tools offer templates designed to maximise accessibility, e.g. Padlet. Take care not to alter key features within a template, as you might inadvertently reduce the accessibility.