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Making learning content accessible with Ally

Making learning content accessible with Ally

According to the Digital Experience Insights Survey 2023, 18% of Ulster University students declared an impairment, health condition or learning difference. Ally is a tool integrated with Blackboard Ultra, that can generate accessible versions of your learning and teaching materials to suit diverse learning needs.

The Ally button highlighted in Course content view

Introduction

Ally is a tool integrated with Blackboard Ultra, that can provide alternative and accessible versions of your original content items. Alternative formats provide greater opportunity for everyone to access the information they need, in the way they need it. In many cases, accessible course content benefits all students, including those without a disability. Accessibility is often closely connected to the quality and usability of the course materials.

For example, Ally can provide your content items as HTML for improved reading on mobile devices, Electronic Braille files for use with braille displays for the visually impaired, and as MP3 audio files for learning on the go.

In order for Ally to work effectively, it is important that the files uploaded originally are designed and produced with some basic accessibility principles in mind. For example, if you upload a Word document with some images in, but the images have no ‘alt’ descriptions, then Ally will not be able to produce an audio version of that document that can provide a spoken description of that image at the point that the image appears.

Ally will automatically scan your original content items, generate alternative formats of them and make them available for download by you and your students. The scan process does not require any interaction on the Instructor's behalf.

Note: Your original file will not be affected by the alternative formats. Ally does not store a copy of the original content item, move the original, or delete it. In addition, Ally does not scan or provide alternative formats for any student-generated content or files.

Available Alternative Formats

For the following original content file types:

  • PDFs

  • Microsoft Word documents

  • Microsoft PowerPoint presentations

  • OpenOffice/LibreOffice files

  • Uploaded HTML files

Ally can generate these alternative formats:

  • OCR’ed (Optical Character Recognition) version – automatically extracted text from scanned documents for improving reading and searching.

  • Tagged PDF (currently for Word, PowerPoint and OpenOffice/LibreOffice files) – structured PDFs for improved use with assistive technology.

  • Mobile-friendly HTML.

  • ePub – for reading as an e-book on an mobile device or other e-book reader.

  • Electronic Braille – BRF version for electronic braille displays.

  • MP3 Audio version for listening.

  • BeeLine Reader – enhanced version that uses an ‘eye-guiding colour gradient’ for easier and faster on-screen reading.

  • A Translated Version file format that uses machine-translation to convert the original content item into a total of 50 different languages, will be coming soon.

Note: Copyright protected, or password protected documents cannot be converted to alternative formats.

Downloading Alternative Formats

Alternative formats can be downloaded anywhere you see Ally's alternative formats download icon:

Just look for the Ally Alternative format within content items:

Screenshot 2024-07-23 at 10.37.16.png

 

To download the Ally Alternative format version of your content:

  1. Roll your mouse pointer over the content item and select the Ally alternative formats download icon: 

     

  2. The Download alternative Formats pop-up window will open:

    Ally download context menu



  3. Choose the alternative format you wish to download by selecting the radio button next to it. In the example below, the Audio (MP3) format has been selected:



  4. Then select the Download button:

    Ally download button



  5. If this is the first time that alternative format has been requested, Ally will need to prepare the file for download:

    Ally download screen showing timer

 

For large, or complex files, the file preparation process can take several minutes to complete. You can continue to use Blackboard Learn by closing the Download alternative Formats window. You can then return to the alternative formats when the file preparation is complete.

Note: Alternative formats files are removed from Ally after 30 days. A new request for the file after 30 days, will regenerate the alternative format file.

Disable alternative formats (for individual files)

As an instructor, you may prefer to turn off alternative formats for individual content items. To do this:

  1. Roll your mouse pointer over the content item and select the Ally alternative formats download icon

    Ally button beside file

     

  2. The Download alternative Formats pop-up window will appear:

    Ally download alternative formats menu



  3. Select the arrow to the right of Download alternative formats and choose Disable alternative formats for this file from the drop-down menu that appears:

    Disable alternative formats for this file button



  4. The pop-up window will change to indicate that Ally has disabled alternative formats for this file:

    Enable alternative formats button



  5. Select the Close button to save the changes, or select Enable for this file to re-enable alternative format versions of the file.

Note: If students try to download alternative formats of a file, when the option has been disabled, they will see a message telling them that alternative formats for that content item are no longer available.

Centre for Digital Learning Enhancement
ulster.ac.uk/learningengancement/cdle