What is Blackboard Ally?  

Ally is a built-in accessibility tool for Blackboard. It is able to do 3 things:  

1. Give any document uploaded to Blackboard an accessibility score;  
2. Provide guidance on how to improve the accessibility of documents uploaded to Blackboard;  
3. Enable students (and yourself) to download documents in alternatives formats. These are  

• OCRed PDF (for scanned PDFs)  
• HTML (for browser or mobile devices)  
• ePub (reading as an e-book)  
• Electronic Braille (BRF version for electronic braille displays)  
• Audio (MP3 for listening)  
• Translated version (machine translation into 50 different languages)  

 Making your documents more accessible will improve them for students and will increase the quality of alternative formats that are produced.   

 Watch this video about file accessibility and how to improve it using Ally.  

What will students see?  

Students are only able to see the Ally icon that will allow them to download alternative formats. They will not see the accessibility rating of documents.   

 Here is a short video you can show students to introduce them to Blackboard Ally on your module.