Digital Accessibility

To help faculty learn how to make their course materials more accessible to students, we have created a short video covering the accessibility tools available in Blackboard, Kaltura, and Microsoft Office.

• Accessibility Tools Video

Digital Documentation Quick Tips

This guide provides useful tips to get you started creating Accessible Content.

• Tips to make digital content accessible (document)

Ally in Blackboard Ultra

Ally is a separate product integrated within Blackboard with the purpose of checking course materials to ensure they meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Ally is available for Original and Ultra courses.   Ally has two main features, the Accessibility Report and the Alternative Formats.  

Accessibility Report
Ally will automatically access content you upload to a Blackboard course shell using accessibility guidelines.  The content will then receive an accessibility score with steps on how to remedy any issues. We have provided both a document and short video to learn how to access and read the Ally Accessibility Report.

• Ally: Accessibility Report (document)
• Ally: Accessibility Report (video)

Alternative Formats
Ally automatically provides multiple alternative formats on each document you upload to your Blackboard course shell.  These alternative formats such as e-pub or electronic braille, etc. are available to both you and your students.  We have provided both a document and short video to learn how to access and download Ally Alternative Formats.

• Ally: Download Files in Alternative Formats (document)
• Ally: Download Files in Alternative Formats (video)
   

Kaltura Accessibility

Kaltura Capture uses Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) captioning, which produces a text file that is then associated with media (video or audio) in Kaltura Capture.

• Editing Captions Using Kaltura Capture (document)

Microsoft Office Accessibility

The Accessibility Assistant can be used to identify issues with document accessibility.

• Using the Accessibility Assistant in Microsoft Office (document)
• Video: Add Alt Text in Microsoft Word
• Video: Add Alt Text in Microsoft Word (version for smartphone viewing)
• Video: Add Alt Text in Microsoft PowerPoint
• Video: Add Alt Text in Microsoft PowerPoint (version for smartphone viewing

Adobe Acrobat Accessibility

Adobe Acrobat allows you to add alt text to your PDF documents.

• Video: Add Alt Text in Adobe Acrobat
• Video: Add Alt Text in Adobe Acrobat (version for smartphone viewing)