Improving Course Accessibility with Blackboard Ally
Blackboard has a built-in tool that checks uploaded content to identify accessibility issues and guide faculty through a step-by-step process to fix identified problems.
How Blackboard Ally Can Improve Course Accessibility
Blackboard Ally gives each course an Accessibility Score (“grade”). Our first goal is for each course to have a score of 85% or higher. If your course is below this goal, please work diligently to increase the accessibility of your content.
IMPORTANT REMINDER: Course content must be accessible by April 26, 2027 to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act Title II Digital Accessibility Regulation.
How to Use Blackboard Ally
- Open the course in Blackboard, then navigate to the Books & Tools area under Detail & Actions on the right side of the course landing page.
- Select the View Course & Institution tools link to open a side panel with tools options.
- Select the Accessibility Report LTI 1.3 link to launch the Blackboard Ally course report.
- Review the list of issues beneath the dashboard. These are categorized by their level of impact on users. There should be no Critical issues in a course. Critical issues are indicated by a red exclamation mark icon in the course accessibility report as well as a red gauge next to affected content within the course itself.
- Select the “Fix Low Scoring Content” button in the dashboard area to work through issues in order of criticality.
- Select the first item in the list of low scoring content to open the Instructor Feedback panel. This will guide you through exactly what you need to do to address issues. Some issues you can address within Blackboard while others require you to do work in the original file. The Instructor Feedback Pane will let you know which option is required.
NOTE: Have an issue with your PDFs? See the section below for how Blackboard Ally can help make PDFs more accessible.
Need assistance working through issues in your course or questions about accessibility?
Contact accessibility@olemiss.edu or call 662-915-2476.
Making PDFs More Accessible with Blackboard Ally
If your accessibility report lists issues with PDFs, there are some built-in tools to help.
Issues with Optical Character Recognition (OCR)?
One of the most common PDF accessibility issues is that the document has not been processed with Optical Character Recognition (OCR). Without OCR, the text in a scanned PDF is not readable by assistive technologies such as screen readers.
Blackboard Ally includes a built-in OCR feature that can process PDFs directly within Blackboard. If your accessibility report identifies an OCR issue, the option to run OCR will appear in the Instructor Feedback Panel.
NOTE: OCR processing can sometimes reduce the visual quality of a document, causing text or images to appear blurry. If this happens, we recommend using our Document Converter tool to create a higher-quality OCR version of the PDF and then reuploading the converted file to Blackboard. Document Converter can also automatically add tags to a PDF. Learn more about PDF tagging below.
Issues with Tags?
A new feature in Blackboard Ally is auto-tagging. Tags are used within a PDF to communicate the document's structure to assistive technologies, such as screen readers. Common tag types include headings, paragraphs, images, lists, and tables.
If your accessibility report identifies a PDF that does not contain tags, the option to auto-tag the document will appear in the Instructor Feedback Panel.
When you use this feature, Ally automatically generates tags for the document and allows you to review them before they are applied. However, the current version does not allow individual tags to be edited. You can only review the generated tags and choose whether to approve all of them for the document.
NOTE: Auto-tagging does not resolve all accessibility issues in a PDF. Whenever possible, it is recommended to remediate the original source file and provide that as an option for students. See our Guide to Accessible Word Documents and Guide to Accessible PowerPoints for instructions on creating accessible source documents.
IMPORTANT: While auto-tagging can significantly improve the accessibility of a document, it is not sufficient for students with an accommodation. Please reach out to accessibility@olemiss.edu if you need help remediating PDFs for a student with an accommodation in your course.