Monday lunchtime saw the termly meeting of our TEL Practitioner Forum – the first time we’ve met on campus since before the Covid pandemic (and so lovely to finally see members in person!) The forum is our community of practice and is comprised of colleagues from across the university with an interest in or a responsibility for TEL.
The theme for this term’s meeting was digital accessibility with a specific focus on the Blackboard Ally tool’s reporting features, and how they can help improve content accessibility and the student T&L experience. We were pleased to have Tharindu Liyanagunawardena, the university’s new Digital Accessibility Officer, join us.
Ally is a tool integrated into Blackboard which allows staff to check and improve the accessibility of the content they upload and enables students to access and download content in one of several alternative formats to best suit their needs and preferences. The formats include: audio for listening to; HTML for improved usage on mobile devices; ePub for using on eReaders; braille, and tagged PDFs. Tagged PDFs have all the advantages of a PDF document (can be opened and read on any device or platform, can be opened in a browser, can be annotated) with added accessibility features (e.g. tags and headings) to make it screen-reader friendly for users with visual impairments.
A couple of important reminders were shared in the session:
- documents should be uploaded to Blackboard in their original form – as a Word document, for example – and not as a PDF. (Students can opt to download the document as a tagged, accessible PDF should they wish.)
- how well formatted the original document is will provide more accurate and usable alternative formats for students to use.
TEL Advisor Matt Jones outlined a couple of other useful alternative formats available to students designed to aid on-screen reading and comprehension:
- the BeeLine Reader helps make on-screen reading easier and faster (useful for students with dyslexia or ADHD);
- the Immersive Reader is designed to improve comprehension and grammar skills (useful for students for whom English is an additional language).
Institutional Ally data 2021-22
The institutional data presented by Maria Papaefthimiou (Senior TEL Advisor) of student use of alternative formats in 2021-22 showed there were a total of 105,750 downloads with 8,430 unique users having downloaded content in alternative formats. It’s interesting to note that 1:5 of our students currently have a declared disability but closer to 2:5 students have chosen to access content in alternative formats. This suggests that our students download content in line with preferences, productivity and their ways of working, and that downloads are not purely related to accessibility needs. Ally is both a productivity and an accessibility aid.
By far the most popular of the alternative formats which students chose to download in 2021-22 was the tagged PDF (70,000+), followed by HTML and ePub files (around 15,000 of each). This trend continued during the Autumn Term with tagged PDFs being by far the most popular download format.
Institutional report data has shown the overall accessibility score for files on Blackboard has improved from 2018-29 to 2021-22. Although things are moving in the right direction, there is still content where accessibility can be improved and this is where the reports are useful in identifying where we can focus our efforts to assist students.
Ally’s reporting features
As well as offering institutional data, Ally has some other useful reporting features:
- the Course Report – provides data on how accessible content in a Blackboard module is.
- School/Dept. Report – provides accessibility data on Blackboard modules in particular schools and/or departments (available on request).
If you’re interested in finding out more about school/dept. Ally reporting to help you understand and improve the accessibility of Blackboard content in your area, please contact Maria Papaefthimiou: m.c.papaefthimiou@reading.ac.uk
Staff development support
CQSD TEL run a staff development session to help you get the most from the Ally tool: Making your Blackboard module accessible with Blackboard Ally. The Inclusive Design Principles for online T&L session may also be of interest. Look out for details in the regular CQSD T&L Programme and TEL staff development emails.
Further useful info:
- Blackboard Ally support for staff
- Blackboard Ally (alternative formats) support for students
- What is a Tagged PDF?
References:
Tiwari, A.S. (2022) What is a Tagged PDF?, Allyant. Available at: https://allyant.com/what-is-a-tagged-pdf-definition-meaning-explanation/ (Accessed: December 21, 2022).