Professors to be able to opt into new accessibility tool for online learning by Winter 2021
UFV is piloting a feature designed to make online courses more accessible to students with disabilities.
Blackboard Ally is an extension to Blackboard Learn that automatically converts existing course materials into different formats in order to help students with a wide range of disabilities to easily access content. UFV’s Teaching and Learning Centre (TLC) has been offering optional workshops on using Ally to instructors since late August, with sessions held as recently as last week.
According to Blackboard’s website, Ally’s primary function is to generate “alternative files that are easier to use by all students.” These alternative files are created via machine learning algorithms, and can offer existing documents in electronic braille, translate them into other languages, convert them to audio, and more.
Satish Kotha, a learning designer at TLC, said that Ally functions by providing instructors with an accessibility rating for each file they upload. This rating can “raise flags” for any kind of accessibility issue a file might have, such as a lack of headings or captions. Once an accessibility issue is highlighted by Ally, instructors are given directions for how to correct them. (Although this is not possible in all cases, such as when a captioned version of a video cannot be found online.)
“The advantage of using Ally is that [it] provides step-by-step instructions on how to make content more accessible,” said Kotha. Provided a file meets the accessibility criteria, students can easily open a menu in Blackboard to browse through the available accessibility options. For text files, this usually includes HTML and e-reader compatible versions of documents, electronic braille, and automatic translations into other languages, while audio and video files may have captions available.
In addition, Kotha noted that an advantage of Ally is that it allows students to keep their disabilities private if they wish. “You can remove the barriers and the labels for students,” he said. Because Ally automatically converts files into accessible formats upon request, no conversation is needed between instructors and students.
Notably, Ally is currently being used only on an optional basis at UFV, and instructors must opt in to use it. According to Kotha, Ally will be made widely available to all online UFV courses beginning in the winter semester. However, whether instructors actually use the feature will remain optional. “If a faculty chooses not to go with Ally or if they’re not comfortable with it … they can ask us to disable it for them,” he said.
Ally’s website also notes that the service currently only functions with content created by instructors, meaning that content created by students (such as uploaded files, contributions to forum discussions, and more) is still not easily accessible to those who may require the use of alternative formats.
“We’ve forwarded these concerns to the Ally team,” said Kotha. “We’ve been keeping a log of these kinds of questions, because … the whole purpose of using a pilot phase is to get that kind of feedback.”
