Ally provides instructors detailed feedback and support to help instructors remediate course content to make it accessible. Think of Ally as your partner to help you learn about accessibility issues, why they matter and how to fix them.  Green is the goal!

Instructor Feedback

There are two places to access accessibility reports in your course to get started. The first is the Ally dial sitting to the right of your course file.

Ally dial

  1. Click on the dial icon. A new window opens which displays your file on the left and the file’s accessibility score on the right.

  2.  In this example, the score for the file is 5% and the reason is that the PDF is untagged.

    arrow pointing to accessibility score

  3. If you click on the What this means button, you’ll find out what a tagged PDF is. In essence, tags in a PDF are hidden labels that clarify the document structure for a screen reader. Without the tags, a screen reader cannot read a PDF document.

  4. By clicking on the All issues button, you’ll find out what additional accessibility issues were found for the file. In this example, the PDF does not have tags, the PDF does not have a language set, and the PDF does not have a title.

    All Issues


Note: Students do not see the dial icons. Only instructors can see the dials.

Accessibility report

The second way to check the accessibility score of your course and to access the list of issues that need remediation is to access the Accessibility report.

Note: Students do not see a link for Accessibility report. Only instructors have access to the Accessibility report.

  1. Begin by clicking on the Accessibility report link on the left side menu on your main course page.


    Accessibility report

  2. A new window opens which displays your Course accessibility score. In this example, the course accessibility score is 65%.  The dial is orange. Remember, green is the goal!

    arrow pointing to the accessibility score

  3. On the right side of the screen, you have two options. We recommend beginning with Content with the easiest issues to fix. Click on the Start button. A new window opens and you see your files on the left side. On the right side you see the Issues and the Score columns.


    screen displaying easiest issues to fix


  4. Choose a file to begin with on the left side of the screen. In this example, the Sample.docx file has two issues and a score of 32%. By clicking on the Sample.docx file, a window opens and displays the file on the left side of the screen, and the Accessibility score on the right side.

    arrow pointing to accessibility score


  5. The Accessibility score for the Sample.docx file is 32% and we see that the issue is that the file contains images that do not have descriptions. As in our previous example, Ally gives us the option to click on What this means and How to add descriptions, providing support to the user to remediate the file.



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(blue star) Related articles

Ally Quick Start for Instructors on the Blackboard Ally website

Course Accessibility Report on the Blackboard Ally website