What is the Accessibility Summary?
The Accessibility Summary is part of Blackboard Ally, our accessibility add-on for My Studies. It provides you with an overview of content across your module or course. Alongide this the Accessibility Summary provides suggestions for quickly fixing your content and for improving low accessibility content.
How can I use the Accessibility Summary
In your modules and courses under the Course Management > Course Tools menu you will now see an Accessibility Summary option.
The summary will open on its own page and will show the overall accessibility of your module content and an overview of content types in use.
To see helpful suggestions for easy issues to fix, press Start in the top box on the right.
On the next page, click on the dial next to the suggested fix to see instructions explaining how to improve the content.
Follow the instructions provided. In this example I need to add alternative (alt) descriptive text. This will describe the content of the image to people who are visually impaired or blind. It will also help all students, as if the image does not load or there is a problem with it the text will explain what students should be seeing on the page.
I added the following written description…
Annotated diagram of the human brain with labeling and colour coding for each part of the brain. From the top: frontal lobe (red), parietal lobe (yellow), occipital lobe (blue), temporal lobe (purple), cerebellum (brown), spinal cord (purple).
Then I clicked on the Add button and hey presto, the image is now 100% and will be removed from the list of things to fix.
The steps for fixing ‘low scoring content’ are the same as the process shown above.
I have been working in the Educational Technology field within Higher Education for eleven years. A big part of my job is finding new and innovative ways of integrating technology into current teaching and learning methodology. This can include assisting academic staff with Virtual Learning Environments/Learning Management Systems (Blackboard), implementing specific software packages, maximising current technologies and championing new ones. I find this profession both riveting and rewarding. I really enjoy life on the cutting edge, but I also enjoy being able to help staff achieve small and meaningful efficiencies; sometimes that makes all the difference.
