From the 4 May 2021, Moodle will start to look a little different, thanks to a new feature called ‘Blackboard Ally’. Two new icons will appear next to your uploaded documents gradually over this week. Here you can read more about what Ally is, and how it can benefit students.
1. Tell your students about Ally
The immediate benefit of Ally is that students (and staff) will be able to download much of the content on Moodle in alternative formats, for example, audio files, ePub or HTML. This means students and staff have more opportunity to access materials in a format that best suits their needs or preferences. Share this short video with your students to explain the benefits of Ally.
2. Don’t be alarmed by the Ally ‘Dials’
In addition to the ‘Alternative Formats’ feature, the Ally dial, displayed only to staff, provides feedback on the accessibility rating of the uploaded document. If you discover many low-scoring dials on your Moodle page, please don’t worry. The introduction of Ally is part of a gradual process to improve the accessibility of our materials over time.
Although you can’t turn the dials off, you don’t need to reveal these scores to students. If you are showing your students Moodle in a live session, consider switching your Moodle viewer role to ‘student’ before screen-sharing.
3. Learn from Ally but don’t worry about ‘fixing’ everything immediately
Ally provides useful information about why accessibility features are important, as well as giving step by step guidance on how to include them. In this way, as well as fixing our existing material, Ally can help us to become more aware of how to create new material that is fully accessible.
The university recognises that some Moodle content may not yet be fully accessible, and this is made clear in the Moodle Accessibility Statement. There is no expectation that staff will resolve all the accessibility issues immediately but as we refresh and change our materials over time Ally is there to support all of us in improving our practices.
Want to know more?
Book a place on our Using Ally sessions via Employee Self-Service (ESS) or visit digitaltools/tutorials/ally/