Automating accessibility: A BCcampus sandbox pilot project | BCcampus

"...We’ve always been strong advocates for the development and use of accessible teaching and learning materials. By focusing on the three tenets of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and working with CAPER-BC, we’ve been able to ensure our open textbooks are accessible for everyone. Creating accessible online learning content is essential to the learners in your program, but the current process has its challenges. Too often, online learning content is created by faculty and/or instructional designers who may not have the skills or knowledge of UDL to create accessible learning content. With potentially hundreds – or thousands – of learners using your course content, it’s imperative that learning content is designed to meet current content accessibility guidelines and delivered to learners in a format they can use, such as semantic HTML, ePub, audio, and electronic braille. These are the types of issues that Blackboard Ally has been designed to help overcome. Using an automated process built on machine learning algorithms, Blackboard Ally is a Learning Management System (LMS) plugin that checks content within the LMS for accessibility issues and then creates alternative content formats for learners. This summer, BCcampus is coordinating a sandbox/pilot project of Blackboard Ally with five B.C. post-secondary institutions to determine the effectiveness of the tool...."