Archived Release Notes Ally 2019

Ally 1.35.2 | Release to production 26 September 2019

Updated Features

Ally 1.35.2 bug fixes and improvements

• Improved the Canvas integration to better support linked files in WYSIWYG content that was originally created in a different LMS
• Implemented support for tables embedded in tables as part of the document preview and highlighting feature in the instructor feedback
• Fixed a bug in the Canvas integration that prevented the alternative formats and instructor feedback from showing for linked files in the Syllabus tool

Ally 1.35.1 | Release to production 19 September 2019

Updated Features

Canvas Blueprint Courses

The Ally 1.35.1 release introduces support for Canvas Blueprint courses. Alternative descriptions for images and other accessibility metadata set through the Ally instructor feedback in the blueprint course will now be copied over correctly to any courses created from the blueprint.

Ally support for Canvas Blueprint Courses requires the `Courses - add / edit / delete` permission to be assigned to the Ally REST API user.

Ally 1.35.1 bug fixes and improvements

• Improved support for special characters and diacritics in the OCRd alternative format
• Improved the display of the “large ribbon” for the Ally for Websites alternative formats to be smaller on a mobile device
• Fixed a bug in the D2L Brightspace integration that caused the student enrollment count to not synchronize correctly for large courses
• Added the “language” attribute to the ePub alternative format
• Fixed a bug in the Canvas integration that occasionally caused the alternative formats modal to freeze the screen
• Implemented several positioning improvements for the alternative formats icon and the accessibility indicator in the Moodle integration
• Implemented several accessibility improvements in the alternative formats modal dialog

Ally 1.34.1 | Release to production 22 August 2019

Updated Features

D2L Brightspace student count

Ally 1.34.1 fixes a bug in the D2L Brightspace integration that caused the student count for a course to always be “0” in the institutional report. This fix does require an additional permission for the Blackboard Ally REST role though.

The following steps should be followed to configure this:

1. Go to Security and Roles and Permissions in the administrator menu.
2. Add the following extra permissions under Users to the Blackboard Ally REST role:
   1. View User Enrollments
   2. Search For Student

      If your institution uses a different / custom role for students, select “Search For ” instead.

Ally will only ever retrieve the student count, and not any individual enrollments or individual student information.

Ally 1.34.1 bug fixes & improvements

• Fixed a bug in the Canvas integration that caused the alternative format download icon to not be visible for files in the Announcements and Discussions tools.

Ally 1.33.3 | Release to production 4 August 2019

Updated Features

Ally 1.33.3 bug fixes and improvements

• Adjusted to styling of the more prominent alternative formats icon in the Canvas integration to make the icon slightly smaller and lighter
• Added an indication of when the accessibility report for a course was last updated in the institutional report
• Fixed a bug that occasionally caused the weekly Blackboard Ally for Websites recrawls to not automatically start
• Improved the hover and focus styles in the alternative formats modal dialog for the Blackboard Ally for Websites integration
• Improved the detection of HTML content with contrast issues

Ally 1.33 | Release to production 2 July 2019

New Features, Updated Features

D2L BrightSpace integration

We are extremely proud to announce that Blackboard Ally is now available for D2L BrightSpace. Ally is seamlessly integrated into the D2L BrightSpace interface and provides the same functionality as the other Ally for LMS integrations, with alternative formats and instructor feedback being available for uploaded files such as PDF, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations and Images.

Next to these different file types, the institutional report also contains the results of checking the following WYSIWYG content types for accessibility issues:

• File topics
• Quiz topics
• External link topics
• Discussion topics
• Modules

It may take up to July 25 for the integration to be available in D2L BrightSpace production environments, depending on which monthly release wave the environment is on.

More prominent alternative formats

In the last year alone, students have downloaded more than 2 million alternative formats through Ally. This has been a great confirmation of the Universal Design for Learning principles that Ally was designed with and how improved accessibility and choice can benefit all learners. Therefore, we are making the “Alternative Format” option more prominent to allow students to more easily find the alternative formats and access them more quickly.

Given that these more prominent Alternative Format icons affect the main LMS UI, we are doing a soft release of this feature. Institutions that want to enable the more prominent alternative formats straight away can request this through a Behind The Blackboard ticket. On August 1, all institutions will automatically be moved to the more prominent alternative formats, although it is possible to request a later date as well through a Behind The Blackboard ticket.

This is an overview of how the more prominent alternative formats are displayed in the different LMSs:

1. Blackboard Learn: The Alternative Formats icon has been removed from the content dropdown and is now available as a single click next to the original file name.
   
2. Blackboard Open LMS and Moodle: The Alternative Formats icon replaces the “Download” dropdown and is available as a single click next to the original file name.
   
3. Instructure Canvas: The dropdown icon next to the original file name has been made more prominent. There are multiple actions that can be taken on a file (e.g., preview), so the dropdown is still in place to group those various actions and prevent the screen from becoming too cluttered.
   
4. D2L BrightSpace: The Alternative Formats icon is available as a single click from the Table of Contents and the individual content pages.
   

Usage tracking

Detailed usage tracking is now available for the Ally for Websites and Ally for Web Community Manager integrations. The following (anonymous) usage data is tracked for the alternative formats:

• How often is the alternative formats modal opened?
• How many alternative formats are downloaded?
• What alternative format types are downloaded?
• In which (sub)domains or sections have alternative formats been downloaded?

In the Ally for Web Community Manager integration, the following content creator feedback is tracked as well:

• How often is the content creator feedback opened?
• How many content items are improved through the content creator feedback?
• In which sections have improvements been made through the content creator feedback?

Similar to the Ally for LMS integrations, a usage report can be requested through a Behind The Blackboard support ticket. As part of our 2019 roadmap, this data will be exposed directly in the Ally report as well.

Ally 1.31 | Release to production 18 June 2019

New Features, Updated Features

Configuration UI in Blackboard Learn

The Ally Configuration UI is now available in the Blackboard Learn Administrator Panel, providing easier access to the various Ally configuration options and the ability to enable/disable Ally for individual courses.

Note that this requires the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3700.3.0 release (released to production on June 6 2019). It will be available for self-hosted and managed hosted Blackboard Learn institutions as of the Blackboard Learn Q4 2019 release.

Also note that Blackboard Learn doesn’t always automatically pick up on this new link when upgrading to this release. If that’s the case, you can toggle the availability of the Ally Building Block to Off and then to On again. At that point, the Ally Configuration link will become available.

ePub alternative format

The ePub alternative format generation algorithm has been significantly improved. This results in a much smaller file size, and should greatly benefit mobile usage of the ePub alternative format.

Ally LTI Tools in Canvas

The Ally LTI cartridge for the Institutional Report and Configuration UI in the Canvas integration has been updated to ensure that these tools are no longer visible in areas where instructors can select known LTI tools (e.g., “external module” or “external tool submission type”). To utilize these new LTI cartridges, the existing Ally Institutional Report and Ally Configuration UI LTI tools need to be removed and re-added using the existing installation instructions.

Ally 1.31 bug fixes and improvements

• Additional configuration options have been added to the Ally for Websites crawler to allow the frequency of the automated recrawls to be increased or decreased.
• The months in the Ally Institutional Report have been fully localized.
• The audio alternative format now distinguishes between ordered and unordered lists. Ordered lists will be announced as “Begin numbered list”, and unordered lists will be announced as “Begin bulleted list”.
• Decorative images will no longer be announced in the audio alternative format.
• Fixed a bug in the “This document has no headings” check for Word documents to prevent empty paragraphs from contributing to the minimum document length threshold.
• Fixed a bug that caused the incorrect severity label to be used for certain issues in the institutional report CSV export.