Release Notes for Ally for LMS

Ally 2.10.4 | Release to production: October 3, 2024

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Fixed an issue where in some cases the Ally score gauge incorrectly appeared on embedded files or images in the document preview within the Instructor Feedback for Ultra documents in Blackboard.
• Resolved an issue in Moodle where the image preview was incorrectly displayed instead of the Ally instructor feedback when instructors clicked the Ally score gauge.
• Corrected an issue in D2L that was preventing Ally from properly retrieving topic IDs, causing the score gauge to not appear in certain courses.
• Fixed an issue in Canvas where the Ally score gauge was not present, and the alternative format icon was misplaced on Discussions.

Ally 2.10.3 | Release to production: September 19, 2024

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Resolved an issue where the Ally alternative formats tooltip in the Canvas files view for students was disappearing a few seconds after the icon was selected.
• Fixed a bug in the Instructor Feedback that was preventing users from correctly navigating through all issue highlights using the up/down arrow keys.
• Fixed an accessibility issue where the guidance panel in the Instructor Feedback lacked the appropriate role that was preventing screen reader users to correctly access the content.
• Improved focus behavior within the side panel of the Instructor Feedback to ensure a smoother experience for both keyboard and mouse users. 

Ally 2.10.2 | Release to production: September 6, 2024

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Fixed an issue in the Instructor Feedback that caused the loading icon to spin indefinitely when instructors were fixing two identical broken links in the same content item.
• Fixed an issue in the Institutional report where the Ally icon tooltip was not loading correctly, making it difficult to launch directly into the Instructor Feedback.
• Fixed an accessibility issue where the Ally tooltips were not hoverable when navigating with a mouse.
• Improved the names of the checkboxes displayed on the accessibility score trend line graph in the Institutional Report.
• Fixed an accessibility issue where keyboard users were not able to scroll up or down within the side panels in the Ally Instructor Feedback.
• Moodle 4.3 plugin availability and improvements.
• New Power BI template to use with the Ally API for reporting tools. Find it in the Ally Adoption Toolkit.

Ally 2.10.1 | Release to production: August 8, 2024 

Support for the new Blackboard Content Designer Enhanced Documents

Ally now supports the new enhanced Documents in Blackboard for both instructors (Instructor Feedback) and students (Alternative Formats) to help encourage accessible and engaging content for all users.  Instructors and students will see the applicable Ally indicators on the new Documents to continue to take advantage of these Ally features.

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Improved the Ally guidance for items that do not begin at the highest level by providing consistent wording that applies to all rich text editors where heading options don't always start at level 1.
• Fixed an issue where the wording in the Ally guidance for PDFs identified as lacking a language incorrectly mentioned header fixes (instead of language). 
• Fixed an issue for Canvas pages where the Alternative Formats icon was not correctly positioned on the page title.
• Fixed an issue in Blackboard where images were not displayed in the Ally Instructor Feedback when launched from the Course Accessibility Report.
• Fixed an issue within the Institutional Report where the Other Courses option in the term dropdown of the Courses tab did not correctly filter courses without terms and instead displayed all courses in the institution.
• Fixed an accessibility issue in the Institutional Report where screen readers were not announcing the control label of the dropdown button to select terms.
• Fixed an accessibility issue within the Instructor Feedback where the tooltip for the color selector in Ally's quick fix for text contrast issues was not appearing with keyboard navigation. (The HEX color code is now announced by screen readers).
• Fixed an accessibility issue where the focus indicator incorrectly appeared on the pagination component at the top-left corner of the Instructor Feedback after the guidance panel was closed using keyboard navigation. (The focus now remains on the triggering element).
• Fixed an accessibility issue where the Ally icon tooltips were not disappearing when pressing the ESC key.
• Fixed an accessibility issue where in some cases screen readers could not read buttons within the Instructor Feedback for issues identified in WYSIWYG content.
• Fixed an accessibility issue where in some cases the side panels within the Ally Instructor Feedback could not be scrolled using keyboard arrows.

Ally 2.10.0 | Release to production: July 17, 2024

Ally's new AI Alt Text Assistant

Writing simple but meaningful alternative text for images is not always an easy task.  Many times, an instructor is looking for a simple spark of inspiration or a suggestion of where to start.

Designed to tackle this challenge in a way that seamlessly integrates into the Ally Instructor Feedback experience, we're thrilled to unveil our latest innovation designed to transform how educators manage accessibility: Ally’s AI Alt Text Assistant. This new feature is focused on enhancing and improving the efficiency of instructors by automating the suggestion of alternative text for images to help write better alternative text and ensure that learning materials are inclusive and accessible to every student.

For Instructors

Instructors can harness the convenience and power of the "Auto-Generate Description" button featured in the Ally Instructor Feedback interface and let the AI Alt Text Assistant simplify the process of addressing images that lack descriptions. With just a single click, instructors can now generate suggested alternative descriptions for images embedded in WYSIWYG content or as standalone items.

Image 1: auto-generate description button when fixing an image without description in the Ally Instructor Feedback

This intuitive tool empowers instructors to instantly create simple yet accurate descriptions for images, eliminating the guesswork and time-consuming task of manually crafting descriptions from scratch.  

The AI Alt Text Assistant ensures that the instructor remains in complete control. You can easily edit or remove the AI-generated suggestions to best fit your content’s context and audience. It is important to note that alternative descriptions are not applied automatically—each suggestion requires the instructor’s review and approval - guaranteeing that the final output aligns with the instructor’s original purpose. 

For administrators

Ally administrators can configure this new feature from the Ally Configuration settings.  To use the new Alt text assistant, you must opt-in and turn it on from your admin console (this feature is disabled by default).

Image 2: Ally configuration settings with feature flag opt-in to turn on the AI Alt Text Assistant

Additionally, administrators can track the usage of the new feature from the Ally Usage Report (exported from your Ally Institutional Report dashboard).

Image 3: Ally Usage report with additional data added to track usage of the AI Alt Text Assistant

Within the Instructor Feedback Launches tab of the Usage Report, administrators can see a count of how many times AI was used to generate alternative text on images and how many times the instructor has altered the text generated by AI before saving for a particular course.  

This information is also available in the raw data tab in the Usage Report.

This feature follows our Anthology Trustworthy AI principles, including:

• Humans in control
• Fairness
• Privacy
• Security
• Safety

We recommend reviewing the documents linked below as you consider using Ally’s AI Alt Text Assistant:

• AI Alt Text Assistant Transparency Note
• Terms of Use
• Trustworthy AI Principles

This release is available to Blackboard, Canvas, D2L Brightspace and Moodle LMS integrations.

Identification and scoring of broken links on WYSIWYG content for Ultra and Canvas

As part of our commitment to helping instructors enhance the quality and reliability of educational content, the Ally for LMS accessibility checklist has been expanded to include a new check for Broken Links (404 errors) within WYSIWYG content.  Broken links are an important and often frequent accessibility issue that can create frustration, disruption or worse – loss of confidence in the material itself - for all students in the course.

Ally will now report this issue as part of the accessibility report and instructor feedback.  Broken links contribute to the accessibility score for WYSIWYG content, and this contribution is dependent on the number of broken links within the content itself.

As instructors create or modify WYSIWYG content, Ally identifies if a link is broken and highlights this for the instructor in the content preview along with quick, intuitive options to correct the issue directly within the Ally instructor feedback panel. This instant feedback ensures that all content is verified and reliable before students ever encounter it.  Instructors can also use the 'What' and 'Why' guidance to learn more about the impact of Broken Links.  By identifying and resolving these links, instructors can prevent disruption in the learning process and maintain the integrity of their course.

Image 1: Broken Link identification in the Ally Instructor Feedback 

Ally reports, including the Institutional Report, CSV exports, APIs for external reporting tools, and the Course Accessibility Report will reflect this new accessibility check as part of the score and underlying issues list.

This is a go-forward change that only affects the score of newly added or updated WYSIWYG content after this release.  As a result, the overall WYSIWYG accessibility score for many institutions may drop compared to previous months/years because of the introduction of this new accessibility check.  

This release includes Ultra and Canvas LMS integrations.  As part of a future release, we plan to bring this check to the other LMS integrations as well. 

Ally 2.9.8 | Release to production: July 02, 2024 

Bug Fixes and improvements

• Implemented infrastructure improvements and optimizations to the backend scoring processes for HTML and WYSIWYG content to provide Instructors with a faster and more reliable experience.  
• Fixed an accessibility issue where the Ally Instructor Feedback was not properly announced as a dialog to screen readers.
• Fixed an accessibility issue where certain wording within the Instructor Feedback guidance was based on sensory characteristics and was not clear to all users, including those that may use a screen reader.
• Fixed an accessibility issue where the page navigation buttons in the Instructor Feedback Content Preview were not announced by screen readers while retaining focus. 

Ally 2.9.6 | Release to production: June 13, 2024

Bug Fixes and improvements 

• Fixed an accessibility issue in the Instructor Feedback in which the title of the guidance was not exposed correctly to assistive technologies. 
• Fixed an issue for Learn Original users where the Ally Instructor Feedback was displaying an error message (“Oops”) when accessed via the Course Accessibility Report for WYSIWYG documents.  

Ally 2.9.4 | Release to production: May 02, 2024

Bug Fixes and improvements 

• Fixed an issue in the Institutional Report where the number of items with an accessibility issue was incorrectly inflated by including deleted files in the issues count which caused empty additional pages to be added to the report. 
• Fixed an issue for D2L Brightspace users where the quick fixes applied to HTML files through the Instructor Feedback were removing the styles and incorrectly formatting content that was saved back to the LMS.

Ally 2.9.3 | Release to production: April 06, 2024

Bug Fixes and improvements

• Fixed an issue where the Ally Institutional Report was not displaying the full list of issues when a department, a course, or a domain (in Ally for Web) has more than 1000 issues. This prevented administrators from being able to correctly review and identify the priorities for fixing accessibility issues flagged by Ally.

Ally 2.9.2 | Release to production: March 22, 2024

Bug Fixes and improvements

• Improved the descriptive text on the Vimeo configuration tab within the Ally configuration tool.
• Implemented additional performance and stability improvements in Ally’s file processing.

Ally 2.9.0 | Release to production: March 07, 2024

Vimeo and HTML5 video caption checking is now available for HTML and WYSIWYG content

As part of our efforts to expand our support for more types of video content, Ally now can flag Vimeo or embedded HTML5 videos that do not have captions or may have automated captions. This helps instructors quickly identify if video content is accessible and increases the awareness of the importance of accurate captions for student video content.

Ally will identify and highlight videos from Vimeo and videos embedded via HTML5 within the Ally instructor feedback.   Keeping with our current approach to scoring YouTube videos, flagged Vimeo and HTML5 videos will not change the overall accessibility scores and will be shown as 100% in the Instructor Feedback panel.

Image 1:  Video highlighted within Ally’s Instructor Feedback Preview

Note for Administrators:  Opting In to New Vimeo Configuration Settings

Checking for public and private videos in Vimeo is an opt-in feature that administrators can choose to configure based on your institutional needs.  Ally admins will see a new configuration tab for Vimeo where it is possible to configure and manage the institution’s Vimeo account token to enable Ally’s caption check.  Once configured, Ally video checks count towards your institution's Vimeo account and apply to any associated rate limits that you may have.

If you do not configure your Vimeo settings, Ally will not pick up on any embedded Vimeo videos.

(Please note that HTML5 video checking does not require any admin configuration.)

This is a go-forward change that only affects newly added or updated HTML files or WYSIWYG content after this release.

For additional information on this feature and Vimeo configuration, please see Caption Checks for Videos. 

Bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed an issue that prevented the issue highlighting and issue navigation from showing for issues within the Instructor Feedback Preview in D2L Brightspace integrations.  Fixed an issue where the Ally Instructor Feedback displayed "Oops! Something seems to have gone wrong. Please try again later” when HTML files are flagged as having empty headers in D2L that prevented instructors from seeing the score and guidance.
• Fixed an issue in D2L Brightspace where Ally quick fixes for Empty Headers within the Instructor Feedback were sometimes applying the fix for multiple instances even if the “Apply For All” option was not selected.
• Fixed an issue where the term dropdown and trend chart  were not showing all the terms in the Institutional Report Overview when admins selected the “By Term” view.
• Fixed an issue for Learn integrations where WYSIWYG content for external links was not being picked up correctly within the Course Accessibility Report after a course copy.
• Implemented performance and stability improvements to Ally’s processing for generating alternative formats.

Ally 2.8.2 | Release to production: February 22, 2024

Update on D2L Brightspace HTML file reprocessing

As a follow-up to the release of Ally 2.8.1, the feature enhancement to treat “HTML” content as WYSIWYG content in Brightspace is now active for all regions for new content. File rescoring of older HTML content is also completed for clients in our Canada, Asia, and Europe regions.

Rescoring of older content for US clients is still in progress and will be confirmed once completed.

Important note for administrators

Configuration documentation has also been updated to note that the Instructor Feedback for WYSIWYG content (Rich Text Editor content) feature flag does not disable the new Instructor Feedback or quick fixes on HTML files uploaded or created in D2L Brightspace.

See more information about Ally Feature Flags in the Ally Configuration Help page.

Ally Support for Moodle version 4.2

As part of the Ally team's efforts to improve the development and availability of the Ally plugin for Moodle, we are pleased to announce that we are releasing the plugins for the Moodle 4.2 version.

The plugins for version 4.2 are available on the Moodle pages below:

https://moodle.org/plugins/tool_ally
https://moodle.org/plugins/report_allylti
https://moodle.org/plugins/filter_ally

Documentation for the plugin configuration and supported themes is available in the Ally help documentation.

For managed hosted clients we always recommend you check with your Moodle provider to ensure version compatibility based on your upgrade plans.

Bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed an issue in Learn integrations where in some cases the browser configuration caused an authorization popup requesting credentials that prevented instructors from editing an Ultra document after attaching and previewing a file scored by Ally.
• Fixed an accessibility issue in the Instructor Feedback Preview where screen readers could not identify highlights of videos without captions and prevented users from locating them in WYSIWYG content.

Ally 2.8.1 | Release to production: February 15, 2024

Quick fixes, guidance, and content previews now available for D2L Brightspace “HTML” content 

Ally for D2L Brightspace

Ally 2.8.1 brings a key enhancement to the Instructor Feedback within the Ally Brightspace integration that treats “HTML” content as WYSIWYG content and gives instructors the ability to leverage Ally's capabilities including quick fixes, What and Why guidance and content previews.  

Instead of frequently encountering “Guidance Not Available Yet” in the feedback, instructors will now be able to address issues more quickly and easily within the Ally Instructor Feedback flow and focus on the most impactful changes to content.  

Image 1:  Instructor Feedback with available quick fix for insufficient contrast 

This improvement includes Quick Fix capabilities for the following accessibility issues:

• Text with insufficient contrast
• Tables that are missing headers
• Tables without headers
• Images with redundant text
• Images without descriptions
• Heading order

Issues without quick fixes available will still be shown under “All Issues” and may not have specific guidance available pending future roadmap development. 

After this release, any new HTML file created by an instructor will be treated as WYSIWYG going forward. Older existing HTML content within Brightspace will be rescored and reprocessed by Ally in waves over the next few weeks to migrate this data and provide a consistent instructor experience.

For Administrators - Feature activation and file rescoring

Feature activation and file rescoring will be triggered by region with this release beginning with our Canada region (prod-ca-central-1.ally.ac) on 2/15/24. Other regions will follow in the order shown below:  

• Wave 1: Canada (prod-ca-central-1.ally.ac)
• Wave 2: Asia-Pacific (prod-ap-southeast-2.ally.ac)
• Wave 3: Europe (prod-eu-central-1.ally.ac)
• Wave 4: US (prod.ally.ac)

In addition to the instructor improvements noted above, Administrators will see the following differences in the Ally reports:

• All HTML files and existing WYSIWYG content will be referred to as “HTML Fragment” in the Institutional Report. This change will also be reflected in CSV exports and the Ally API for reporting tools.  
• The score for each file may change depending on the accessibility issues flagged by Ally after content is reprocessed. This is because of the different checks Ally applies for WYSIWYG content vs HTML content.  

Image 2:  Ally Institutional Report Total content created chart for administrators 

File rescoring will only affect HTML files. Other file types like Word, PowerPoint, PDF, images, or LibreOffice are not affected and their score will remain the same.

Other Improvements:

With this update, “language not set” and “missing title” will no longer be flagged as issues in the HTML content in Brightspace to help minimize frustration for instructors that cannot edit these attributes in the content interface. 

Ally 2.8.0 | Release to production: February 9, 2024

Course Accessibility Report Instructor Feedback Improvements

Ally 2.8.0 brings several fixes and improvements to the Instructor Feedback launched from the Course Accessibility Report to help instructors that frequently use it as a starting point to address issues within their course. These improvements aim to further streamline instructor workflows as they look to quickly identify low scoring content or content with the easiest issues to fix.

Image 1: Ally Course Accessibility Report

Increased visibility into what is happening behind the scenes for WYSIWYG content

When instructors launch the Ally Instructor Feeback for WYSIWYG content from the Course Accessibility Report, Ally will now briefly display a message alerting users that Ally is updating the score to account for the latest updates. This improvement helps to ensure that the score is always up to date and addresses previous confusion around scores jumping depending on where and when it was viewed.

Image 2: “Updating Ally score” alert in the Instructor Feedback window

Bug Fixes and Other Improvements:

• Fixed an issue in which the Indicate Image is Decorative option was not updating the file or the score in WYSIWYG content when performed from the Course Accessibility Report.
• Fixed an issue in which the Add Image Description option was not correctly updating the alternative text or the score in WYSIWYG content when performed from the Course Accessibility Report.
• Fixed an issue in which the Instructor Feedback within the Course Accessibility Report was not displaying the correct score for files that only contained one issue.  
• Fixed an issue in which Ally was not displaying the correct number of issues after launching into the Instructor Feedback from the Course Accessibility Report.
• Fixed an issue where the highlighting within the Ally Instructor feedback content preview was only pointing to one video despite Ally flagging multiple videos without captions within WYSIWYG content. 

Ally 2.7.14 | Release to production: February 1, 2024

Improved API endpoints for reporting tools

As a follow-up to the initial release in Ally 2.7.7, the Ally API endpoints for reporting tools have been improved to allow for better handling of larger datasets and clearer communication of statuses for administrators looking to integrate Ally data with reporting tools like Power BI, Tableau, Excel or customized web applications.  

These improvements help to further streamline the process for stakeholders building custom reports and dashboards outside of the Ally Institutional Report to enable more data-driven decision making throughout the institution.

Image 1:  Example custom PowerBI dashboard  

Improvements include:

• When Ally needs to prepare larger datasets, the Ally API now responds with the status code 202 (Processing) to inform users that they will need to wait until the data is ready to avoid timeout issues. When the data is ready, the API will respond with the code 200 (Successful).
• The total number of filtered records has also been added to the metadata.  This will help users confirm that the filtering options are working as expected (while keeping in line with the 10,000-records response limit per endpoint).  

Additional information about the API for reporting, including configuration examples, is available in the updated Integrate Ally's API with an External Reporting Tool help page. 

Updated technical documentation around the API endpoints is also available in the Reporting API Endpoints help page.

Ally 2.7.13 | Release to production: January 16, 2024

Bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed an issue where the Ally alternative format button at the top of a Canvas page was incorrectly considered an H1.  
• Fixed an issue where the preview of WYSIWYG documents within the Ally Instructor Feedback disappeared after a few seconds when the feedback was opened through the Course Accessibility Report.  
• Fixed a problem where Ally quick fixes in the Instructor Feedback were sometimes applying the fix for multiple items in the same document and not for the highlighted item only.  

Ally 2.7.12 | Release to production: December 12, 2023

OCR Alternative Format Improvements

We’ve updated our underlying OCR processing to provide a few key improvements, including improved handling of non-English languages, improved processing of document backgrounds, and some additional smaller improvements to spacing and fonts in the Alternative Format that is generated.

Bugs and Fixes 

Fixed an accessibility issue with keyboard navigation and focus on the Terms of Use link within the Alternative Formats window.

Ally 2.7.11 | Release to production: December 5, 2023

Bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed an issue for Learn Ultra users where the Ally Instructor Feedback panel for WYSIWYG content was not being displayed as full screen when editing a new Ultra Document.
• Improved the “How to Write Good Descriptions” guidance for fixing images without alternative text within standalone HTML files to provide better context on how to fix this issue.

Ally 2.7.10 | Release to production: November 1, 2023

Bug Fixes and improvements 

Fixed an issue where the alternative text of deleted images was considered in course copies, causing the text of some images to be incorrectly copied.  

Ally 2.7.9 | Release to production: October 18, 2023

Bug Fixes and improvements 

• Fixed an issue in Canvas integrations where the side panel used to upload files was displayed over the Ally Institutional Report and prevented instructors from going through the Ally Guidance.  

• Fixed an issue related to the recent implementation of the session timeout that was causing generic errors to display in the browser console while accessing the Institutional Report.

Ally 2.7.8 | Release to production: September 20, 2023

New features

Guidance is now available for HTML and WYSIWYG content with images without Alternative Text 

As part of our continued effort to expand Ally’s guidance and feedback, instructors accessing the Ally Instructor Feedback for HTML files and WYSIWYG content can now find the Ally guidance for images that do not have Alternative Text.  

This guidance provides a detailed description of the issue and a step-by-step guide to teach instructors how to fix this issue. 

Bugs fixes and improvements

• Fixed an issue where instructors could not upload files with accented characters in the Ally Instructor Feedback panel. Now characters using the ISO-8859-1 standard are supported.  
• Fixed an issue in the guidance for password-protected files that caused PowerPoint files to be incorrectly referred to as Word documents within the text displayed to instructors.  
• Fixed an issue where the Alternative Formats icon was not getting displayed for the Homepage in Canvas courses.  
• The date picker used in the Ally Institutional Report has been updated and improved for a better visibility an usability

Ally 2.7.7 | Release to production: September 6, 2023

New features

API endpoints for reporting tools

Administrators can now integrate their Ally data into reporting tools and applications like Power BI, Tableau, or even Microsoft Excel more seamlessly than before, using two new private Ally API endpoints for reporting.  This API provides two GET endpoints that allow Administrators to quickly build reports or dashboards and retrieve information on accessibility scores and issues.

Instead of reconfiguring dashboards each time a new CSV export is available, these new endpoints allow Administrators to configure a report once and refresh the data at 15-minute intervals to update dashboards in the preferred reporting tool. Administrators can obtain all the credentials needed to configure the data in the external reporting tool from the Institutional Report.  

Additional information about the API for reporting, including configuration examples, is available in the Integrate Ally's API with an External Reporting Tool help page. Technical documentation around the new API endpoints is also available in the Reporting API Endpoints help page.  

Endpoints included in the API for reporting are private endpoints and do not come with a deprecation policy at this time. Anthology Ally may change or update these endpoints depending on our roadmap or future releases. 

Bug Fixes and improvements 

• Fixed an accessibility issue where controls in the Ally configuration were not properly announced as control groups by screen readers. 

• Fixed an accessibility issue where the file drop area in the Ally Instructor Feedback did not have descriptive text for screen readers. 

• Fixed an issue where videos without captions that were embedded using HTML code in HTML files or WYSIWYG documents were not correctly highlighted in the Ally instructor feedback. 

• Added a session timeout to the Ally Institutional Report when it is accessed outside of the LMS via a direct URL. The timeout prevents unwanted access when the report is left unattended, or there is no activity.  (The timeout is triggered after 900 seconds of inactivity and signs out the user automatically.) 

Ally 2.7.5 | Release to production: August 10, 2023

New features

Guidance is now available for password-protected files 

Instructors accessing the Ally Instructor Feedback for password-protected files can now find additional Ally guidance and instructions to learn how to remove passwords to improve the file for students.

What and Why information panels are now available for videos flagged with automated or no captions 

As part of our ongoing efforts to expand support for Video content, instructors who access Ally Instructor Feedback for WYSIWYG or HTML files containing videos flagged with automated or no captions can now discover an informative “What it means” section. This addition provides valuable context about the significance of captions for video content.

Bugs fixes and improvements

• Fixed an accessibility issue where a decorative image from the Ally instructor feedback was not hidden from screen readers. 
• Fixed an issue where the file preview of some PowerPoint files was not displayed correctly in the Ally Instructor Feedback panel. 

Ally 2.7.4 | Release to production: July 26, 2023

Updated features, Learn integration, Canvas integration, Moodle integration, D2L Brightspace integration

New features

Audio Alternative Format character limit increased 

Ally now supports files with up to 200,000 characters when downloading the Audio Alternative Format.  

Improvements and bug fixing

• Fixed an accessibility issue where visually grouped controls in the Instructor Feedback were not being grouped correctly.  

• Fixed an issue for Learn where in some cases, using the Microsoft Immersive Reader Alternative Format, caused the Learn session to crash for users. 

• Fixed an issue where the total issue count for “HTML content containing images without a description” was not always decreasing in the Ally reports after the issue had been fixed in the course. 

• Fixed an issue for Learn Ultra users where images having a redundant description were not being flagged as issues in Ally’s Instructor Feedback. 

Ally 2.7.0 | Release to production: June 14, 2023

Updated features, Learn integration, Canvas integration, Moodle integration, D2L Brightspace integration

Improvements and bug fixing

• Improved the WYSIWYG Instructor Feedback experience in Learn Ultra to allow instructors to return to the list of remaining issues after fixing an issue.
• Fixed an issue that was preventing learners from downloading the audio Alternative Format when using the Learn Ultra mobile application.
• Fixed an issue that was creating unintentional error logs in the browser console after opening the Instructor Feedback in D2L environments.

Ally 2.6.6 | Release to production: June 6, 2023

Updated features, Learn integration, Canvas integration, Moodle integration, D2L Brightspace integration

Improvements and bug fixing

As part of our efforts to support universal design and equitable access around the world, Ally now supports the User Interface in the Chinese Traditional language (zh-TW). Chinese Traditional is now available in Ally Institutional Report, configuration UI, Alternative Formats modal, Instructor Feedback, and Course Accessibility Report.  

This does not represent changes in the current language support in other Ally features. 

Ally 2.6.5 | Release to production: April 26, 2023

Updated features, Learn integration, Canvas integration, Moodle integration, D2L Brightspace integration

Improvements and bug fixing

In cases where the same YouTube video is used multiple times within WYSIWYG and HTML content, the Instructor Feedback preview window now lists all instances of the video (instead of just one), to provide the instructor with a better understanding of where the issue is happening.  

Ally 2.6.4 | Release to production: April 19, 2023

Updated features, Learn integration, Canvas integration, Moodle integration, D2L Brightspace integration

Improvements and bug fixing

We improved Ally's performance flagging issues when adding YouTube video links within WYSIWYG content.  As of now, instructors will have a better user experience when they include multiple videos in the same document. 

Ally 2.6.3 | Release to production: April 4, 2023

Updated features, Learn integration, Canvas integration, Moodle integration

Guidance is now available for HTML files containing links with missing text

Instructors accessing the Ally Instructor Feedback for HTML files with links missing text can now find the Ally guidance.

 It provides a detailed description of the issue and a step-by-step guide to teach instructors how to fix this issue.

This guidance is available for Learn, Canvas, and Moodle customers. We are working to bring this additional guidance to D2L Brightspace customers as part of a follow-up release. 

Ally 2.6.2 | Release to production: March 29, 2023

Updated features, Learn integration, Canvas integration, Moodle integration, D2L Brightspace integration

Improvements and bug fixing

• Ally now supports version 6 of the TinyMCE rich text editor in D2L Brightspace.

  

  Discussion Topics, Modules, Quiz descriptions, and Assignments are supported. This does not apply to web page content. 

• Fixed an accessibility issue where the tooltip on the Overall Accessibility Score pie chart was not accessible using the keyboard.

• The Braille Alternative Format has been upgraded to improve overall performance and incorporate general Braille table improvements.

Ally 2.6.1 | Release to production: March 15, 2023

Updated features, Learn integration, Canvas integration, Moodle integration, D2L Brightspace integration

Improvements and bug fixing

• Fixed an accessibility issue where screen readers were not correctly announcing the values of highlighted issues when a user navigates through the Ally Instructor Feedback Preview for WYSIWYG content.
• Fixed an accessibility issue where screen readers were not correctly announcing the "What this means" button located in the right-hand side panel of the Ally Instructor Feedback.

Ally 2.6.0 | Release to production: March 8, 2023

Updated features, Learn integration, Canvas integration, Moodle integration, D2L Brightspace integration

Guidance is now available for HTML files containing text with insufficient contrast

Instructors accessing the Ally Instructor Feedback for HTML files with contrast issues can now find the Ally guidance. 

It provides a detailed description of the issue, and a step-by-step guide to teach instructors how to fix this issue.

This guidance is available for Learn, Canvas, and Moodle customers. We are working to bring this additional guidance to D2L Brightspace customers as part of a follow-up release.  

NEW Canvas scopes for developer keys have been added for future video support

Ally integrations now include 4 new scopes to the Canvas developer keys to support future development towards extending Ally's existing accessibility checks to more video providers, including uploaded video files within the Canvas LMS.  These new scopes will provide Ally with the appropriate permission to analyze those video files once we release this additional functionality. 

url:GET|/api/v1/courses/:course_id/media_objects
url:PUT|/api/v1/media_objects/:media_object_id
url:GET|/api/v1/media_objects/:media_object_id/media_tracks
url:PUT|/api/v1/media_objects/:media_object_id/media_tracks

We will announce support for checking uploaded Canvas videos as part of our roadmap plans for the upcoming months.  Until then, existing clients do not need to take any action and your Ally instance will continue working normally, without any additional configuration.  Upon release of the new accessibility check for Canvas videos, we will provide further instructions and steps to reintegrate Ally with these additional scopes. For new clients, these scopes will be included in the standard implementations going forward.  

Bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed an issue where Ally's alternative format and scoring indicators, within courses using D2L Brightspace's New Content Experience,  were no longer being displayed due to a conflict with a new pathname within the LMS. 

Ally 2.5.9 | Release to production: March 1, 2023

Updated features, Learn integration, Canvas integration, Moodle integration, D2L Brightspace integration

Identification and scoring of Microsoft Office and LibreOffice Password-protected files

Password-protected Microsoft Office and LibreOffice documents are now identified and scored by Ally. When you upload a password-protected document, Ally will flag it with a 0% score. This will increase the instructor's awareness to update and make the content available to learners without any blockers.

This is a go-forward change that only affects the score of newly added or updated password-protected Office content after this release.

As part of future releases, we will incorporate additional guidance and feedback for these files into the Instructor Feedback.
 

Translated Version Alternative Format character limit increased

Ally now supports files with up to 60,000 characters when downloading the Translated Version Alternative Format.

Ally 2.5.8 | Release to production: February 22, 2023

Updated features, Learn integration, Canvas integration, Moodle integration, D2L Brightspace integration

Bug fixes and improvements

• We improved guidance in the Ally Instructor Feedback for untagged PDFs. As of now, instructors have a simpler and more informed step-by-step guidance to help them to fix this issue faster.
• Fixed an issue in Canvas environments where the Revision History information was not being passed correctly back into Canvas when an instructor used the quick fix functionality (part of the Instructor Feedback) to update content. 

Ally 2.5.6 | Release to production: February 7, 2023

Updated features, Learn integration, Canvas integration, Moodle integration, D2L Brightspace integration

Bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed an issue where custom heading styles were not converted to headings when generating Alternative Formats.

• Fixed an issue that made the Instructor Feedback panel for WYSIWYG content unavailable when accessed from the Institutional Report.

• Fixed an issue where numbered lists in LibreOffice and Office files were displayed incorrectly in the Ally Instructor Feedback panel. 
   

Ally 2.5.5 | Release to production: February 1, 2023

Updated features, Learn integration, Canvas integration, Moodle integration, D2L Brightspace integration

Alternative Formats views count towards Progress Tracking in Blackboard Learn Ultra

Blackboard Learn Ultra has the capacity to keep track of the course progress for both instructors and students. After a learner downloads an Alternative Format of any content file, the course content will indicate its progress.

Instructors will see the progress made by learners based on their access to the original file or an Alternative Format. For further information about Progress Tracking, refer to the Progress Tracking Release note in Learn Ultra 3900.58.
 

Bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed an issue where custom javascript —present in certain Canvas integrations— conflicted with the Ally javascript, resulting in some features of the rich text editor, including the scrollbar and the save button, being hidden during content editing

Ally 2.5.4 | Release to production: January 25, 2023

Updated features, Learn integration, Canvas integration, Moodle integration, D2L Brightspace integration

Bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed an issue where Ally was not recognizing embedded YouTube videos without captions when using an iframe in WYSIWYG content in Canvas.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Ally Score gauge to incorrectly overlap with the title field while editing content in the WYSIWYG content editor for Moodle 4 (Boost Theme).
• Fixed an issue in Canvas where the Rich Text editor remained at maximum width after exiting the Instructor Feedback preview, instead of returning to normal size, which caused the Ally indicator to be hidden without scrolling further. 

Ally 2.5.3 | Release to production: January 18, 2023

Updated features, Learn integration, Canvas integration, Moodle integration, D2L Brightspace integration

Bug fixes and improvements

• Enabling and Disabling Courses Confirmation Message
  
  Administrators are now presented with a confirmation message when enabling or disabling Ally across all existing courses within the Ally Configuration Tool. This confirmation shows after selecting either Enable or Disable in all courses from the configuration drop down. (Refer to the below example for Disabling all existing courses).
  
  
• Improved Ally infrastructure scaling policies and alarms to better identify issues during peak usage periods and improve performance to reduce delays on files scanning.

Ally 2.5.2 | Release to production: January 12, 2023

Updated features, Learn integration, Canvas integration, Moodle integration, D2L Brightspace integration

Bug fixes and improvements

• Added Euskera language (eu-es) support for the user interface.
• When you open the Instructor Feedback, Ally now displays the Help link in the right-hand side panel. Note that this does not change the configuration of the custom help, as this is still done in the Ally administration panel. See how to configure Ally user help settings.
  
• We improved the user interface when guidance is not yet available.
  

Ally 2.5.1 | Release to production: January 5, 2023

Updated features, Learn integration, Canvas integration, Moodle integration, D2L Brightspace integration

Bug fixes and improvements

• A help link is now displayed in the Instructor Feedback when guidance is not available yet. This link provides instructors access to resources that help them improve their content. This help link uses the custom help configuration, which is still done in the Ally administration panel. Learn how to configure Ally user help settings.
  
• In cases where a standalone image is set as decorative, Ally's accessibility score will increase to 100%. As of now, Ally shows a warning message stating:
  • The image may need further improvements if there are additional accessibility issues. For example, an image that is marked as decorative could still induce seizures, even if it has a 100% score.
  • These improvements can be reviewed in the Course Accessibility Report or the Institutional Report
    
• Fixed an issue where the Ally score indicator was missing in the WYSIWYG content in the Canvas rich content editor (RCE). This was due to recent updates, published in the Canvas Deploy Notes 2022-12-20. As of now, the Ally score indicator and instructor feedback are fully compatible with all new RCE updates and features done by Canvas.
• Fixed an issue regarding keyboard navigation within Ally's Instructor Feedback for WYSIWYG content. The problem was that the space bar didn't navigate as expected when a user selected a specific accessibility issue.
• Fixed an issue where Ally was not announcing the loading status message to assistive technologies whilst downloading an Alternative Format.