Versionsinformation för Ally för LMS

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.

Ally 2.4.9 | Release to production 30 November 2022

Updated features, Learn integration 

Bug fixes and improvements

• There was an issue that affected the iframe that was displayed when creating a new content item in Learn Ultra. This prevented the course content to load, and instead, it displayed the base navigation window behind. This issue is now fixed.
• We updated the Ally API endpoint used to obtain the JWT token for authentication. Now the roles included in the endpoint payload (request body) will be added to roles retrieved by the LMS that are considered course manager LTI roles. This allows you to get the authentication token using crafted invocations when you use the API in external applications. For more info, refer to the Ally Internal API documentation published in our User Group.

Ally 2.4.8 | Release to production 24 November 2022

Updated features, D2L Brightspace integration

Bug fixes and improvements

• Coinciding with the recent D2L Brightspace Release (November 2022/20.22.11) that updates the configuration variables needed for the Ally integration, we have also updated the names of these variables in the Ally configuration UI and associated documentation to match. 
  
  This change does NOT affect the functionality of Ally and should not require any reconfiguration of the Ally integration.  Values from the current variable names will be migrated to the new variables by D2L.  Future updates to the D2L configuration variables will continue to be managed by D2L, including the eventual removal of the old variable names at a later date. 
  
  If you need additional information related to Ally configuration, please refer to Ally in D2L Brightspace.  If you have any additional questions regarding the Ally configuration please contact us via the Behind the Blackboard platform.   If you have any questions about the D2L Brightspace release, please continue to contact your D2L support team.

Ally 2.4.7 | Release to production 16 November 2022

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

Bug fixes and improvements

• The “Help” option within the Alternative Formats modal had an issue when it was used with a screen reader since there was a visual confirmation on the screen that was not being read. This issue is now fixed.

• In Canvas, you can configure two instances working together for the authentication of users. This can be done using a Trusted Canvas Instance. For more info about Trusted Canvas Instance visit, the Canvas blog about Configure Trusted Canvas Instance Authentication in Canvas. 

  Ally cannot access this type of account, which was causing synchronization errors of the courses behind this authentication schema.  Now, Ally excludes these accounts through a filter embedded in Ally. Therefore, there are no synchronization errors are displayed for terms and courses using Trusted Canvas Instances. 
  
  Ally clients using Canvas do not have to reconfigure any authentication method or configuration with Ally, as this filter is embedded within the Ally logic. 

Ally 2.4.6 | Release to production 9  November 2022

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

Bug fixes and improvements

• The screen reader user’s focus was at the bottom of the modal after opening the alternative formats option. This issue is now fixed.

Ally 2.4.5 | Release to production 2 November 2022

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

Bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed an issue within Ally for Learn where the Alternative Formats for HTML links, brought in from the Content Collection, were only generated for the title of the link and not the actual content itself.
• Impact by Instructure (formerly EesySoft) references have been updated to reflect the name change within the Admin UI, Configurations, and Features pages. 

Ally 2.4.4 | Release to production 26  October 2022

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

Bug fixes and improvements

• The "Mark as a decorative image" checkbox was not displayed in the Instructor Feedback for WYSIWYG content inside Learn Original. This issue is now fixed.
• The Overview within the Institutional Report displays information from the first month of recorded Ally data, containing out-of-date information. This issue has been fixed.

Ally 2.4.3 | Release to production 19 October 2022

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

Empty headings quick fixing in WYSIWYG editor

When creating content on the WYSIWYG editor, Ally can identify and provide guidance related to empty headings issues. From now on, you can fix these issues with a couple of clicks from the Instructor Feedback.

Bug fixes and improvements

• An issue happened after opening the Instructor Feedback from the Course Accessibility Report, when looking for issues with Empty Headings. After a few seconds, the Instructor Feedback was displaying a different accessibility issue. This bug was fixed.
• We have made navigation improvements in the Institutional Report graph. As of now, the dropdown button is highlighted when you navigate through the graph using the keyboard:
   
  

Ally 2.4.2 | Release to production 12  October 2022

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

Ally 2.4.2 Bug fixes and improvements

• When Ally executes a term synchronization, all terms that are found as deleted are now excluded from the institutional report and CSV exports.
• We have made navigation and style improvements in the Institutional Report graph. Now the information for each period is displayed when you navigate through the graph using the keyboard:
   
  

Ally 2.4.1 | Release to production 5 October 2022

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

WYSIWYG Instructor Feedback can now be accessed from the Course Accessibility Report

Taking into account the importance of fixing accessibility issues, instructors can now access the Instructor Feedback related to WYSIWYG content, directly from the Course Accessibility Report.

This gives instructors quick fixing capabilities within the report. This applies to all the supported LMS's by Ally.

Bug fixes and improvements

• We have increased the timeouts to prevent integration issues when refreshing the token in D2L Brightspace.
• An issue accessing the videos displayed in the ally.ac website is now fixed.

Ally 2.4.0 | Release to production 28 September 2022

Updated features, D2L integration

From now on, the character used to separate values in CSV files exported from the Institutional Report and Course Report in D2L Brightspace will be the semicolon " ; ". This separator helps differentiate data between org units.

Ally 2.3.9 | Release to production 14 September 2022

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

Ally 2.3.9 Bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed an issue where the BeeLine Alternative Format was getting the full body of an HTML source page. Now it only considers the main section.
• Fixed an issue of Ally used in Moodle Atto editor, where the WYSIWYG feedback was displayed when Ally was disabled in a course.
• There was an issue with features flags not resolved in the Course Accessibility Report used with the Safari web browser, this issue has been fixed.

Ally 2.3.7 | Release to production 31 August 2022

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

Microsoft Immersive Reader new Alternative Format

Ally's vision to create inclusive environments encompasses integrations with state-of-the-art learning tools, providing learners with the best way to consume content. We are excited to announce that we have integrated the Microsoft Immersive Reader as the new Ally Alternative Format.

This will provide learners new ways to access and improve their comprehension of learning content by providing tools to:

• Change font size and text spacing.
• Change the contrast between the text and the background color.
• Learn spelling and grammar by splitting words into syllables.
• Highlight verbs, nouns, adjectives, and sub-clauses.
• View a picture dictionary.
• Increase reading speed with line focus.
• Convert text-to-speech (both male and female voices).
• Translate content in real time.

You can seamlessly access this Alternative Format online without any need to install plugins or download content. Immersive Reader currently is only available for Ally for LMS and will be enabled by default to all existing clients. If you need to disable it, this new Alternative Format is also available in the Ally Feature Flag configuration.

In addition, the Translated version Feature Flag also turns off the translation capabilities of the Immersive Reader, which does not affect your existing Ally configuration.

More information about Microsoft Immersive Reader.

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Ally 2.3.7 Bug fixes and improvements

• We have updated our Ally website https://ally.ac/ with information about the Immersive Reader integration.
• Fixed an issue where the Alternative Formats in a Canvas course were not displayed correctly on pages.

Ally 2.3.5 | Release to production 17 August 2022

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

Ally 2.3.5 Bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed an issue where Office documents using the following Norwegian locales: Nynorsk (nn-NO) and Bokmål (nb-NO), were assessed as having the wrong language. Now the Norwegian (NO) macro language is considered as the set language in the files.

Ally 2.3.4 | Release to production 10 August 2022

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

Reporting for additional Org Units in D2L

Systems using a shared instance of D2L can have multiple org units within their hierarchical configuration. For example, one system shares D2L on multiple campuses. Ally now has provided a way to navigate through the institutional report at the different sub-levels, regardless of the org unit configuration. Which makes it flexible for any system configuration. To have this setup in your report you need to create a support ticket.

Ally 2.3.4 Bug fixes and improvements

• We have created a new endpoint in the Ally API which allows clients to download CSV files to get the information in a specific term. It provides two files: one with an aggregated overview of a selected term, and a second one with a by-course view of all data for the selected term.

For further information refer to the Ally API documentation in the User Group.

• Fixed an issue where the Canvas Accessibility checker was still displayed at the bottom of pages after disabling it from the Ally configuration.

Ally 2.3.3 | Release to production 2 August 2022

Updated features, D2L Brightspace integration

Ally 2.3.3 Bug fixes and improvements

• The Ally integration with D2L has been updated using the latest D2L rest API version. This improves reliability and performance.
• The integration between Ally and D2L has been improved to prevent locks by changing the authentication logic.

Ally 2.3.2 | Release to production 20 July 2022

Updated features, Moodle integration

Ally 2.3.2 Bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed an issue where fields in quizzes with multiple choices, within Moodle Atto, did not store the value.
• Fixed an issue in Moodle that was showing the WYSIWYG feedback where Ally is disabled.

Ally 2.3.1 | Release to production 13 July 2022

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

Ally 2.3.1 Bug fixes and improvements

• Error handling was improved when the content downloaded using Alternative Formats requires authentication. .

For further information visit Alternative Formats.

Ally 2.3.0 | Release to production 8 July 2022

Updated features, Learn integration, Moodle integration

Ally 2.3.0 Bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed an issue in Moodle after users were redirected to the login page when attempting to save items that contain text areas.
• Fixed an issue where Alternative Formats were available in View Mode within Blackboard Learn. When using "View only" we must prevent downloading content in any formats to prevent copyright issues.

Ally 2.2.9 | Release to production 29 Jun 2022

Updated features, Canvas integration

Ally 2.2.9 Bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed an issue in Canvas where the score gauge was still displayed in WYSIWYG content when courses with the Ally feature flag was disabled.
• Fixed the issue in Canvas related to reporting displaying information from a different term.

Ally 2.2.8 | Release to production 22 Jun 2022

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

Ally 2.2.8 Bug fixes and improvements

• Contrast image issues are not considered an "Easy to Fix" issue anymore, as fixing them demands image edition and additional work.

Ally 2.2.7 | Release to production 15 Jun 2022

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

Ally 2.2.7 Bug fixes and improvements

• Ally's WYSIWYG scoring has been improved to have a better experience with RTE functionalities while Ally processes the content.

Ally 2.2.6 | Release to production 9 Jun 2022

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

Ally 2.2.6 Bug fixes and improvements

• Pages' scope from REST API integration with Canvas Developer Key has been updated to work with the url_or_id parameter.
• Clients can now grant access to the Institutional Report using specific roles. This can be requested to your Blackboard representative through a support ticket. For further information see Ally Configuration.

Ally 2.2.5 | Release to production 8 Jun 2022

Updated features, Moodle integration, D2L Brightspace integration

Instructor Feedback for WYSIWYG Content for Moodle Atto Editor

As an update to the Ally 2.0 release, we've now added support for Instructor Feedback for WYSIWYG Content for Moodle institutions that use the Atto Editor.

More on WYSIWYG Accessibility

Bug fixes and improvements

• Alternative Formats in D2L Brightspace can now be downloaded when HTML files are uploaded and contain relative paths.
• Improved the enrollment count in courses to more accurately reflect students in courses for D2L Brightspace.

Ally 2.2.4 | Release to production 1 Jun 2022

Updated features, Learn integration

Instructor Feedback for WYSIWYG Content for Learn Ultra

As an update to the Ally 2.0 release we've now added support for Instructor Feedback for WYSIWYG Content in Learn Ultra.

More on WYSIWYG Accessibility

Ally 2.2.3 | Release to production 25 May 2022

Updated features, Canvas integration

Ally 2.2.3 bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed an issue in Canvas where users with a student role were seeing the Ally accessibility score for WYSIWYG content when creating discussion topics.

Ally 2.2.2 | Release to production 18 May 2022

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

Ally 2.2.2 bug fixes and improvements

• Detection for seizure inducing GIFs has been improved to include a more thorough parallel processing of images.
• Fixed an issue in Canvas where the Ally score gauge was not always present during the creation of new pages.

Ally 2.2.1 | Release to production 11 May 2022

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

Ally 2.2.1 bug fixes and improvements

• Improved messaging and error handling for Instructor Feedback for WYSIWYG content.

Ally 2.1.8 | Release to production 20 April 2022

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

Ally 2.1.8 bug fixes and improvements

• Resolved an issue that resulted in different data for content counts and scores between the Course Accessibility Report and the Institution Report.

Ally 2.1.7 | Release to production 13 April 2022

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

Ally 2.1.7 bug fixes and improvements

• Added Maori language support for the user interface.

Ally 2.1.6 | Release to production 6 April 2022

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

Ally 2.1.6 bug fixes and improvements

• Resolved an issue in Canvas where the alternative formats window was displaying behind the file preview window in Chrome browsers.
• Fixed an issue where alternative formats were failing to generate for documents with long titles.

Ally 2.1.5 | Release to production 30 March 2022

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

Ally 2.1.5 bug fixes and improvements

• Resolved an issue where some course import events for Blackboard Learn courses were not properly being processed.
• Improved security related to accessing the course accessibility report for instructors.

Ally 2.1.4 | Release to production 23 March 2022

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

Ally 2.1.4 bug fixes and improvements

• Resolved an issue where YouTube videos without captions were not properly being represented in institutional reports.
• Minor improvements to language translation in the UI.

Ally 2.1.3 | Release to production 16 March 2022

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

Ally 2.1.3 bug fixes and improvements

• Resolved an issue in Blackboard Learn where course content types were incorrectly classified after conversion from a Learn Original to Learn Ultra course.
• Improved performance and made some minor workflow changes to the course CSV export in the institution report.

Ally 2.1.2 | Release to production 10 March 2022

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

Ally 2.1.2 bug fixes and improvements

• Resolved an issue where launching the LTI configuration was not working appropriately for some institutions.
• Resolved an issue where Instructor Feedback for WYSIWYG content would not properly load and display incorrect scores and issues when multiple editors were available on a single page.

Ally 2.1.1 | Release to production 10 March 2022

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

Ally 2.1.1 bug fixes and improvements

• Added English (New Zealand), English (South African), English (Welsh), and Hindi language support for audio alternative formats.
• Fixed an issue in Canvas where keyboard navigation was not working properly in instructor feedback for WYSIWYG content.
• Fixed an issue in Canvas where the scores displayed in the course accessibility report and instructor feedback for WYSIWYG were inconsistent.
• Fixed an issue in Blackboard Learn where seizure-causing images were not properly being flagged in Ally for Learn SaaS 3900.34.0.
• Fixed an issue in Blackboard Learn where click/selection targets in the alternative formats panel were not correctly aligned on various Firefox versions (96+).
• Resolved an issue in Moodle/OpenLMS where files with names that contain non-ASCII characters failed when uploaded through instructor feedback.

Ally 2.0.9 | Release to production 17 February 2022

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

Ally 2.0.9 bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed an issue where an error was thrown when attempting to export CSV reports that contained a large data set from the institutional report.  The resulting changes have also improved overall performance when exporting CSV reports.   
• Fixed an issue in Blackboard Learn where keyboard navigation was unintentionally opening instructor feedback for WYSIWYG content in Blackboard Learn Original when navigating between test questions. 

Ally 2.0.7/2.0.8 | Release to production 11 February 2022

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

Ally 2.0.67/2.0.8 bug fixes and improvements

• The institutional report graph design has been refreshed to improve readability, accessibility, and responsiveness.

More about the Accessibility Score graph

• 
• Fixed an issue in Moodle where instructor feedback for WYSIWYG was not properly resizing when viewed in full-screen.
• Fixed an issue in Moodle where click/selection targets in the instructor feedback panel were not correctly aligned on various Firefox versions (95.*, 96.*, and 97.*)

Ally 2.0.6 | Release to production 3 February 2022

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

Ally 2.0.6 bug fixes and improvements

• Added Irish (ga), Marathi (mr), Portuguese (Portugal) (pt-PT), and Punjabi (pa) language support for translated alternative formats.

Ally 2.0.5 | Release to production 28 January 2022

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

Ally 2.0.5 bug fixes and improvements

• Revised text content in the Ally Configuration UI for Features for the Instructor Feedback tool.

Ally 2.0.4 | Release to production 26 January 2022

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

Ally 2.0.4 bug fixes and improvements

• As a follow-up to the Ally 2.0 release that introduced Instructor Feedback for WYSIWYG content, we've added an option that allows institutions to select and keep their LMS built-in accessibility checker for content editors (WYSIWYG content). To enable this option, administrators can navigate to the Ally Configuration UI and go to the Features tab.

• Fixed an issue in D2L Brightspace that resulted in students not being able to generate alternative formats in courses.
• Fixed an issue where Ally emails for custom help were incorrectly listing users’ browser as Chrome instead of Edge.
• Fixed an issue in the institutional usage report where an error was shown when an invalid date was selected. To ensure data accuracy the usage report end date availability has been revised to be the current date - 3 days.

Ally 2.0.3 | Release to production 20 January 2022

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

Ally 2.0.3 bug fixes and improvements

• Updated documentation links for Canvas Developer Key setup.
• Improved sentence ordering when generating alternative formats.

Ally 2.0.2 | Release to production 13 January 2022

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

Ally 2.0.2 bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed an issue where Instructor Feedback for WYSIWYG was not properly launching in Safari browsers.
• Fixed an issue where the Instructor Feedback for WYSIWYG tool was being shown in courses where Ally was marked as disabled through the Ally Administrator Course configuration settings.

Ally 2.0.1 | Release to production 30 December 2021

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

Ally 2.0.1 bug fixes and improvements

• Resolved an issue in D2L Brightspace where some institutions were unable to upload, process, and properly score new documents.
• Resolved an issue where tables that were copy and pasted into the Instructor Feedback for WYSIWYG editor were not properly processed.

Ally 2.0 | Release to production 16 December 2021

New features, Learn integration, Moodle integration, D2L Integration, Canvas Integration

Instructor Feedback for WYSIWYG content

We're excited to announce that Ally now supports Instructor Feedback for WYSIWYG content!

In this first release of Instructor Feedback for WYSIWYG content, we're expanding Ally's scanning and feedback to now include support for content created in the course using your LMS content editor (WYSIWYG content).

In addition to the feedback and guidance you're familiar with for other content/document types - we've added some new features that make it quicker and easier than ever to improve the accessibility of your course content including:

Live scoring and flagging of accessibility issues as content is created and edited

Automatic suggestions and batch remediation to more quickly fix issues at scale

More on WYSIWYG Accessibility

This feature is now available for Blackboard Learn Ultra, Blackboard Learn Original, Instructure Canvas, D2L Brightspace, Moodle/OpenLMS, and  Moodle with Atto Editor. This feature is targeted to be introduced in a future release for Schoology.

This feature is disabled by default. To enable Instructor Feedback for WYSIWYG content administrators can navigate to the Ally Configuration UI and go to the Features tab.

In future releases we'll be improving the visibility of the score indicator in view mode, introducing support for other tools in the LMS, and more deeply integrating into the course and institutional reporting capabilities.

A special thank you goes out to our user group and community of beta testers that provided feedback during the development of these features - thank you!

Incorrect Language / No Set Language

Ally now provides feedback guidance for Word, Power Point, and PDF documents that have no set language or an incorrectly set language.

Ally 1.63.2 | Release to production 3 December 2021

Updated features, Learn integration, Moodle integration

Ally 1.63.2 bug fixes and improvements

• Alternative text for images in courses is now retained when a course is copied. 

  Applies to Moodle with the 3.11.3 Ally Plugin or OpenLMS 3.11.

• In Moodle, adds the ability for administrators to see the display name and email of users requesting expert help.
• Minor modification of tool-tip language in the institutional report.
• Improved text layout in the administrator configuration for right-to-left languages.

Ally 1.63.0 | Release to production 19 November 2021

Updated features, Learn integration, D2L integration

Ally 1.63.0 bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed an issue in Blackboard Learn where custom system administrator roles could not access course files through the institutional report.
• Fixed an issue in D2L Brightspace where the WYSIWYG editor would automatically toggle into full-screen mode.

Ally 1.62.9 | Release to production 11 November 2021

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

Ally 1.62.9 bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed an issue where an error was shown when attempting to download usage data from the institutional report in Canvas.
• Fixed an issue in the WYSIWYG Learn editor that resulted in a decrease of performance when LaTeX characters were entered.
• Resolved an issue in Learn that resulted in Alternative Formats not being available from instructor view for folders and items with conditional release rules.
• Improved navigation and layout of table elements in the course report for individuals using assistive technology.

Ally 1.62.8 | Release to production 4 November 2021

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

Ally 1.62.8 bug fixes and improvements

• Improved performance and language support for audio (MP3) alternative formats.
• Improved navigation and layout of course report elements for people who use assistive technology.

Ally 1.62.7 | Release to production 21 October 2021

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

Ally 1.62.7 bug fixes and improvements

• Added a back button that closes guidance when viewing instructor feedback.
• Fixed an issue in Canvas where alternative formats were not loading properly when an instructor used the Canvas Student View.
• Improved error messaging during LTI 1.3 setup.
• Minor improvements to better support Arabic braille tables.
• Minor visual adjustments in instructor feedback workflows to improve spacing of content and buttons for non-English languages.
• Improved navigation of tabular data elements for screen readers in the institution report.

Ally 1.62.6 | Release to production 14 October 2021

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

Ally 1.62.6 bug fixes and improvements

• Improved alternative format file name to more closely match original name in the course.
• Fixed an issue where alternative format downloads in the Blackboard mobile app were not properly functioning.
• Fixed an issue in the institutional usage report where the date selector was not properly displaying available date ranges.
• Fixed an issue where occasionally removing the image description from a .gif would not save correctly.
• Fixed an issue in Canvas where tablets in alternative formats were not properly being converted.
• Resolved an issue where filenames with non-alpha numeric characters were not properly being processed.

Ally 1.62.4 | Release to production 30 September 2021

Updated features, Learn integration, Canvas integration, D2L integration

LTI v1.3 Support

Institutions are now able to integrate Ally into their LMS using LTI: v1.3. While no material changes will occur to Ally's functionality - LTI: v1.3. offers an improved security model based on OAuth2, OpenID Connect, and JSON Web Tokens.

Ally will continue to support LTI: v1.1 for the foreseeable future in order to provide institutions time to plan their migration to LTI: v1.3.

For additional information and configuration steps please see documentation for Blackboard Learn, Canvas, and D2L.

Moodle support is planned for a future release.

Canvas Developer Keys

Canvas Developer Keys provide an alternative integration method to the existing access token approach that offers more granular control over the scope and permissions granted to the Ally integration.

More information on Canvas Developer Keys.

Ally 1.62.4 bug fixes & improvements

• Fixed a bug where images were not properly being added to the ePub alternative format for HTML pages in D2L.

Ally 1.62.2 | Release to production 22 September 2021

Updated features, Learn integration, Canvas integration

Ally 1.62.2 bug fixes & improvements

• Improved data quality for usage reports, available in the Institution Report for administrators.

  This improvement modifies the selectable days in the interface to provide data ending in the 1-2 days previous from the current day, based on your country/region.

• Improved academic year titles for institutions whose academic term starts in January and ends in the same year. For example, if an academic term starts on January 1st 2021 and ends the same year, the title will now show: "2021".

• Fixed an issue in Blackboard Learn and Canvas where tool-tips were not being properly displayed.

• Fixed an issue in Canvas when generating MP3 audio alternative formats.

Ally 1.61.9 | Release to production 17 September 2021

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

Course accessibility report in Safari

• As a follow-up to the Ally 1.44 | Release to production 15 May 2020, we've now updated the Ally institutional report and configuration UI LTI tools to no longer rely on 3rd party cookies. Now, all Ally tools should load correctly in Safari.

This update also applies to other web browsers that have implemented or plan to phase out 3rd party cookie support.  

Ally 1.61.9 bug fixes & improvements

• Minor improvement in Learn to course-copy synching with Ally for image descriptions.

Ally 1.61.7 | Release to production 9 September 2021

Canvas integration, Updated features

Ally 1.61.7 bug fixes & improvements

• Fixed an issue in Canvas where deleted quizzes were not properly being displayed in the course accessibility report.

Ally 1.61.3 | Release to production 20 August 2021

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

Ally 1.61.3 bug fixes & improvements

• Added Irish (ga-IE) language support for the user interface.

Ally 1.61.0 | Release to production 5 August 2021

Blackboard Learn integration, Canvas integration, Updated features

Ally 1.61.0 bug fixes & improvements

• Resolved an issue in Blackboard Learn where some users were presented with the error "Oops! This file couldn't be overwritten as there may be a wrong configuration." when uploading a new to file when fixing an issue.
• Updated checking and scoring for images related to a recently resolved Canvas issue where decorative images were incorrectly marked.

Ally 1.60.3 | Release to production 30 June 2021

Updated features

Ally 1.60.3 bug fixes & improvements

• Improved readability and navigation usability on the course accessibility report.

Ally 1.60.2 | Release to production 23 June 2021

Updated features

Ally 1.60.2 bug fixes & improvements

• Fixed an issue where navigation buttons were not placed properly for right to left languages.

Ally 1.60, 1.60.1 | Release to production 17 June 2021

D2L Brightspace, Moodle, Updated features

Ally 1.60, 1.60.1 bug fixes & improvements

• Fixed an issue in Moodle that resulted in unused course files being incorporated in the overall accessibility score. Administrators will need to enable this option by checking the "Exclude unused files" that can be found by navigating to Site Admin > Plugins > Ally.

  Applies to Moodle with the 3.10.3 Ally Plugin.

• Fixed an issue in D2L Brightspace where an error was presented when attempting to download alternative formats.

Ally 1.59.9 | Release to production 10 June 2021

D2L Brightspace, Updated features

Ally 1.59.9 bug fixes & improvements

• Fixed an issue related to text and icon placement for right to left languages on the course accessibility report.
• Fixed an issue in the institution usage report that incorrectly displayed an error when an appropriate date range was selected.
• Fixed an accessibility issue where the download control in a PDF preview was missing the appropriate button tag.
• Resolved an issue in D2L Brightspace where image previews were missing in instructor feedback.

Ally 1.59.8 | Release to production 3 June 2021

Canvas, Updated features

Ally 1.59.8 bug fixes & improvements

• Improved translation and layout placement for right to left languages.
• Fixed an issue in Canvas where alternative formats for files in an assignment were only visible after viewing the instructions.
• Fixed an issue where image previews in the feature configuration were rotated incorrectly on Safari.

Ally 1.59.7 | Release to production 26 May 2021

D2L Brightspace, Updated features

Ally 1.59.7 bug fixes & improvements

• Fixed an accessibility issue related to minimum color contrast ratio for links when an alternative format HTML file was generated.
• Fixed an issue in D2L Brightspace where spaces in image file names were creating errors when generating alternative formats for rich content.
• Improvements to processing time for generating translated alternative formats.

Ally 1.59.2 | Release to production 30 April 2021

D2L Brightspace, Updated features

Unique user download data is now available in the Usage Report

Ally administrators are now able view the total number of unique users downloading alternative formats. This is also available when viewing by week.

Ally 1.59.2 bug fixes & improvements

• Improves support for custom org units in D2L Brightspace.

Ally 1.59.1 | Release to production 22 April 2021

D2L Brightspace, Updated features

Ally 1.59.1 bug fixes & improvements

• Fixed a bug where the Ally alternative format icon was missing in some descriptions for modules and sub-modules.

Ally 1.59 | Release to production 15 April 2021

Updated features

Ally 1.59 bug fixes & improvements

• Fixed a bug where in some cases OCRed Alternative formats were downloading with random characters included in the document text.
• Fixed an issue with Arabic text incorrectly wrapping within the Instructor Feedback panel.
• Fixed a bug where in some cases the links added to the text in the custom Instructor Feedback Help panel were not showing as hyperlinks.

Ally 1.58 | Release to production 1 April 2021

Updated features, D2L Brightspace

Ally 1.58 bug fixes & improvements

• Improved the Translated Version alternative format to include the word "translated" in the downloaded filename to distinguish between the Translated Version alternative format and the HTML alternative format. For example, downloading the Spanish Translated Version for a file named Van Gogh.docx will result in Van Gogh - Translated - es.html.
• Fixed a bug in D2L Brightspace where in some cases temporary modules that were used to create an Alternative Format for WYSIWYG content were not removed once that process finished.

Ally 1.57 | Release to production 24 March 2021

New features, Updated features, Instructure Canvas

Course Accessibility Report data is now available in the Usage Report

Ally administrators are now able view usage data for the Course Accessibility Report as part of the Usage Report. Within the Instructor Feedback Launches and Instructor Feedback Weekly data tabs, admins can see how many times the Course Accessibility Report has been launched along with the Instructor Feedback launch and total number of fixes data to better track overall engagement.

Departmental report is now searchable

Admins are now able to search through the list of departments available on the Directory tab within the Institutional report to facilitate faster searching and reporting when looking for specific departments.

Ally 1.57 bug fixes & improvements

• Improved our ElasticSearch infrastructure to implement data encryption-at-rest as well as allow for the ability to search the Ally Configuration Courses tab for Course IDs containing more than 10 characters.
• Improved lists and headings detection within Arabic documents to improve the overall quality of the Alternative Formats.
• Added support for the new Canvas file preview functionality to address an issue where the Ally indicators overlapped with the new Canvas icon.
• Fixed an accessibility bug that prevented keyboard navigation to the Remove from Image button when editing and removing alternative text from an image in the Instructor Feedback.

Ally 1.56 | Release to production 16 March 2021

Updated features

Ally 1.56 bug fixes & improvements

• Fixed a bug in Canvas integrations where selecting the preview link within the Ally alternative formats menu didn't open the file preview.

Ally 1.55.3 | Release to production 11 March 2021

Updated features

Ally 1.55.3 bug fixes & improvements

• Fixed a bug within Canvas integrations where the Ally alternative format and score indicators were not consistently shown correctly next to files that are linked within a Canvas page.

Ally 1.55.2 | Release to production 4 March 2021

Updated features

Ally 1.55.2 bug fixes & improvements

• Improved the Department score CSV export released in Ally 1.55 to limit the CSV export to the specified department when exporting from the department level.
• Fixed a bug in Canvas where in some cases users were unable to click to launch the Alternative Formats modal from the Canvas files preview.
• Fixed an accessibility issue to update the headings markup used within the Course Accessibility Report to allow for proper navigation when using a screen reader.
• Fixed an accessibility issue to improve the color contrast ratio of the Terms of Use text within the Alternative Formats modal window.
• Fixed a bug where the filename was not aligned properly within the Alternative Formats modal window when downloading formats for right-to-left language documents.

Ally 1.55.1 | Release to production 25 February 2021

New features, Updated features

Ally in Hebrew

As part of our continued efforts to support universal design and equitable access around the world, Ally 1.55.1 makes the Ally User Interface available in Hebrew. There is now Hebrew support to the Ally institutional report, configuration UI, alternative formats modal, instructor feedback and course accessibility report, including full right-to-left support for all of these.

The Ally alternative formats are not yet available in Hebrew. This will be made available in a future release.

Ally 1.55.1 bug fixes & improvements

• Fixed a bug where in some cases when default help is enabled, clicking the help link within the Alternative Formats window also submitted the form.
• Fixed a bug where files containing lists were not rendered properly in ePub or Beeline alternative formats for right-to-left language documents.

Ally 1.55 | Release to production 18 February 2021

New features, Updated features

Department score data now available in the CSV export

As part of the Ally 1.55 release, department score data is now available when you export a CSV from the Institutional report. LMS administrators can use the CSV export to easily compare across departments by accessibility score, amount of content, number of courses. and accessibility issues. When downloading and opening the CSV export zip package, you will now see a departments_months, departments_terms and departments_years CSV file available to analyze progress by department over time.

Ally 1.55 bug fixes & improvements

• Improved the ePub alternative format to make ePub titles more consistent by using the title from the original file or the filename of the original file when a title is not available.
• Improved the handling and communication of failures that occur when uploading updated content back through the Instructor Feedback panel.

Ally 1.54.3 | Release to production 11 February 2021

Updated features

Ally 1.54.3 bug fixes & improvements

• Improved the labeling of form fields within the Request Help function of the Alternative Formats window.
• Fixed a bug where Ally's accessibility check for headings did not account for non-breaking spaces within the document.

Ally 1.54.2 | Release to production 4 February 2021

Updated features, D2L Brightspace Integration

Ally 1.54.2 bug fixes & improvements

• Improved the Ally alternative format download icon applied within D2L Brightspace's New Content Experience. Now there's a more consistent look and feel with other areas of the course.
  
• Fixed an accessibility issue where zooming in on the Instructor Feedback panel or using a device with a small display resolution (of 600 px or less) causes the header and footer to hide the content being displayed to the user.

Ally 1.54.1 | Release to production 28 January 2021

Updated features

Ally 1.54.1 bug fixes & improvements

• Fixed a bug where Ally would incorrectly flag a contrast issue in certain PDF files with Type3 fonts.

Ally 1.54 | Release to production 21 January 2021

Updated features

Audio improvements for WYSIWYG alternative formats

Ally 1.50.2 introduced the ability to pickup on the appropriate text language from the WYSIWYG content area when downloading the Audio alternative format. This latest release allows Ally to pick up on the content title for a rich content item to provide additional context when downloading and listening to an Audio version.

Ally 1.53 | Release to production 13 January 2021

Updated features

Ally 1.53 bug fixes & improvements

• Fixed a bug where in some cases Ally's Alternative Formats icons were not correctly aligned to the file within the Learn Original course view
• Fixed an accessibility bug to add appropriate button roles to buttons in the Alternative Formats dialog

Ally 1.52 | Release to production 4 December 2020

Updated features

Translated Version Alternative Format Improvements

The Translated Version alternative format machine translation has been updated behind the scenes to provide a few key improvements.  The content will now be downloaded as HTML format for added ease of use.  This release also adds support for the following additional languages within the Translated Version alternative format drop down menu: 

• Albanian
• Amharic
• Armenian
• Azerbaijani
• Bengali
• Dari
• French (Canada)
• Georgian
• Gujarati
• Hausa
• Icelandic
• Kannada
• Kazakh
• Macedonian
• Malayalam
• Mongolian
• Pashto
• Sinhala
• Somali
• Spanish (Mexico)
• Tagalog
• Tamil
• Telugu
• Uzbek

Support for the following languages within the Translated Version alternative format is not available:

• Bosnian (Cyrillic)
• Serbian (Cyrillic)

Ally 1.52 bug fixes and improvements

• Improved the information available within the client help emails in the D2L Brightspace integration to now include the display name and email of the user requesting help.  Note that this requires additional permissions to be granted to the Ally service user within Brightspace.  These permissions include:

  • Users
    • View the Users' Email Address (Organization)
    • See the User Management Tool (Organization)
  • User Information Privacy
    • See First Names (Organization)
    • See Last Names (Organization)
    • See Email Addresses (Organization)
• Fixed an issue within the D2L Brightspace integration that caused the Institutional report launch for a specific D2L Department to no longer work correctly
• Added a warning displayed to an instructor/editor user when trying to upload a file that is too large or multiple files at one time when using the Instructor Feedback panel.
• Fixed an issue where decorative images were not being passed through correctly to Ally within Learn Ultra.

Ally 1.51.1 | Release to production 13 November 2020

Updated features

Ally 1.51.1 bug fixes and improvements

• Implemented a solution to address a D2L authentication token issue that prevented Ally indicators from showing in BrightSpace courses. 

Ally 1.51 | Release to production 6 November 2020

New features, Updated features

WYSIWYG Alternative Formats for Ultra documents

Ally alternative formats are now also available for Ultra documents for instructors and students within the Ultra Course View. This follows the release of WYSIWYG alternative formats for Blackboard Learn Original and Instructure Canvas as part of the Ally 1.48 release, and D2L Brightspace as part of the Ally 1.49 release.

Ally Alternative Formats for Attachments in the Blackboard App

As part of the Blackboard App 5.8 release, students can now view and download alternative formats for attachments in content items in Original courses to further expand on the current Ally capabilities in the mobile app.

Ally 1.50.3 | Release to production 28 October 2020

Updated features

Ally 1.50.3 bug fixes and improvements

• Implemented a solution to address cases where mismatching content types within Canvas course imports (noted in Ally 1.50.2) continued to prevent Ally Alternative Format generation for certain files after a successful course import.

Ally 1.50.2 | Release to production 21 October 2020

Updated features

Ally 1.50.2 bug fixes and improvements

• Implemented an improvement to the WYSIWYG Alternative Formats to recognize the appropriate language when downloading the Audio alternative format.
• Implemented a solution to address a known Canvas issue where mismatching content types were being communicated for certain Canvas course imports that prevented Ally from being able to pick up on content.
• Fixed a bug where occasionally the instructor feedback panel and PDF preview would show unnecessary scroll bars.
• Fixed a bug where occasionally the text within the instructor feedback panel did not display as right to left for Arabic help text.
• Fixed a bug where certain files with dark backgrounds that also contain form x objects were incorrectly captured as white backgrounds.
• Fixed a bug in Moodle where sometimes reordering items caused issues with displaying the Ally accessibility score indicator.

Ally 1.50.1 | Release to production 13 October 2020

Updated features

Ally 1.50.1 bug fixes and improvements

• Implemented improvements to the Help email templates for D2L Brightspace to avoid using time sensitive links for file download URLs.
• Fixed a bug in the departmental report where drilling into an issue for an academic year for a specific department sometimes resulted in courses being listed that did not belong to the department.
• Fixed a bug where in some cases the HTML alternative format would replace valid initials within bibliography lists with automatic alphabetical lettering upon conversion.

Ally 1.49.2 | Release to production 29 September 2020

Updated features, Blackboard Learn integration

Ally 1.49.2 bug fixes and improvements

• Implemented improvements to Ally’s alternative formats to support PDFs /ActualText property for referenced marked content.

  This is in addition to already supported /ActualText properties of tags.

• Fixed a bug where Ally’s Alternative format indicator was not appearing for students on certain items with a description in Learning Modules within Blackboard Learn.
• Fixed a bug where in some cases French letters with accents were not converted properly in the ePub, Audio file and BeeLine alternative formats.

Ally 1.49.1 | Release to production 25 September 2020

Updated features

Ally 1.49.1 bug fixes and improvements

• Implemented improvements to the individual course report CSV exports to show if individual files have issues. Previously, some columns were displaying score results. This update provides further consistency with the other report CSV exports provided by Ally.
• Fixed a bug that caused the alternative formats indicator not to show for certain Learn WYSIWYG content areas.

Ally 1.49 | Release to production 6 September 2020

New features, Updated features, Blackboard Learn Original, Instructure Canvas, Moodle, D2L Brightspace

Departmental reporting

Next to the reporting provided at the institutional level and the individual course level, Ally 1.49 now introduces the ability to view reporting based on the configured institutional hierarchy. This features makes it significantly easier to understand how different parts of the institution are performing around accessibility, can help better determine where to target efforts, and starts to provide insight for departmental administrators. We think this feature will be especially useful for large institutions and institutions sharing an LMS instance.

The provided reporting is based on:

• Blackboard Learn: Configured institutional hierarchy
• Instructure Canvas: Configured sub-account structure
• Moodle: Configured categories
• D2L Brightspace: Configured “Department” organizational units

The departmental reporting can be accessed through a new Directory tab in the institutional report. Global administrators will see the list of all top level nodes, and can continue to drill down into the hierarchy or view a more detailed report for each node. This more detailed report is similar to what can be found in the institutional report, but the data, CSV export and usage reports are all narrowed down to the selected node.

Departmental or node administrators will only be able to see the report for the node they can manage, and will be able to view the report for any sub-nodes they can manage as well.

The “Directory” tab will not display if no institutional hierarchy is configured in the LMS.

Arabic alternative formats

With the Ally 1.42 release, the Ally user interface became available in Arabic, including full right-to-left layout support.

Ally 1.49 introduces support for the Ally alternative formats in Arabic as well. This includes availability in Arabic of the Tagged PDF, semantic HTML, Audio, Electronic Braille and BeeLine Reader alternative formats, as well as right-to-left layout support for the machine learning algorithms that drive the generation of these alternative formats.

Read the press release

WYSIWYG alternative formats for D2L Brightspace

Following the release of WYSIWYG alternative formats for Blackboard Learn Original and Instructure Canvas as part of the Ally 1.48 release, WYSIWYG alternative formats are now also available for D2L Brightspace courses.

Ally 1.49 bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed a bug that occasionally caused the usage reports to be empty.
• Fixed a bug in the conversion of complex tables (e.g., table cell that spans multiple columns) in the different alternative formats.
• Implemented several improvements to the accessibility checklist for HTML files and web pages.
• Implemented several improvements to the checking of larger and more complex Word and PowerPoint documents.
• Improved the Moodle integration to process content in copied courses more quickly.
• Fixed a bug that caused marking an image as decorative through the instructor feedback to fail.
• Fixed a bug that occasionally caused Tagged PDFs containing lots of large images to be flagged as a scanned document.
• Implemented data encryption at rest for AWS S3 storage.
• Implemented several translation improvements to the Brazilian Portuguese translation.

Ally 1.48 | Release to production 19 August 2020

New features, Updated features, Blackboard Learn Original, Instructure Canvas

WYSIWYG alternative formats

Ally is now able to generate alternative formats for content created through the LMS content editor (WYSIWYG content). The available alternative formats for this WYSIWYG content include ePub, Audio, Electronic Braille, BeeLine Reader and the Translated Version.

This means that Ally is now able to provide alternative formats for both WYSIWYG content and uploaded files (PDF documents, Word documents, PowerPoint documents, etc.), providing good coverage of the types of content that can be found in the LMS. Given the exponential growth in alternative format usage observed in the last year, we’re excited to provide students with additional choice and flexibility in how they engage with their course content.

To access the alternative formats for a WYSIWYG content item, the alternative format icon next to the item can be selected. For WYSIWYG content items that also include uploaded files, students are provided a choice between accessing the alternative formats for the WYSIWYG item and accessing the alternative formats for the embedded files.

This feature is currently only available for Blackboard Learn Original and Instructure Canvas. Because of dependencies on new LMS APIs and functionality, this feature will be introduced for Blackboard Learn Ultra, D2L Brightspace and Moodle courses as part of a future Ally release.

Ally 1.48 bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed a bug in the audio alternative format that occasionally caused HTML characters to be read out as part of the audio.
• Fixed a bug in the accessibility checklist that prevented PDFs produced using LaTeX Beamer from being scored.
• Improved the Moodle integration to better handle content with a negative creation time.

Ally 1.47 | Release to production 10 August 2020

Updated features

Blackboard Learn institutional hierarchy

The Blackboard Learn integration has been expanded to include the institutional hierarchy information for a course under the Department id and Department name columns in the courses.csv CSV export in the institutional report. This institutional hierarchy information is based on the institutional hierarchy configured within Blackboard Learn.

This work enables the calculation of the Ally score for each department in the institutional hierarchy through a tool like Excel, and serves as part of the foundational work to support the upcoming native reporting by institutional hierarchy in the institutional report.

This features requires Blackboard Learn 3800.13.0, and is therefore currently only available for institutions using Blackboard Learn SaaS.

Ally 1.47 bug fixes and improvements

• Improved the feedback and guidance for documents containing tables with missing table headings
• Fixed a bug in the Canvas integration that prevented the alternative formats modal from opening correctly in Modules
• Fixed an accessibility bug in the tabs in the Course Accessibility Report

Ally 1.46.2 | Release to production 9 July 2020

D2L Brightspace integration, Updated features

Ally 1.46.2 bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed a bug in the D2L Brightspace integration that occasionally caused content items to not be correctly marked as deleted due to a change in the Brightspace REST API response. All affected content items have now been reprocessed and should be correctly listed as deleted

Ally 1.46.1 | Release to production 2 July 2020

Updated features

Ally 1.46.1 bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed a bug that prevented the instructor feedback from being launched by admins from the institutional report for courses that have the instructor feedback disabled for instructors
• Implemented several improvements for the rendering of Word and PowerPoint documents as part of the instructor feedback

Ally 1.46 | Release to production 22 June 2020

EesySoft integration, Moodle integration, Updated features

EesySoft integration

We’re excited to expand our integration with EesySoft, a popular tool that integrates into the Learning Management System. EesySoft can be used to create campaigns to communicate with users, guide them through tasks in the LMS, and view the impact on behavior and tool adoption.
 
EesySoft already captured clicks on the alternative format icons and the accessibility indicators, and included this in the Eesysoft reports and campaigns. Now, institutions with an EesySoft license can allow more  detailed monitoring of interactions in the alternative formats modal, the instructor feedback, and the course accessibility report. Institutions can use this data for adoption reports and campaigns within EesySoft.
 
The EesySoft integration is disabled by default, and can be enabled in the Ally Configuration UI. Note that this integration requires an EesySoft license.

Moodle institutional hierarchy

We expanded the Moodle integration to include the institutional hierarchy information for a course. You’ll find additional information in the institutional report under the Department id and Department name columns in the courses.csv CSV export. This institutional hierarchy information is based on the “categories” that have been configured within Moodle.
 
Now, administrators can calculate an Ally score for each department in the institutional hierarchy with a tool like Excel. This is the first step to support native reporting by institutional hierarchy in the institutional report in the future.
 
Note that this feature requires the additional `moodle/category:viewhiddencategories` permission for the Ally API user. This permission is granted automatically in the latest version of the Ally Moodle plugins.

Image contains text not in the description

Previously, Ally required that text it detected in an image was part of the image’s alternative description. Because not all text in an image is required in the description and because OCR text detection isn’t 100% accurate, Ally 1.46 removes this check from the accessibility score. In a future release, the extracted text will become a description suggestion.

The removal of this accessibility check applies to all new and updated images, and will retroactively be applied to existing images over the next few weeks.

Ally 1.46 bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed a bug that would occasionally cause the incorrect image to be highlighted when showing a document containing images without a description in the instructor feedback.

Ally 1.44.2 | Release to production 4 June 2020

D2L Brightspace integration, Moodle integration, Updated features

Ally 1.44.2 bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed a bug that caused the Library Reference fields to be empty when attempting to edit an existing Library Reference
• Implemented improvements in the D2L Brightspace integration to reduce the number of LMS API calls made to adhere to Brightspace’s new API rate limiting
• Improved the workflow for editing an image description through the Ally instructor feedback
• Fixed a bug in the Moodle integration that prevented Book Chapters from being removed from the Ally reporting when deleting a Book
• Prevent Ally from processing .dwg (from drawing) files

Ally 1.44.1 | Release to production 1 June 2020

Canvas integration, D2L Brightspace integration, New features, Updated features

Audio alternative format

The audio alternative format is now available in Arabic and Icelandic. The voice for the Turkish audio alternative format has also been replaced with a higher quality alternative.

D2L Brightspace course templates

Ally is now able to check the content in Brightspace course templates for accessibility issues and provide alternative formats for them. This allows for the accessibility of course templates to be improved before they are used to create new course offerings.

Ally 1.44.1 bug fixes and improvements

• The YouTube caption check has been improved to reflect the full set of permutations provided by the YouTube API
• Fixed a bug in the Canvas integration that caused the “Disable alternative formats” option for a content item to not be available when the instructor feedback was disabled for the course

Ally 1.44 | Release to production 15 May 2020

Canvas integration, Moodle integration, Updated features

Course accessibility report in Safari

Due to the 3rd party cookie blocking policy recently introduced by the Safari browser, Ally LTI tools wouldn’t load in Safari unless 3rd party cookies are explicitly allowed in the browser settings.

More information about how these browser changes affect LTI tools on these sites:

Full third party cookie blocking and more

LTI frames and cookies oh my

The course accessibility report LTI tool has been updated to no longer rely on these cookies, and should now always load correctly in Safari.

More on the course accessibility report LTI tool

This improvement doesn't yet apply to the Ally institutional report and configuration UI LTI tools. These will be updated in a future release.

Ally 1.44 bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed a bug in the Canvas integration that prevented the alternative formats modal from loading when selecting Alternative Formats in a Canvas content preview.
• Fixed a bug in the Moodle integration that caused too much content to be pulled through the Moodle API when re-synchronizing a course.
• Fixed a bug that caused the incorrect tab to be selected when returning to the Courses tab in the institutional report.
• Fixed a bug in the instructor feedback that caused an error when selecting the I need to keep it button for a seizure inducing animation.

Ally 1.43 | Release to production 6 May 2020

New features, Blackboard Learn integration

Blackboard App integration

We’re excited to announce that the Blackboard Ally alternative formats can now be accessed directly from the Blackboard App. Many of the alternative formats provided by Ally such as the responsive HTML version, the Tagged PDF version, the ePub version and the Audio version are particularly relevant for use on mobile devices, and we were already seeing a large percentage of alternative formats accessed through mobile devices. With the addition of the alternative formats in the Blackboard App, we believe this will further increase use of the alternative formats in mobile contexts.

This integration requires the latest version (version 5.3) of the Blackboard App on iOS and Android.

More on Ally in the Blackboard app

Ally 1.42.1 | Release to production 1 May 2020

Updated features, Moodle integration

HTML Block support

The Ally for Moodle integration has been expanded to provide support for the “HTML Block” plugin. Content created through this plugin will now also be checked for accessibility issues by Ally, and the results will be included in the institutional report and the course accessibility report. Alternative formats and instructor feedback will be provided for file content linked from the HTML block as well.

The HTML block support requires the latest version of the Ally Moodle plugins that correspond with your version of Moodle.

Ally 1.42.1 bug fixes and improvements

• Added the institution name to the file name for the institutional report CSV export and the usage report export
• Added a more meaningful error message when an audio alternative format can’t be generated because the original document is longer than 100,000 characters 
• The usage report export is now supported on older versions of Excel as well 
• Fixed a bug that caused the Features tab in the Ally Configuration UI to not be internationalized correctly
• Fixed a bug in the Accessibility Score overview graph in the institutional report that caused time periods without any associated data to show as a 0% score 
• Implemented improvements to reduce the number of LMS API calls made when a sudden spike in LMS activity takes place

Ally 1.42 | Release to production 23 April 2020

New Features, Updated features

Ally in Arabic

As part of our efforts to support universal design and equitable access around the world, Ally 1.42 makes the Ally User Interface available in Arabic. There is now Arabic support to the Ally institutional report, configuration UI, alternative formats modal, instructor feedback and course accessibility report, including full right-to-left support for all of these.

Note that the Ally alternative formats are not yet available in Arabic. This is the team’s next priority, and will be made available in a future release.

Ally 1.42 bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed a bug in the instructor feedback that caused the Help link to overlap with the instructor feedback guidance
• Fixed a bug that would occasionally cause files smaller than 50MB uploaded through the instructor feedback to fail

Ally 1.41.1 | Release to production 17 April 2020

New Features, Updated features

CSV export

The “courses.csv” file that is part of the institutional report CSV export now contains a new Ally enabled column. This column shows TRUE when the instructor feedback and alternative formats are enabled for a course, and shows FALSE when the instructor feedback and alternative formats are disabled for a course.

More on the CSV export

Ally 1.41.1 bug fixes and improvements

• Improved the instructor feedback to better handle the uploading of a content type that’s different from the original content type.
• Improved the wording of the success and failure messages that are shown when uploading a new content item through the instructor feedback.
• Fixed a bug in the institutional report that caused the comparison between the current time period and the previous time period to be incorrect.
• Fixed a bug in the Moodle integration that occasionally prevented the seizure protection for images flagged as seizure inducing from rendering correctly.
• Fixed a validation bug in the date picker for the Usage Reports.
• The Ally for D2L Brightspace and Ally for Canvas integrations have been improved to require less REST API calls when synchronizing a course.

Ally 1.41 | Release to production 6 April 2020

New Features, Updated features

PDFs without title

A full new feedback flow for instructors and editors has been added for PDFs that don’t have a title. This flow contains documentation on what this means, why this is important, and detailed step-by-step guidance on how to add a PDF title.

Generate tagged PDFs

The feedback guidance for instructors and editors on how to generate a tagged PDF from a Microsoft Office Word and PowerPoint document has been updated to reflect the latest changes in Microsoft Office 365. Several screenshots to help visualize the different steps have been added as well.

BeeLine Reader night mode

The BeeLine Reader alternative format has been extended to offer an additional “Night Mode” view with a corresponding color gradient. This night mode can help reduce eye strain in low light conditions, can reduce screen glare while outside and can help save energy for mobile devices.

Ally 1.41 bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed a bug that would cause the instructor feedback Print View to occasionally be empty.
• Improved the speed at which alternative formats are generated.

Ally 1.40 | Release to production 27 March 2020

New Features, Updated features

BeeLine Reader alternative format

The BeeLine Reader alternative format is aimed at making on-screen reading faster and easier. To achieve this, it uses an eye-guiding color gradient to help pull the reader’s eyes from one line to the next, and reported benefits include increased reading speed and enhanced focus. The tool can benefit students with dyslexia, ADHD and low vision, as well as providing a better on-screen reading experience for all students.

Several institutions have been piloting this new alternative format over the last few months, and based on the extremely positive feedback we’re now making this alternative format available for all. The BeeLine Reader alternative format is available as part of your Ally license at no additional cost, and is now enabled by default.

The BeeLine Reader alternative format is also available in the Ally Feature Flag configuration, allowing for the format to easily be enabled / disabled if necessary.

More information on BeeLine Reader

Thanks so much to the institutions that have participated in the pilot!

COVID-19

Due to COVID-19, we have been seeing a significant increase in Ally usage and a large number of institutions adopting Ally as part of their move to fully online. The team’s primary consideration remains making sure that we provide a seamless service, and a lot of work is being done behind the scenes to ensure that all components are scaled up / out as required and to create additional onboarding capacity.

Ally 1.40 bug fixes and improvements

• Implemented support for PPSX (PowerPoint Slideshow) files.
• Due to a recent change in how Canvas loads the Global Javascript Include, implemented a fix to prevent the Ally javascript snippet being included multiple times from causing any issues.
• Improved the accessibility of the tabs in the institutional report to allow them to be selected using the arrow keys.

Ally 1.39.2 | Release to production 4 March 2020

Updated features

Usage data export

The usage data export functionality in the Ally institutional report now includes the following additional columns in the “data” tab:

• Term Id
• Term Name

This allows for custom term-based usage data queries and visualizations to be created when required.

More on the Usage data report

Ally 1.39.3 | Release to production 4 March 2020

Updated features

COVID-19

The team has been taking several pre-emptive infrastructure measures to help prepare for significantly increased traffic as a growing number of schools move to fully online courses. We will continue to monitor closely and take any additional steps required to ensure a seamless service.

Ally 1.39.3 bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed a bug that prevented the BeeLine Reader alternative format from rendering correctly on some mobile devices.
• Improved the “Is this PDF tagged” accessibility check by excluding PDFs that only contain empty tags.
• Fixed a bug that caused an unexpected animation when hovering over the accessibility score in the instructor feedback.
• Fixed an accessibility score rounding error in the institutional accessibility report.

Ally 1.39.1 | Release to production 2 March 2020

Updated features

Electronic Braille Configuration

The Braille code used for a particular language can now be configured at the institutional level. For example, this means that the Braille code used for English can be mapped to either Unified English Braille contracted (grade 2) or uncontracted (grade 1).

Electronic Braille configuration changes can be requested through a Behind The Blackboard support ticket.

Ally 1.39.1 bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed a bug that would occasionally cause the Tagged PDF alternative format to be downloaded using the wrong mime type. 
• Fixed a bug that caused the instructor feedback to be loaded in a small window when launched from the course accessibility report.
• Fixed a bug in the display of the total number of content items in the course accessibility report.

Ally 1.39 | Release to production 19 February 2020

Updated features, Blackboard Learn

Blackboard Learn Ultra Integration

As part of the Learn Ultra February SaaS release, the Ally integration for Blackboard Learn Ultra has been expanded significantly.

The Course Content page now includes the Alternative Formats download icon, providing immediate access to the alternative formats from the course landing page. The Course Content page also includes the accessibility indicators, allowing the instructor to immediately see the accessibility score for content items in the Course Content page and access the instructor feedback.

Files attached within Ultra documents now also include the Alternative Formats download icon and the accessibility indicators.

Ally 1.38.2 | Release to production 7 February 2020

Updated features

Ally 1.38.2 bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed a bug that caused courses in the Ally Configuration UI to not correctly reflect their actual enabled / disabled state. Learn more on the Ally Usergroup site.
• Fixed a bug in the display of the Term menu in the Ally Configuration UI when long term names are part of the list of terms.
• Fixed a bug that would occasionally cause the x-axis labels in the Accessibility Score graph in the institutional report to overlap.

Ally 1.38.1 | Release to production 1 February 2020

Updated features

Ally 1.38.1 bug fixes and improvements

• Updated the institutional report to show accessibility scores to the 1st decimal place.
• Fixed a bug in the D2L Brightspace integration that caused copied courses to not be checked automatically by Ally.
• Fixed a bug in the D2L Brightspace integration that sometimes caused files downloaded from the instructor feedback to not have a file extension.
• Fixed a bug in the D2L Brightspace integration that occasionally caused the department association for a course to not synchronize correctly.
• Fixed a bug that occasionally caused the institutional report CSV export to contain future dates.
• Fixed a bug that would occasionally prevent the correct language from being detected in Norwegian documents. This would also cause the audio to be read in English instead of Norwegian.
• Fixed a bug that prevented image descriptions consisting of a URL followed by text from being considered a valid image description.
• Improved the display of the Library Reference in the alternative formats modal.

Ally 1.38 | Release to production 17 January 2020

New features, Updated features

Accessibility Scoring

The Ally institutional report used to provide a Without Ally score and a With Ally score. The Without Ally score was the baseline average accessibility score based on the content in the LMS or on the website, while the With Ally added an estimated level of automated improvement based on the alternative formats.

The Without Ally and With Ally scores have now been replaced by the following scores:

• Overall average accessibility score
• Average file accessibility score
• Average WYSIWYG accessibility score (for Ally for LMS integrations)
• Average Web Page accessibility score (for Ally for WCM and Ally for Websites)

The Average file accessibility score is the score for uploaded file content such as PDFs, Word documents, PowerPoint documents, Images, and so on. The Average WYSIWYG accessibility score is the score for (HTML) content created through the LMS content editor. Average Web Page accessibility score is the score for the website’s pages. The Overall average accessibility score is the combined accessibility score for both files and WYSIWYG / Web Page content.

Typically, HTML content is much more accessible in nature. This is especially true for WYSIWYG content in the LMS, as they are usually small and simple HTML fragments. Splitting out the scores in this way allows for a better distinction between content that tends to be more accessible in nature and content that tends to be less accessible in nature, allowing for a better understanding of the overall accessibility score and allowing for more informed training and remediation strategies to be identified.

Ally for LMS

Ally for Websites

Ally 1.38 bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed a known issue that prevented the Ally LTI tools (institutional report, configuration UI, course accessibility report) from loading correctly in Chrome 80+. More information about this known issue is available on the Ally user group site.
• Fixed an issue that would prevent the usage reports from generating for institutions with large amounts of usage data.
• Fixed a bug in the display of the Add description button in the instructor feedback for images without a description for the Welsh translation.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the Download icon in the instructor feedback from displaying correctly in the Swedish translation.
• Implemented several screen reader accessibility improvements in the institutional report.

Ally 1.37.2 | Release to production 14 January 2020

Updated features

Ally for Websites Translated Version

The Translated Version alternative format for web pages in the Ally for Websites integration has been improved to retain the styling and images of the original page. This provides a translated version that’s much closer to the original page in appearance and content.

Ally 1.37.2 bug fixes and improvements

• The automated weekly Ally for Websites crawls have been rescheduled to take place on Wednesdays by default.
• The instructor-facing Course Accessibility Report is now refreshed more frequently make it more up-to-date at any point in time.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the LTI role for a user to be refreshed after launching one of the Ally LTI tools, changing their role in the LMS and then reloading the same LTI tool within the same session.
• Fixed a bug that prevents PDFs with an invalid language attribute from being processed correctly.

Ally 1.37.1 | Release to production 7 January 2020

Updated features

Ally for Websites Alternative Formats

Ally for Websites now makes it possible to exclude links to PDFs, Word, Powerpoint and other documents from showing in the list of available alternative formats for that page. This can be achieved by adding the `data-ally-af-disabled` attribute to the link that should be excluded from the alternative formats.

Ally 1.37.1 bug fixes and improvements

• Added the content id to the Data tab in the usage reports.
• Fixed a bug in the Ally Configuration UI that prevented the Terms menu from filtering the list correctly.