Fix Your Content Day: Let’s Make Course Materials More Accessible (Sprint 2)

Fix Your Course Content Day is dedicated to improving the accessibility of digital course materials in Blackboard. This one-day push is a chance for faculty, staff, and instructional designers to review Ally accessibility reports, make fixes, and strengthen our commitment to inclusive teaching.

Here's a simple roadmap you can follow:

1. Review your Ally report.
Log into your course and go to Books & Tools from the right navigation menu to access your Ally accessibility report. Note your starting score. Prioritize files you use most (syllabus, major readings, assignment sheets, etc.) or where you have inaccessible images that impact meaningful content. 

2. Make at least 3 targeted fixes.
Use the Ally "repair" workflow (built into Blackboard) to take action:

• Add or improve alt text for images -- Ally's AI Alt Text Assistant can be a helpful tool
• Fix heading structure (use proper heading levels rather than visual formatting)
• Add descriptive link text (avoid "click here")
• Ensure sufficient color contrast in slides or documents
• Replace scanned PDFs (if possible) with accessible ones or OCR them
  
• Upload media (video and audio) to YuJa to provide captions & transcripts

3. Strive for 85.
As you make your fixes, aim for an Ally score of 85 percent or higher in your courses. This benchmark represents solid progress toward accessible, student-ready materials. Focus on content with Severe (red) or Major (orange) issues.

Each improvement -- adding alt text, correcting headings, or replacing scanned PDFs -- moves your score closer to 85, or exceeds it, and helps ensure your course is usable for every learner.

4. Reflect and plan next steps.

Think about recurring patterns in your courses (e.g. many scanned articles, many images lacking alt text). Use that insight to inform future course redesign or content creation. Consider sharing your top three fixes with your department to help normalize accessible practices across campus.

If you'd like to be recognized with a microcredential for your portfolio or LinkedIn profile, submit your results using this Google Form. Instructional Technology will also share the top five departmental improvements.

Drop by our open lab in ENGR 102 from 11 AM - 3 PM to work alongside colleagues, share progress, or get help from the Instructional Technology team in a relaxed, social space.