The American company Blackboard, through its representative in Poland – PCG Academia, will deliver tools to increase the accessibility of learning content to the Cracow University of Technology. Blackboard Ally and Blackboard Ally for Websites are internationally award-winning, innovative solutions for higher education institutions that support the online teaching process. The implementation at the Cracow University of Technology will be financed from the “Accessible CUT” project, implemented as part of the “Accessible University” competition (POWER 3.5 program).

Every year, universities lose hundreds of candidates and students who, due to the lack of accessibility of content on university websites and e-learning platforms, are unable to effectively participate in the didactic process. The Cracow University of Technology, noticing this problem and wishing to meet the obligations arising from the “Digital Accessibility and WCAG 2.1 Accessibility Act”, decided to implement Blackboard tools.

Blackboard Ally will be integrated with the Moodle e-learning platform used at the Cracow University of Technology for remote teaching. This solution will enable students to automatically generate alternative formats for materials posted on the platform by lecturers, including:

  • Audio – for listening at any time;
  • HTML – for convenient display on smartphones and other devices;
  • Electronic Braille – to be displayed on Braille readers used by people with visual impairments;
  • Epub – for display on e-book readers;
  • OCR – for transforming scans to text format, enabling searching, adding notes and more.

With Ally, lecturers can check the level of accessibility of materials they post on the platform and get advice on how to eliminate the diagnosed problems with accessibility. In addition, Ally generates automatic reports on content accessibility, thus supporting the process of building an accessible university.

Blackboard Ally for Websites, in turn, will be integrated with the website of the Cracow University of Technology. The tool will verify the compliance of the content with WCAG 2.1 standards and will display the results in the form of a report. Similarly to Blackboard Ally, Ally for Websites will allow users to generate alternative formats for the content and documents on the university’s website.

We encourage you to watch the video demonstration of Blackboard solutions and to contact PCG Academia in order to receive a free valuation, tailored to the needs and capabilities of your university.

WATCH VIDEO PRESENTING BLACKBOARD SOLUTIONS