Inside June 8th Ally Office Hours: Highlights and Takeaways
Our June Ally Office Hours brought together the community for updates, sneak peeks, and a lively discussion on accessibility challenges and opportunities. If you couldn’t join us live, here’s a quick roundup of what you missed, and what to keep an eye on next.
New Content
We continue to expand resources designed to support both instructors and administrators:
- Books Without Barriers Blog Series: in recognition of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, we published a 10-part blog series exploring books on: Disability studies and history, inclusive design, and accessibility in practice. All blog posts are available in the community and can be accessed directly from the links below.
- PDF Auto Tagging Early Adopter Program: The highly anticipated PDF auto-tagging early adopter program is launching this week. Participants can expect:
- Access in their designated LMS environments
- Documentation for instructors and administrators
- Opportunities to provide ongoing feedback.
This feature is expected to be released to all institutions prior to the beginning of the fall semester!
- Building Blackboard Together 2026 Program: join us July 13–15 in Dallas for Building Blackboard Together. This year’s accessibility and inclusion track features sessions on: Inclusive course design, Accessibility at scale, WCAG-aligned practices, and practical workflows for faculty and instructional designers. The full agenda is on the link included in this section and can be filtered by track (accessibility!).
- Community Update: we’re excited to share that the Ally User Group has officially transitioned to the Blackboard Community platform. What this means:
- The Hum Hub platform (where the legacy Ally User Group lived) will be retired by the end of June.
- All historical discussions and valued content have been migrated.
- The Blackboard Community is now the central hub for collaboration, discussions, and updates.
If you have yet to login to the Community and get acquainted, please refer to the Guide to the New Ally Community for guidance. Recent Releases
Sneak Peeks: What’s Coming Next
We shared two in-progress features driven directly by your feedback:
- AI Alt Text for Images in PDFs: Building on existing capabilities, we’re extending the AI Alt Text Assistant to images within PDFs. Instructors will be able to generate suggested alt text directly within Ally feedback and edit or refine descriptions before applying.
- File Location in Course Reports: soon, instructors will be able to see where content lives in their course directly within the Ally Course Report. This enhancement:
- Displays a folder-style path for each item
- Reduces time spent searching for content
- Streamlines remediation workflows
Community Discussion Highlights
As always, the most valuable part of Office Hours was the conversation. Some key themes included:
- Visibility of Accessibility Scores: here was strong interest in making Ally scores course courses more visible, such as displaying them directly on course dashboards to help instructors take action more quickly.
- Library References & Data Challenges: participants raised important concerns about:
- Difficulty identifying files marked with library references
- Challenges managing historical data
- The need for better tools to locate and review affected content
This feedback has been shared with the product team for further exploration.
- Screenshot Accessibility. Tips shared included:
- Use high-resolution displays when capturing screenshots
- Save images as PNG (not JPEG) to preserve quality
- Be mindful that contrast issues can arise from image quality, not just design
We’re incredibly grateful for the thoughtful feedback, questions, and ideas shared during this session. Your input continues to directly shape Ally’s roadmap and improvements.
We’ll see many of you at BBT, and for everyone else, stay tuned for next month’s Office Hours (timing may shift slightly due to travel). Until then, keep the conversation going in the Blackboard Community!
