Accessibility by Numbers: Alternative Format Usage as a Guide for Setting Ally Priorities

In our campus goal of improving course accessibility, we strive to look for the good and share success stories. Ally in Blackboard usage reports are full of rich data that helps guide course-content accessibility priorities. Often accessibility improvement projects focus on courses with lowest accessibility scores. Instead, I chose to focus on the positive by identifying the highest Alternative Format usage. Alternative Formats include file types for assistive technology like electronic Braille, as well as learning tools like language translation and MP3 audio. Some high-enrollment courses had over 500 downloads, while smaller courses had consistently high use per student. A detailed analysis of the data pointed me to campus faculty champions. More accessible files create more useful Alternative Format downloads. The second phase of the project is to work with the identified faculty champions to improve the accessibility of their course content using Ally accessibility indicators. I will describe my personalized approach to guide faculty to improve course accessibility and create highly accessible courses with extensive use of Alternative Format downloads.