This page breaks down most of the specific issues that are found by Blackboard, with links to a separate page on this site with information about why the issue can be a problem for some users, instructions about how to correct the issue, and links to additional information so you can learn more about creating your course materials to better meet accessibility standards from the start.
To see details about the other parts of the Instructor Feedback Panel, such as the indicator gauges, go to the Instructor Feedback page on this site.
Blackboard is continually adding information, though, so if you get an error that we have not addressed on this site, please contact us at 803-777-1800 or through the Service Portal at http://sc.edu/ITHelp.
Each topic below contains the text of some of the related issues that might be found in Blackboard, a very brief description of the issue, and a link to the related page on this site.
This image is missing a description
This document/presentation contains images that are missing a description
This image contains text that is not in the image description
Images in documents, presentations, web pages, or any other electronic material need to have an alternative description, or what is called "alt text'. The description should explain what is important in the image so that someone who uses a screen reader (which reads the alt text to the user) will understand the important information in the image that a sighted person could get by looking at it.
How it works and best practices
Blackboard analyzes stand-alone images that have been added to a class website to see if there is alternative text in the code behind it.
Blackboard also looks at the images that are in the documents and presentations that are uploaded to the site to see if they contain any images that do not have a description.
Blackboard just sees if there is alt text present; it does not evaluate the quality of the alt text to see if it is meaningful or not. That is the responsibility of the instructor.
Good practice says to include alt text to an image, but to also describe the relevance of the image in the text around the image regardless of whether it is stand-alone or part of a larger document or presentation.
For additional information, go to the Alternative Descriptions page on this site.
This image has contrast issues
The document/presentation/HTML content has contrast issues
This document/presentation contains text with insufficient contrast
Contrast issues usually involve color choices: colors of text, colors of backgrounds, and choices of bars, lines or pieces of pie in a graph, for example.
Contrast issues in images are often difficult to fix, especially if you did not take the picture or draw the graphic.
If you cannot change the image, good practice is to describe the important information in the text surrounding the image and in the alternative description.
If there is text in the image, it is especially important to include that in your text and descriptions.
When the issue is poor color contrast of text to background, you can usually edit these problems.
Sometimes it is easier to change the background, especially if it is a very busy, detailed background; simply use a less busy background and one that allows the color of the text to stand out.
The other option is to change the color(s) of your text.
If you are using the built-in heading structure when creating or editing files (see below), you can easily make changes to the color of a particular text style that applies to all the text in the document; in presentations, you can make changes to the Master Slide that will change the colors of text on all the slides.
For additional information, go to the Contrast Issues page on this site.
This document/presentation does not have headings (or it does not have appropriate or logical heading structure)
The headings in this document do not begin at level one
The document's heading structure goes beyond six levels
Many documents, web sites, and other materials are organized using levels of headings and sub-headings. This provides structure to the pages. The key is to use the built-in style tool for headings when creating materials. In addition to organizing the information into areas that are easy to find (and meet accessibility standards), but you also don't have to remember the size, color, style, etc that you used throughout the document.
For additional information, go to the Heading Structure page page on this site.
PDF is untagged OR was scanned
The document is untagged
The document is scanned but not OCRed
In the past, when you scanned an article and saved it as a PDF, it simply created a picture of each of the pages
For additional information, go to the PDF Untagged page on this site.
For additional information, go to the PDF Scanned page on this site.
This document/presentation contains tables that are missing headers
Reading a table
Rule number one, do not use tables for design layout. People who use screen readers have different keyboard commands for the text layer of the document and for tables. The screen reader will often get confused.
For additional information, go to the Tables page on this site.
The document is missing a title
For additional information, go to the Titles page on this site.
The document does not have a language set
Whatever
For additional information, go to the Language Sets page on this site.
The document dis malformed
whatever
For additional information, go to the Malformed page on this site.
sdaf
For additional information, go to the HTML Issues page on this site.
OpenOffice and LibreOffice are two free, open source office suites. These programs contain word processing and presentation tools that are scored by Blackboard just like Microsoft Office Word and PowerPoint are scored. Both office suites also contain spreadsheets tools, drawing programs, and other options.
For additional information, go to the OpenOffice / LibreOffice page on this site.
Sub
see https://sites.google.com/site/blackboardalternativeformats/accessibility-issues