We're on a worldwide search to see what inclusive education looks
like. So Blackboard Ally is going on tour for 2019, visiting campuses
around the globe to learn how they're tackling their toughest
accessibility challenges and improving the learning experience for all
their students. All right. We're back with another episode of the BB
Ally Tour Podcast series. After a trek across the country from
Berkeley, California to Charlotte, North Carolina, I've arrived here
at Gaston College where I'm sitting down with Kim Gelsinger and Karen
Duncan to learn about how they've been using Blackboard Ally over the
past year to make their learning content more accessible. They've been
really keen on leveraging the institutional report to design their
strategy, identify high impact courses, and put processes in place to
make a difference. So let's hear about what their strategies have
been, how they're taking the next steps to becoming a more inclusive
campus. On the Ally Road Tour, I have arrived at Gaston College in
North Carolina. I'm sitting down with two members of the team that's
been leading their charge for inclusive learning and their Ally
rollout. So I'm going to let you two introduce yourselves. I'm going
to start on my left here with Karen. Karen Duncan, and I am the
instructional technology specialist, and I am also the e-learning
accessibility liaison. I'm Kim Gelsinger. I'm the director of distance
education here at Gaston College, and I pretty much oversee the
day-to-day operations on the learning management system. I wanted to
start with this story. This is a famous story now. We have to get it
on on camera. Tell me how you discovered Ally. John, I love sharing
the story about Ally. A couple of years ago, a colleague and myself
snuck away to Competitors LMS conference. It was being held in
Colorado. As we were there, we happened to notice one of the
exhibitors was Blackboard, and we tried to be as inconspicuous as
possible, but of course, we had to go by the booth and see what they
were promoting, and Blackboard Ally was a new product that was being
promoted. So we were so excited about Blackboard Ally that we came
back to campus, and immediately got Karen on board with the product,
and I think within an hour of us returning that following Monday, I
had a call from our Blackboard account executive, wanting to know what
I was doing at the Competitors LMS conference the week before. So I
would say be careful where you go because you never know when somebody
is going to see you, but you also never know what great products
you're going to find. So it's a great story, and we are so glad that
we were able to implement Ally in a very quick timeframe once we
discovered it. Tell me, just what got you excited when you first saw
Ally? What got you excited about the product? I think because in North
Carolina, all of the educational institutions were tasked with
defining a five-year accessibility plan, and we had started that
endeavor, and we came to realize that it was going to take a lot of
resources to remediate, to get us to where we needed to be. When we
saw Ally, it was like the answer to all of our prayers. We wouldn't
have to spend $30,000 to an outside vendor trying to remediate
documents, or to find out even where to start. So I think for the
cost, for the implementation, I just saw it as an answer to our
prayers of what we needed to get done. Then of course, Karen took that
ball and ran with it, and what she's done over the last two years has
just been amazing for Gaston College. Karen, were you involved in that
initial- like, establishing that five-year plan in accessibility? Yes.
I want to talk just a little bit what was mandated in that plan from
the state, how you-all approached that five-year plan. Unfortunately,
there was no models out there for us so we all had to develop our
plans. And we did some collaboration with other institutions of what
they were doing, and got an idea that we wanted to introduce universal
design in our first year because we had to let people be aware of why
we were doing what we were doing. Then we broke it down into focusing
on documents our second year, multimedia our third year, with also
BPATS, and then PowerPoints our fourth year, and then just rolling it
all up in that last year. We have an online quality initiative that
we've been doing since 2007, of some sort on our campus, and then our
QEP in 2012 and 2017, was focusing on online quality standards, and
accessibility was a part of that. So we have been doing remediation
with documents for a long long time. We just didn't have a way to find
out how good we were doing. When we turned Blackboard Ally on, it was
just that aha moment and excitement because we were seeing so much
green in our gear shifts. So it really said, "You're on the right
track," and now we had a way to track what we were wanting to do.
Initially, we were saying, "Our first year documents, we're going to
be 50 percent accessible with our documents." Well, that's very
difficult to do when you don't know how many documents you have. Our
statistics are showing us that that number changes daily. So you can't
catch that 100 percent ever, but you can say, well, we're going to do
25 percent better than what we did, or 50 percent better. So now we
have a realistic goal in sight, and instead of trying to break it down
just by documents, and images, and powerpoints, we're doing it all
together now because we have the ability to do that with Ally, with
additional software, with staff helping us remediate this. So the fact
that we don't have to do that all by ourselves as well. How has Ally
fit into the broader distance education piece? I think it's just one
more piece of the all-inclusive access that is needed in our learning
management system. Every one of our courses every semester has a
Blackboard presence. Whether it's a completely online class or whether
it's a traditional class that meets in the classroom, but every single
course has a Blackboard presence. So we're not only impacting those
students that we typically defined as online but we're also being able
to reach those students in the classroom that may have some of those
accessibility issues with the content. Just the alternative formats in
itself, I think lends so much to all users in the LMS that it was so
seamless. Now, it's just like it's supposed to be there. It's not
supposed to be a separate entity. So it's really melded with other
things that we do within the LMS. You rolled out Ally pretty quickly
to the whole campus. Did you start with a pilot? Or what was the
process? When we started the process of presenting to our campus and
our executive council to purchase this, that we moved through this in
a month time frame. We pushed this through. So we went from October to
November a year-and-a-half ago to purchase Ally and include it. In the
spring, we did initial training with Randy Johnson, and then we also
ran a small pilot with about 20 faculty members, where they came into
some of the training that was conducted by Blackboard, and in their
courses, and they started working on it. Then we had it on selected
courses in the fall, that we were working on some things, and then
this past fall, attending the access and higher ground conference, it
all came together of how we need to turn this on and implement it, and
start a plan for remediation of content. So January, we turned it on
campus-wide, but we also cleaned up old courses and old course files,
and got rid of a lot of duplicates, and then conducted training with
50 faculty members, and chose 68 courses that we want to focus on. So
we're kind of doing a pilot this spring and we we'll continue this
probably through the summer, and work on these specific courses,
letting them have a master course that they're going to copy from in
the future, and that way we know that the content is correct in it,
And then in the fall, we'll probably bring the training more
campus-wide. Campus is aware of it. Some of them are using it. We're
not focusing so much campus-wide right now. We're focusing on that
pilot. So we've done like two initial pilots since we've turned this
on, but the pilot that's currently going, I'm tracking data. I know
what their score was, I gathered baseline data to see what their score
was before we ever did anything, and gave them that number. Then
conducted initial training with them, so that they could start
remediating, then they saw that number increase. Now, we're completing
that remediation in those courses and then reviewing that with the
faculty members. Some of the data that you're tracking there, and you
just showed me some crazy spreadsheets that you're doing all of this
data collection and tracking, what other data points are you tracking
to help you understand the time that it takes to go through these
courses and all of that? So on the spreadsheets that we have, the
students actually start out with a day and a time, and then they also
tell me on the document what they did to remediate. We're tracking
what type of document. Was it a word document? A PowerPoint? A PDF?
Sometimes they may do images, but we are asking our faculty members to
remediate images because they know what that up tech should be. When
you say students, this is your student remediation team? Exactly. I
call them students, they're actually part time employees of the
college, but they were all students at one time, and some of them were
students that I had in courses that I teach as an adjunct, and they
were good students and so I hand-picked them, and that's how they came
to me. Then Angus, who is blind, came as a work study because he was
enrolled and the instructor requested some assistance to make sure
that his content was accessible to Angus. And so we stumbled on Angus
and grabbed him, and he's now part time. So I call them my students
because they were students here at some point, but they've all, other
than Angus, have graduated, and they continue to work with me, and
then also a work study student that does transcripts for us, she will
remediate that. But even with her doing transcripts, everything is
date and time stamped, and then also a little description of what they
do in there. So we track the document type, how many pages the
document was, I'm taking averages of pages, I'm taking averages of
time spent, and able to follow all of that. I never know when I'm
going to meet that, and people don't realize how long it takes to
remediate a document. A PowerPoint can take five hours to remediate
depending on the length of it in the issues that they're finding. So
we want to know exactly that our time is valuable, and that it's worth
what we're doing here, to also support, continuing to keep them
employed here. So the process then. So you've picked 68 courses you
said? Yes. Sixty eight courses. So just beginning to end, what's that
process look like? You pick up a course, you start off by looking at
the file content? Or were just walk through the process and the key
word that's involved, and also the roles that the students play in
that process? Okay. So our deans chose high enrollment courses. So I
met with each of the divisional deans, and our Arts and Sciences have
a little more robust, they've chose 25 courses that we're looking at,
and then our Business division has 13, our Health has 10 or 13. We
have an EMS fire area, that's through our workforce development,
they've chosen maybe six or seven, and then our engineering programs.
They don't have as many online classes, but we're even looking at
seated classes because they put a lot of content in Blackboard for
those seated in web-assisted classes. So the initial process is we
focus on some high enrollment courses. Then in December, I pulled all
of the statistics for those courses, what they're Blackboard Ally
score was, and then pulled the sheet of what was the images, was it
missing headings, the report that you pulled, the institution report
that you can see that and printed that out. Then in January of this
past year, scheduled 30 trainings, 15 on image remediation online, and
then 15 on course file management. How to make folders in their course
files, how to organize that chunk their stuff together because if they
wanted to download all the PowerPoints, they could download it in a
zip file if it was in a folder, removing duplicate files, showing them
how to replace a file on a course instead of removing it from an
attached item and then reattaching it, and now it has a number in the
course files. So explaining that and given the management on that. So
that was the initial training that was conducted in January with 50
faculty members. We did them in small groups that was the maximum that
they could come in training. So we had more hands on. They were doing
the image remediation in the courses that we showed them how to do it
with the Blackboard image which is very easy, click on the red gear
shift, add all text, click Add and they would see the gear shift
change and they were all excited. Showed them how to download a word
document or PowerPoint and run it through accessibility and just fix
the issues with images and not to make it overwhelming to them, I
don't know how do the heading, and my student workers can take care of
that type of remediation. So that was our first step. We spent January
doing training. Then we've also purchased a software called Common
Book. That helps us with our remediation as well as using Adobe
Professional. Then we started breaking up the courses, adding my
student workers as course builders. So they had access to the course
files and we're now able to see great courses. So they didn't have to
worry about the integrity of the student grades being compromised. So
then we created a Spreadsheet, and this took a couple tries to figure
out the best way to do all of this. We used Dropbox, shared folders,
so I create an initial Spreadsheet with all the information form, I
enrolled them in as a course builder in the course, we numbered the
folders in their Dropbox, so they know how they're supposed to work
through them, and then they go into the course files and they'll
download the course file, and then they'll remediate it and put it in
their Dropbox folder. Once they complete the initial remediation,
Sarah and Shauna are the two that go through that. Then it gets ready
for Screen Reader testing, which is our quality control. So they take
that folder and they move it over to Angus so that he now can take
those same files and go ahead and listen to those, run them through
the Screen Reader, and then he keeps a Spreadsheet of all the data
that he's going through, and any comments if there's things to get
done. As Shauna and Sarah are remediating documents, they're replacing
the files in the course files. So they're using the gear shift and
then they will go upload that file so that the current in the correct
file is in there. If Angus has any issues with it, then I pull the
file from where they left it with him and then I will continue with
any additional remediation, some things that they may not have the
skills to remediate. Then if Angus needs to listen to it again, we'll
send it back to him or I will upload and replace the file in there,
and we're keeping up with time of everybody that spends in the
remediation. So initial remediation, Screen Reader remediation, and
then my final remediation of the document. I also look at the HTML
report that comes through Blackboard Ally, and then I'll go in and
remediate anything that we can do there. So when I'm done, the lowest
score I've had so far is a 97 percent with Blackboard Ally, and a
number of 100 percent. So it's very exciting. Are those lingering
percentages usually some issues that are difficult to fix? Is it some
kinnd of quirky file or something like that? Pardon. The class that I
teach as an adjunct. Because of the content I teach in Advanced Word
processing course. So a lot of the files that I upload as content are
files that the student has to use to do an exercise. It might be
applying heading styles. So we know that that document will not ever
be 100 percent because it's not going to have headings styles on it,
that's part of the student's work. So depending on the content,
subject matter, there may be classes that will never reach 100
percent. But as long as the instructor understands that, then that's
okay, because I know it's the best that they can be. Yeah. Then some
of those are the OCR, which you showed me the trick today. So I might
be coming back and fixing those and bring in those 97s to 100, if I
can't get a little closer. Some of the HTML I've tried to look at I
can't figure out why it's not given me that reading and it's few and
far between there's a few in there. Some of the things that we're also
finding is the faculty are putting the Publisher PowerPoints. So what
we're also finding is that they're asking students to pay to access
the Publisher's site and the Publisher's PowerPoint is already there.
So why do we want to put that file in our course? Why don't we link to
the Publisher's content? And then it's not we're helping increase
their scores as well. So we're trying to work smarter as well. They
have to pay this course card, they're going to access, this is where
their videos are, this is where their PowerPoints are. Well, let's
link to them and tell them that's where they're going to get that, and
then we don't have to worry about remediating that document. Publisher
PowerPoints change every two years. We don't want to spend a bunch of
time remediating a document that's not going to be good next time they
use the course. Then also Cengage, I'll give kudos to them. Their new
content that they are creating, their PowerPoints are awesome and so
many of them are accessible with amazing all text that they're putting
in there for their crafts, for their images. So definitely, kudos to
them and I have reached out to tell them that. So they're doing their
job. So it sounds that one of the, maybe unanticipated benefits with
demo file management, cleaning up courses has also been on the
elements directly maybe. Absolutely. Just getting rid of cleaning up
those course files has made a real big impact on the amount of storage
space that we may be utilizing in Blackboard. It's amazing how many
multiple copies of the same document was being uploaded to one
specific course, but it was all because the instructors did not have
the training, the knowledge to be able to know how to do that
efficiently. So just getting rid of all of those duplicate documents
or getting rid of possible documents that haven't been attached, they
were unattached but never removed from the course. So it has had an
impact even on them. Sometimes when they're copying the course from
the semester, the old syllabus is still lingering in the course files
and they don't realize, oh, I need to remove this. So we're trying to
teach them how to work smarter and utilize that, and teach them that
course files is their course flash drive. Make folders, organize,
delete, replace that way. If you can give them that concept they'll
understand that a little bit better. Karen had mentioned linking out
to the Publisher's content. That in itself if everybody would link out
to where that content is, that would free up so much more of our
storage capacity within the elements and we wouldn't be paying an
additional fee for that additional storage that we need. What's been
maybe the biggest challenge in remediating these courses? Are there
any particular file types or you mentioned that the scans... The scans
for sure. We need a little more knowledge with remediating if it's the
PDF, because those are so difficult if we don't have that source
document. A lot of faculty are also trying to link them to where those
PDFs are located, instead of downloading the PDF on a website, make a
web link to the URL, and then hopefully the Publisher updates or
whoever on their website, then that document would be updated there as
well with it. But if I don't have that original document, that I'm
trying to convert it or I'm trying to remediate it in the text
structure and I know enough to be dangerous sometimes. We need more
training and more knowledge on actually remediating that PDF and those
who bears with it. Sometimes with the PowerPoints, just we're having
some contrast issues but we're not focusing on fixing those so much
right now. PowerPoints have missing titles and people just they don't
use the built in layouts when they're creating PowerPoint, and they
don't understand that because they were never taught. They weren't
taught how to add structure to Word documents. We're trying to make
that common now here at the college with our syllabus template that
we've created, and train all of the full-time faculty on how to use
that. So it's just that that's not their area of expertise, and so
that's the struggle that they don't understand and realize how to do
it and why they have to do it. But earlier you were talking about HTML
content, and so you're talking about looking at the institutional
report and checking what each HTML pages that they've created in the
course. Correct, correct. We have one that I created, it's our
technical information and it lists where our labs are located on our
class. Because it was copied and pasted, sometimes it's got a
malformed list, and it looks right. It's got indented bullets, it's
got bullets but when I clear and strip the formatting in it, it loses
the bullets. So now I realize that's the malformed list, so I fixed it
in our course template. So whenever Kim and Beverly create courses,
now it's created, copied correctly. But we've got so many old courses
that are using that, now I'm trying to go back in and fix it when I'm
doing some of these things. So those are things that the faculty don't
have access to. Sometimes are easy fix or sometimes it tells me we've
used the Blackboard styles, so we're trying to apply the heading one
in the subheadings, but then it may be missing a heading. So I have to
go into the HTML and search for the heading code, and then delete if
there's a blank heading. Because sometimes, blank headings show up and
so those are things as well that we spend time remediating. Ally soon
will provide feedback at the instructor level on that HTML content. So
hopefully that will help that course. Did you notice how much more
HTML content you have now compared to two years ago in your
institutional report? It's quite a bit more. It's my fault. The way we
were designing and building things, we started using the styles. So
instead of them adding a document that was one paragraph or their
outcomes and the student had to open up a Word document to say what
the student outcomes were, it was a list of three things. So we
started making that an item, and so that's one of the reasons there as
well. So that why would we want to force them to open up a Word
document that they may not have especially mobile. They may not have
Word on their phone to be able to open that document. So it was like,
let's reduce our documents in our courses. For the short little
things, let's put it on the screen so that they can read it especially
if they're doing a mobile view. So that's one of the reasons why that
number has increased. I think it's really good. I mean, it certainly
contributes I think to the improvement in your score too overall,
because that content is generally much more accessible than the Word
document or the PDF. So I think it's a great move seeing that HTML
increase because we know that it's going to be more accessible. How
did you get involved in accessibility, Karen? This was not your
original calling. No, it was not. It fell in my lap, and it's
something that I enjoyed the challenge and the change of it. So I
started searching out ways to do it more with accessibility. It was
part of our online process when we started our pilot project from 2007
to 2010 with online standards, and there was a small piece built in
there with accessibility. Then with our QDP in 2010, my position
changed over to instructional technology, and our QDP began in 2012
and we did online quality standards, and one of our sections was
accessibility. So because I was over that portion of the QDP,
accessibility fell into my lap. So when we were doing course reviews,
we were checking for that basic 508 stuff that they were talking
about. Now that you have lists, that you had descriptive hyperlinks,
that you had all text, that you had captions and transcripts. So that
little short punch list, we were looking at that. Then in 2014, North
Carolina Community College system told us that we had a five year
accessibility plan, and I was asked to oversee the e-learning content
of it, because I was already working with this in our standards. So we
helped develop the plan. So once again, I just felt I needed to know
more and searched out my certificate program through the University of
Illinois that help with accessibility. A lot of it is learning on your
own, attending conferences where you can find accessibility and
watching people present and seeing how they're remediating documents,
and okay, that's good. Let's go try that. Then come back and drag Kim
in and show her what I learned. So sometimes we know enough to be
dangerous, but we try and figure out it's a puzzle. My motto is I
always win. In one way or another, I'm going to make it work. So I
enjoy getting in there and trying to figure it out. I think Karen is a
natural born project manager. Over the years, I've seen Karen lead
multiple initiatives on campus, and this was just a natural transition
from the quality initiative into accessibility. Karen becomes very
passionate about the project that she's working on. In fact, before
the state of North Carolina told all of their education institutions
that we needed a five-year accessibility plan, Karen was already
passionate about accessibility from the enhancement plan. QDP. QDP. So
Karen and I went out to Utah to Web Aim workshop, and we were one of
the two colleges from North Carolina present. So I feel like we were
almost pioneers in moving accessibility and education forward in North
Carolina. But a lot of that was due to Karen's natural ability to be a
great project manager and to be passionate about whatever it is that
she's working on. So Gaston College is where it is because of Karen's
passion, and she always wins, just like she said, and we all know
that. So we've been very successful at Gaston as well. When
accessibility wins, everybody wins. Absolutely. So that's a good
thing. Our college has been so supportive of this. If we say we need
it, they make it happen, and when we decided we wanted Blackboard
Ally, it was like two or three weeks, it was decided that yes, we're
going to do this and we were able to say why we needed it. We were
able to show them why we needed it. We were able to show them how
great it was going to be, and so we had those facts and figures and
they're like yes, and if we say we need this yes. Fortunately we've
been able to use Perkins funding, and I have two workers that are here
28 hours a week, and able to assist with this. They've allowed me a
temporary part time position with Sarah, and I've had her for three
years. I'm allowed to have work study students that can help with
transcripts, so they have been very supportive. We asked for it, they
pretty much will see that we get it. What was part of making that
business case for Ally? Did you talk about of what you were currently
doing in accessibility? Yeah, because we really didn't have a way to
track the numbers. We didn't know how many documents we had in
Blackboard. We knew the courses. We knew how many courses we had in
there but we couldn't drill down to that content, and as soon as we
saw that Ally we can say, this course has 73 documents, and these were
the issues with it and the remediation features of it meant to say
something earlier with it when you did that instructor preview of, now
their Word document and it's going to show us that where the contrast
colors are messed up in the document or where the heading structure
is. That was the greatest thing and when I saw you guys in November
with accessing higher ground did a little conversation, and I would
say, the preview was coming and I got to see that in your bayden and I
was like, oh my God, when I got back, I was like, you cannot believe
what's going to happen and then you turned it on in January. I was
like, yes. So that's great because now they can say, "Oh that's what's
wrong with it," or where they're looking for it and it just makes that
so much easier to remediate those documents. When you rolled out to
the entire campus that was in January. January, yes. Any push back
from faculty? Did you get questions? What are these gauges doing? Why
is my course all red? Did any questions come to the office at all? I
don't really think it did because I think we had done a really good
job back in the fall of doing some initial training. We took the
opportunity at convocation. At convocation in January. In January. So
we let them know what the gauges meant. I even had some little
marketing cards if you will set up advertised some 30 minute
workshops. Karen had mentioned some training that we had done. Our
faculty could come to a 30 minute lunch workshop and learn about the
gauges so that they didn't panic when they saw the gauge. We did a lot
of that last summer. Started in the summer. In the spring we did on
the tips tricks and triage. So we called it T-three, and we did it
twice a week a little 30 minute sessions. In May we focused on Ally a
little bit introduced what it was and some remediation. Kim did some
in the training in the summer and in the fall, so they had that
training, convocation we presented, and then created two soft talk
tutorials just invented your videos, the student view, the faculty
view and e-mailed the links so that they could see that posted it on
the Blackboard log in page actually, so that they could say, this is
Blackboard Ally, this is what it means and you can just go look at the
video real quick. So we tried to really promote it and send it off the
campus and send that out as an e-mail as well, so they see it and then
once they see gear shift change they got really, really excited. I was
getting, "Whats my score now." So in our initial training they had a
printout of the little circles with their percentages, and then the
list of the number of items that were wrong for this little baseline
thing but immediately it was like, "What's my score?" So now don't you
provide them a certificate? Yes. I've also made a little certificate,
so they have a Blackboard Ally certificate with their percentage on
it. When I get done, I send them an e-mail of all the numbers of how
many documents, what their score was before, how much time we spent
remediating the courses, and then I also sent that to their Dean as
well so that, and in a copy of the certificate. Also lists what's now
there, we call that, new master course. So the next time they teach
the course they know which course to copy from when they put in their
request. So they also get a little certificate, that we just created,
to give them a kudos. Everybody likes a certificate. Your never too
old for a certificate. I guess so. You are also part of your early
process was doing in your syllabus template as well, so your entire
campus now uses the template. Yes. What was that process because
that's definitely something that we talk a lot as a starting point for
institutions, you say they work on an accessible syllabus if it's a
template or if it's working with what they had. First, was there push
back in trying to get them to use a template? Well, I think we did it
covertely without them really realizing what was happening. Seems the
beginning of last summer, the summer before. It's been two years ago.
Okay, two years ago. It's been a while now. Beginning of a summer,
Karen and I had a conversation, and I had been very passionate about
at least getting a common look to all of our syllabi because we had
some syllabi that was created in 1960, and it was PICA font. It was
from a typewriter. It was from a manual typewriter all the way to your
latest Word document. Three fours of our syllabus or of our syllabi
are all the same, and has the same information. There's only certain
things that need to change. So Karen and I started talking and felt
like if we needed to start with one thing that we could make
accessible that would impact the most people, and it would also get us
decent syllabi across campus that would be it, and so we covertly, I
think encourage all of the other deans to get on board. We ended up
getting copies from all the divisions and then found the common
elements, and then we decided to make sections. Because I think we
even first started by just we wanted to go in and make the syllabus
accessible, and then we realized all my word they're all different.
It's going to take an enormous number of hours to do this. What we
need to do is start out with one type of document, and make it
accessible, that was a big project. We took our policies and
procedures manuals. There's a list of things that need to be included
that were required to be in there, and we made that one section. So
there's nothing that the faculty has to change in that, we made a part
one that includes the course description, their outcomes, their
textbook, it's usually about two pages long and that's where they can
change their textbook information, and some of that basic, the course
requirements, section two is where the big changes were, that this is
where their grading policy is located. This is what their grading
scale is, this is their late work, their tardy policy, but we also
included the college policy in the sections that they can change but
then we structured it with styles, and navigation before somebody
might bump it up to 16 point bold all caps and thinking that's a
heading. So we made that structure then we created what we thought was
going be a good template, and then we met with all the deans and
brought them in, and let them vet it, and they said, "We want this
here, we think this is here, we think this is good," and got their
input and they're buying in on it, and so we established our template,
and then we started training, and so we required all of the full time
faculty to come to training, some adjunct faculty came to training, we
walk them through, have them used the template, there's an instruction
sheet on the very first page telling them that what's in the screen
font, you can change, that's all you need change. Then we have that
consistent look, and we put it on our shared network, and it's broken
up by divisions in our shared drive, and then all the faculty have
access to that. The department chairs are able to edit in there, so if
they need to make a change about a textbook on the master template,
then they're able to do that. So our faculty can access that main
template. The summer, each summer if there's changes, if the colleges
made a change to the withdrawal process, that needs to be changed to
campus wide. Well, Arts and Sciences. The Dean there handles their
syllabi, they have like, 113, I think we have 672 syllabi on our
campus, and I manage the other less 113. So, my student workers will
spend a month going in their master syllabi, and making those changes,
so that we know that they're consistent and then we're getting them in
the habit of it now because this will be our third Fall, that we're
having an effective date. So, the Deans will say, ''Make sure you pull
it off the shared drive.'' You got to update it. So, we let the
department shares update the textbook or the faculty can change it,
the main stuff that we're not require them to update, because when we
used to say, ''Hey, change your syllabus,'' and the statement to,
there's no telling where it would have gone. Now they're all in the
same place, and then, we showed them the benefit of using the styles
that they have to put a withdrawal date in every syllabi, and their
certain dates throughout the semester, depending on when the course
starts, and the link. So, we showed up, ''Hey, you turn this on, you
click withdrawal process now you don't have to scroll to page six.''
You can go in there and get to it quickly. So we showed them the
benefit of using the styles, for themselves, and then also, as a side
note, we showed them the benefit of using styles on how to conduct,
create table of contents, because a lot of these people have advanced
degrees and they had to do with this rotation, and they're like, "Oh,
this is great, I wish I had known this before." So we've shown them
the benefits of not just for accessibility, but just for them to be
able to scroll, and quickly get to items in their syllabus that need
to be updated and changed. Absolutely. All right. I think we're almost
ready to break for lunch. Sounds good. Last question is here. So
moving forward, is the plan to continue to support the instructors,
centrally, by going course to course as well as the hope that they're
also going to start to initiate more of this on their own. A lot of
them when we started the training, they're like, "Oh, how do I finish
this remediation other than just the document?" So some of them want
to know more with it and some of them will not, with it. So it's going
to depend we're want to encourage faculty to start learning how to do
that. Hopefully, we're getting them in the habit, and training them
how to do that. So, some are more are excited with it. So, that's the
goal with it, but also we want to continue to support this way, that
if they're not going to do that, and it's a high on that course that
we're building it that way, and just working in collaboration with
them, and that also, if we have an accommodation from our special
needs counselor about a student in the course, then that course we
would definitely, make sure that we get into that course, and check
that course for accessibility, depending on what the need is, in that
course. So, with the hearing impaired student, then we would make sure
that anything that they have is captioned, and they'll work with a
faculty member making sure that they're putting accessible content in
there. If there is a specific video that we need to provide a
transcript for, then we will work with that. If it's a visually
impaired student, then we would want to make sure that the documents
and the content in there, has the proper heading instructions in
instance and a tag document as well. So, that would be a priority. We
would definitely jump into those courses first. Has that been kind of
the collaboration with, Disability Resource Office, is going to
working with commendation letters, and going into those courses? Yes.
So, we have a very good relationship with that Coordinator, or the
previous ones we're in the process of rehiring that position because
they've been promoted to another position on campus, but we work very
closely with that office, in trying to make sure that we are able to
meet those needs. Kim, last question for you. You've seen a lot of
technologies come around for the Learning Management System. What gets
you so excited about Ally in particular? I think, the ease of use. It
was so easy to learn. What it was telling me it was, the graphics are
awesome, they're simple to understand, but I think most importantly is
the benefit that it gives to the users, and we're not just talking
about those users that have identified accessibility issues, but we're
talking about everybody, because all of us especially, as we age, need
some assistive technology. So, I see Ally benefiting every student,
every employee, anybody that comes into contact, with our Learning
Management System, and hopefully in the near future, even with our
website. Great to hear from Kim and Karen about their journey to more
inclusive education. Hearing about their process. A lot of
institutions, they always think well, where should we start? How do we
make a dent into this giant accessibility challenge? Here we see,
working with Deans, identifying those high impact courses, bringing in
a student like Angus, building that team, making sure that the content
is accessible to people who use screen readers, that they can navigate
successfully through that environment, really cool to see. Thanks so
much, for the team from Gaston, getting the chance to talk with them,
and next time we'll be reporting from the, Medical University of South
Carolina, hearing about how they're using Blackboard Ally, at a
Medical University, to make for a more accessible community, not just
at the University itself, but also the surrounding hospitals. Until
then, see you on the road to IncluCity. Join the tour, along with the
rest of the Ally Community, @tour.ally.ac. You can catch the latest
updates, on Instagram and Twitter, @#allytour2019, and listen to
stories of inclusion from our community champions Ally Tour 2019
podcast series. Available on Sound-Cloud or in your favorite podcast
app. We look forward to seeing you at the next stop, on road to
IncluCity.