# Blackboard Ally Reviews **Vendor:** Blackboard **Category:** [Other Education Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/other-education) **Average Rating:** 4.2/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 11 ## About Blackboard Ally Anthology Ally empowers institutions to deliver inclusive learning experiences and create more accessible learning environments for boosting learner success. It's a solution focused on dynamically enhancing digital course content on any LMS, helping institutions take control of their digital course content, mitigate accessibility barriers, and tackle their toughest accessibility challenges. No other accessibility solution is as comprehensive in its approach to empowering learners’ choice thanks to the automatic generation of a range of alternative formats for personalized learner preferences and needs, guiding instructors with built-in feedback to build better courses, and providing comprehensive institution-wide reporting that enables data-driven decision. ## Blackboard Ally Reviews ### 1. Tools to support Accessibility **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Eddie A. | AVP for Distance Learning , Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 14, 2020 **What do you like best about Blackboard Ally?** The simplicity of the product for the user to easily evaluate the accessibility of their course content in an online or distance learning course. In addition, the development team is well beyond brilliant in their approach to support higher education institutions in their accommodation initiatives. They are charging the path setting high expectations to meet the needs of diverse learners. **What do you dislike about Blackboard Ally?** Lack of closed captioning coverage for videos outside of the LMS. Should be an integral part to any LMS and not considered an extra charge. **Recommendations to others considering Blackboard Ally:** Turn it on an let your faculty use it. It is intuitive and easy to support. The backend data alone is worth its weight in gold to see how the accessibility of content is improving across an organization. **What problems is Blackboard Ally solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are improving the quality and accessibility of all online course content across our institution while improving access for all students. We've seen the quality and accessibility of online course content exceed exponentially over the past nearly 3 years. This supports students success and access across all abilities. ### 2. Ally Saves the Day! **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Bridget M. | Center for Teaching and Learning, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 23, 2022 **What do you like best about Blackboard Ally?** I like that Ally is easily incorporated into our LMS. It has allowed us to work with individual faculty with varying levels of issues within their courses to become compliant. It becomes less of a challenge to get to the 85% passing score when it comes across as gamification of accessibility. **What do you dislike about Blackboard Ally?** I would say the cost is the one thing that essentially threw a curve into our implementation. I think the product is great, I think it would be good to have reps visit campus to show impact across the industry. **Recommendations to others considering Blackboard Ally:** It has been a lifesaver for us while teaching faculty the importance of ADA Compliance. **What problems is Blackboard Ally solving and how is that benefiting you?** We ensure that all of our online courses are ADA compliant as a standard. Implementing this allows us to cut any problems with courses being accessible off from development to delivery. We no longer have to be reactive to situations because we are proactive. ### 3. Blackboard Ally is a lifesaver! **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sam C. | Communications Specialist, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 14, 2021 **What do you like best about Blackboard Ally?** Blackboard Ally, or just Ally for short, is an incredibly helpful tool. It has one primary function, which is to auto-scan and evaluate Blackboard Web Community Manager (WCM) content's accessibility. The part I like best about Ally is its overview page, which shows me a summary of what is going on with our website's content. On the overview page, I can quickly scan and see an overview of scanned files, pages, and sections, along with an overall accessibility score. Having this information at-a-glance helps me to know which content needs to be addressed, and even, which content I should prioritize changing, so that our website maintains accessibility. **What do you dislike about Blackboard Ally?** Ally is perfect in almost regard, but has one to two shortcomings that I've noticed. The first shortcoming is that our accessibility score is determined on a month-to-month basis. That means that if I go in and improve the accessibility of specific web pages and files, I really won't see the results of my actions until the next month's accessibility report comes out. This is frustrating as I would love to be able to filter the score on at least a week-by-week basis and even shorter intervals. **What problems is Blackboard Ally solving and how is that benefiting you?** Blackboard Ally has solved almost all our problems with accessibility issues for our website. On our old site platform, I had to go through and evaluate our content for accessibility manually. Now, Ally scans all our content automatically and even groups issues from "severe" to "minor". Our goal for our website is 100% accessibility, and having a percentage grade that we can aspire to has made things much easier. Not only does Ally tell you what needs fixing, but it also articulates the way in which each problem can be fixed, along with further reading on what the problem is in the first place. Overall, Ally is a lifesaver, and it has helped us improve our website for the better! ### 4. Room for Improvement **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 15, 2021 **What do you like best about Blackboard Ally?** It has a good foundation of tools and functionalities, so it is a solid option for those who are considering an online learning platform. I love how you are able to upload assginments and administer tests/quizzes online to keep everything on one platform. Great way to keep things organized as well! **What do you dislike about Blackboard Ally?** Biggest issue is the amount of glitches/bugs/freezes that you encounter. Overtime, it gets frustrating, especially with a busy schedule or when you lose some unsaved work. Some of the naviagtion is not intuitive either so it is hard to find tools. In addition to the uncompetitve cost, we have decided to switch to a different platform. **What problems is Blackboard Ally solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are trying to find the best platform to support online learning, especially with the transition to a hybrid model. The benefits is really realizing how feasible this model is and helping folks accelerate the digital transformation. ### 5. Online learning tool, great for online learning **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Alysia P. | Sunday School Teacher, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 05, 2020 **What do you like best about Blackboard Ally?** It has a way to chat and communicate with others who are learning too. **What do you dislike about Blackboard Ally?** The loading screen inbetween submission of a paper, quizzes,essays,etc. **Recommendations to others considering Blackboard Ally:** Take the time to test it out first for other classes to see if it works well. **What problems is Blackboard Ally solving and how is that benefiting you?** It was helping me to submit schoolwork, it helped me realize how quickly I could complete tasks ### 6. Blackboard Ally easily ensures accessibility! **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 09, 2021 **What do you like best about Blackboard Ally?** I like the gauges for quick monitoring of accessibility. **What do you dislike about Blackboard Ally?** Sometimes it's a bit tricky to know where the ADA non-compliance really is. **Recommendations to others considering Blackboard Ally:** I would like more tips on how to fix accessibility issues. **What problems is Blackboard Ally solving and how is that benefiting you?** Heading formats and alt-text for images ### 7. Giving a nice look to the online learning evironment **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in E-Learning | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 10, 2020 **What do you like best about Blackboard Ally?** I would have to say that I like the home screen of blackboard ally the best. Or, in other words, the display that is shown when you have the dashboard open for the site. Not only is the dashboard easily customizable to ensure that you are seeing the ideal environment work online learning, but it is also very nicely designed and spaced. Blackboard Ally is one of the best online learning platforms that I have used in my education career both as a student and as a teacher so far. It is easy to navigate throughout the site to different pages within as well. I can easily organize all of my different courses and efficiently check assignments and grades within just a few simple clicks of the mouse with little to no thinking. **What do you dislike about Blackboard Ally?** Overall. the blackboard ally platform is very well designed and formatted. There is little to no issue that I can see with the site in general. The only issue I have ever encountered is occasionally when i click a certain button on the webpage, it clicks another button. This is due to the page sizing issues. If I make blackboard ally a split-screen with something else, sometimes it messes up the alignment that is presented on the blackboard ally page. While this is fairly insignificant because I can fix it by just making it full screen, it would be more promotive to multi-tasking if this issue was not occurring on the blackboard Ally site. **Recommendations to others considering Blackboard Ally:** If you are in need of an online learning platform, this is of great value for anyone looking to increase in terms of organization and efficiency in comparison to the tool that they may be using right now. The learning curve is also much smaller in comparison to other similar tools, thus making it a good introductory product for online learners of any age. **What problems is Blackboard Ally solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am solving the problem of keeping my entire online learning platform efficient and organized. With everything going online for almost this entire year, the need for organization in the online learning environment is essential. I was able to accomplish this organization through the use of blackboard Ally. Also, with schedules being more chaotic in the current societal normal, it helps tremenduously to have your work be done efficiently. Blackboard Ally also helps assist in this function of online learning. ### 8. Blackboard ally review **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in E-Learning | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 06, 2020 **What do you like best about Blackboard Ally?** I like many of blackboard ally canvas’s features including the ease of accessibility for users and the feedback aspect so you know how well/easily your courses/information are able to be accessed. You also have the choice of making your course content more accessible OR your website content so that’s a great feature as well. Ally is definitely a reputable and valued resource. Ally can teach and reach a broad range of students as well with it being online. Plus, there are training courses for users which is wonderful to have when you are unfamiliar with it in the beginning. **What do you dislike about Blackboard Ally?** I’m not sure I could say I really dislike anything about ally. Maybe a few glitches throughout the process but overall a great resource. **Recommendations to others considering Blackboard Ally:** Definitely play around with ally before implementing the system so you are familiar! It’s not too tricky and if it happens to be, there are plenty of wonderful online tutorials that can help ease you into using all the features ally has to offer. **What problems is Blackboard Ally solving and how is that benefiting you?** It solves online course work to have less errors and for the learners to be able to have more ease when accessing said content. Lately, online courseS have been a major part of students, faculty and teachers lives with the pandemic and lock down being in place. It’s nice to know you’ll be able to access what you need and for the creator to know how accessible he or she’s content is. ### 9. Leading online made Easy **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Arjit Y. | Computer Science Grader, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 02, 2020 **What do you like best about Blackboard Ally?** I like how the tool has everything related to the course. It has great interface and is compatible even on mobile. It’s easy to attend virtual classes and it has features to record which is very useful. **What do you dislike about Blackboard Ally?** I think the meeting feature can further be enhanced if there’s better muting feature by which instructors can mute other speakers as sometimes there’s unwanted noise. **What problems is Blackboard Ally solving and how is that benefiting you?** Increased productivity while doing coursework and attending classes. Better visualizations and performance gaugence. ### 10. Accessible Content for Online Courses **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in E-Learning | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 06, 2020 **What do you like best about Blackboard Ally?** The product is user friendly and it is easy evaluate the accessibility of your course content in an online or distance learning course. The data is very useful for creating content that is effective for your course. **What do you dislike about Blackboard Ally?** The software can be buggy at times when using other applications, like on the mobile phone or website when accessing grades. **Recommendations to others considering Blackboard Ally:** It is a great tool to improve your learning materials and content **What problems is Blackboard Ally solving and how is that benefiting you?** Makes online learning easier for most students and the instructor. Proactively tackle accessibility and target both instructors and content. ### 11. Makes Online Schoolwork Easy **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** travis b. | Student , Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 20, 2020 **What do you like best about Blackboard Ally?** Blackboard Classrooms have a mostly intuitive interface. I’ve used blackboard for about two years now and my experience has been overall very positive. With courses that have in class instruction posting homework and lab work/ instructions is a breeze and makes the whole process very effective. **What do you dislike about Blackboard Ally?** Sometimes the software can be buggy as with any other program. Especially when accessing grades on mobile the website does not function as it should all the time. **Recommendations to others considering Blackboard Ally:** If you are looking for a program to help transition to an online learning environment or a supplemental learning environment to post videos and class notes and homework to this is the program for you. **What problems is Blackboard Ally solving and how is that benefiting you?** With coronavirus as bad as it is right now shutting down schools and universities, transitioning to an online environment has been very easy with blackboard classroom. Uploading videos and publishing tests has been a breeze. ## Blackboard Ally Discussions - [What is LMS ally?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-lms-ally) - [What is Ally software?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-ally-software) - [What are the features of Blackboard?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/blackboard-ally-what-are-the-features-of-blackboard) - [What are the functions of Blackboard ally?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-are-the-functions-of-blackboard-ally) - [View Blackboard Ally pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/blackboard-ally/reviews?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-05-28+17%3A29%3A42+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=1d3178a7-6cd2-4cad-8696-205912e45c1a&secure%5Btoken%5D=ff31047d27b35d05bdd89bce84e5c20e7e310296fc04c47456bab740b7bd9459&format=llm_user) ## Top Blackboard Ally Alternatives - [Echo360](https://www.g2.com/products/echo360/reviews) - 4.6/5.0 (446 reviews) - [Google for Education](https://www.g2.com/products/google-for-education/reviews) - 4.7/5.0 (320 reviews) - [Kami](https://www.g2.com/products/kami/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (68 reviews)