The first step to ensure that your course documents are processed through Panorama, you will need to install the browser plugin. The browser plugin is free and designed only to scan documents attached to your courses in Blackboard.
Installing the Browser Extension on Chromium-Based Browsers
- From the Blackboard course navigation sidebar, find and click on the menu item titled Panorama.
- This will direct you to the LTI application. From the left-hand navigation menu, select User Setup.
- This will display the official browser plugin that will identify and scan your documents. Note: For best performance, we recommend installing the extension on Chrome, Firefox, and Edge browsers.
- Once the plugin is installed, the setup is complete! All documents currently attached to Blackboard will scan and produce official Accessibility Reports and Alternative Formats within 15-20 minutes after installation.
Understanding Accessibility Reports
Once Panorama has finished scanning all documents, the Accessibility Reports will be displayed as an Accessibility Icon and, once selected, will showcase official scores for each document.
- For a more detailed breakdown of the accessibility score, click on the Accessibility icon to open the full Accessibility Report.
- Hover over the Accessibility Report and select View to gain access to a summary of fixable issues.
- Under the View Issues section, the content owner can scroll through the summary of issues. The View Issues section will summarize all missing accessibility components from missing page numbers, missing titles, or issues with color contrasts.
- Every issue found will include a summary of how to resolve the matter under the How to Fix drop-down menu.
Improving the Accessibility Score
Once you have read through the Accessibility Report, the content can go through and fix the highlighted issues directly on your document. Once all of the improvements have been made, the content owner can drag and drop their corrected document into the Accessibility Report window under the Upload Improved Version section.
- Apply improvements to the documentation given the issues detailed by Panorama.
- Drag and Drop the Improved File into the Upload Improved Version dropbox to replace the file.
Understanding Alternative Formats
- Source File: View the document in its original format, suitable for download viewing.
- PDF: View the document in PDF format, suitable for both online and download viewing.
- Text File: View the document in a pure text format without any formatting styles, suitable for both online and download viewing.
- Immersive Reader: Allows for customizations to text preferences, grammar options, and reading preferences while following along with the audio playback.
- EPUB: View the document in the ebook format, suitable for any ebook reader application.
- Braille: View the document in the braille format, suitable for download viewing (a braille reader is required).
- Audio Podcast: Audio playback for documents, suitable for both online and download listening.
- OCR: Convert images with text into machine-encoded text that can be searched and read by screen readers.
- OCR PDF: Images and GIFs with text inserted into a document can be searched and read aloud by screen readers.
- OCR Text: Recommended for those who’d like plain text, the OCR tool will extract and display text within images and GIFs as a TXT file.
- OCR Audio: Extract text within images and GIFs into an MP3 text-to-speech audio player.
- Math Formats: Convert documents containing math equations into LaTeX, clear text (i.e. numbers and symbols to words), or MP3 files.
- Latex: Convert documents into LaTeX document format.
- Math Text: Convert documents into printed English, including numbers and symbols.
- Math Audio: Convert documents to MP3.
- Language Translation: Translate a document automatically to over 100 languages, which can be downloaded.