The release provides keyword search ranking evaluations, the option to use AutoPilot and Structural Remediation Add-ons for documents, a new Usability Engine to evaluate the text content quality and validity of links, new Behavior Engine to track visitor analytics, an EqualGround browser extension for web page scanning, the option to specify report access for different roles, a new Accessibility Best Practice metric to enhance web content accessibility, and more.

1. Evaluate How Keywords Affect Website Search Rankings With the Keyword Discovery Report 
   By integrating Google Search Console with EqualGround, you can generate the Keyword Discovery report, which helps determine how keywords are affecting website search ranking. The report can be categorized into four distinct groups:
   • Quick Wins: View words with the highest potential to drive traffic to your website.
   • High Impact: The most searched keywords that can significantly improve your website’s ranking.
   • High Performing: keywords with the most increased rankings to your URLs in the last 30 days.
   • Setbacks: Keywords that have decreased your URL rankings within the last 30 days

   

2. Use AutoPilot to Resolve Accessibility Issues in Documents 
   When assessing accessibility issues in documents found on your website, AutoPilot can automatically fix supported accessibility issues directly within the original document, ensuring the document does not need to be manually fixed and re-uploaded to your website. AutoPilot can remediate documents in DOCX, PDF, PPTX, and XLSX formats, addressing issues such as:
   • Insufficient contrast between foreground text and background.
   • PDFs that are not tagged properly for screen readers to interpret 
   • Difficulty in reading text due to small font sizes.

   

3. Use Remediation Max for Advanced Structural Remediation of PDFs
   Remediation Max provides in-line structural remediation to help fix a wide set of accessibility issues across PDF documents. These issues include:
   • Fixing the reading order of content by dragging and dropping elements into the correct reading preference.
   • Updating the type value of elements to ensure they are recognized correctly by screen readers.
   • Changing the language of elements so that they are read aloud correctly by screen readers.

   

4. New Usability Engine to Evaluate the Quality of Text Content and Validity of Links
   EqualGround offers a Usability Engine that evaluates websites based on three essential metrics to ensure they are user-friendly for viewers.
   • Readability: Whether your web content is for young adults or academic professionals, EqualGround provides a customizable readability checker. You can choose from six standardized methods to assess readability, such as the Automated Readability Index and the Coleman-Liau formula. After selecting a method, a grading scale can be selected to determine the maximum readability level suitable for your audience.
   • Spelling: EqualGround offers a built-in standardized American-English spell checker with the option to add words to your own customizable dictionary. As we continue to develop EqualGround, we will offer a wider range of languages.
   • Valid Links: All links on scanned pages are checked to ensure errors are not received.

   

5. New Behavior Engine to Track Analytics for Website Engagement
   The Behavior Engine monitors several key metrics to analyze visitors to your website. These issues include:
   • Total Visit: The number of visitors to your website.
   • Bounce Rate: The percentage of visitors who leave your website without taking any action.
   • Referrals: Visits to your sites from links that have appeared on other websites.

   

6. Download the EqualGround Browser Extension to Run WCAG and ARIA Checks for Web Pages
   With the launch of the new browser extension, you no longer need to be on the EqualGround platform to run your accessibility scans. On EqualGround, you can access Configurations > User Setup to install the extension and connect it to your platform. Once connected, the accessibility scan can be initiated for your desired web page listing all WCAG and ARIA issues and steps to remediate them.
   
7. More Granular Role Management Capabilities for Reports
   As an administrator, when creating a role, you can specify particular reports that the role will have access to rather than granting access to all reports. This allows for roles to be specialized in one or more areas of web content improvement.
   
8. Follow Our Best Practice Guidelines to Make Your Website More Accessible
   In addition to the Accessibility Report’s ability to detect ARIA and WCAG-level issues, EqualGround is offering more ways to enhance web content accessibility by providing a score based on our recommended Accessibility Best Practices. These best practices include detecting issues such as:
   • Any content on a website that is hidden behind tabs or within accordion components in the site’s design.
   • Images that contain duplicate labels.
   • Landmarks on a website that do not contain a unique name or role.

   

9. More In-Depth SEO Crawling by Including Six New Areas of Improvements
   We have improved our SEO crawling engine to include six new areas where we verify that your website adheres to the latest SEO best practices. The SEO crawler will check for:
   • Open Graph Tags:  Determines how URLs will appear when shared on social media platforms.
   • JSON-LD Structured Data Tags:  Provide organized, standardized, and machine-readable information about a web page.
   • Sitemap:  Provides details about the pages, videos, and files on your site and how they are related to each other.
   • Internal Links:  Checks for the number of internal links on your website.
   • Redirects:  Checks for the number of links that direct to another website.
   • H1 Tags:  Determines the topmost heading for your web page.
   • Alt Text:  Text that represents visual images.
   • Viewport Tags:  Tells browsers how to control viewport dimensions and scaling.

   

10. Choose the WCAG Conformance Level Your Organization Requires
    Your organization can now select the desired level of WCAG conformance to ensure that their websites meet accessibility standards. In the Website Settings, you can choose whether your organization prefers Level A, Level A and AA, or Level A, AA, and AAA accessibility standards for detecting issues.
11. More In-Depth Detection of WCAG and ARIA Accessibility Issues
    We have added more than a dozen accessibility checks for WCAG and ARIA-related issues. Some of these issues include:
    • Elements should have visible focus indicators so users can easily see where they are on the page when they navigate using a keyboard.
    • Lists on a web page should be structured correctly, specifically to ensure that assistive technologies can interpret and present the content accurately.
    • Ensure ARIA labels do not have redundant roles, as their implicit role defines their function.

    

12. New Filters to Organize Accessibility Issues by Their Components or WCGAG Criterion
    We have provided two new filters to the Accessibility Issues panel, allowing you to select whether to view issues by their WCAG criterion or to group issues by their component. The WCAG criterion filter will highlight the issue detected, along with the items affected by the issue. In the new component view, you will be able to see all issues within a related category in one view, including all link, checkbox, list, and button issues displayed in their respective viewport.
    

We have successfully pushed an update to all YuJa AccessNotes Note-Taking Platform instances residing in the US, Canada, Australia, Singapore, the Middle East, and the European Union. This update includes the option to ask AI Assistant questions to clarify complex concepts, embed supplementary materials to the audio-based notes, embed personalized illustrations through whiteboard, disable waveform animation during playback, and improved responsiveness for mobile and tablet view.

1. Ask AI Assistant Questions During Audio Playback to Clarify Complex Concepts
   With our new Gen AI integration, you can ask questions while listening to your audio playback. Simply access the AI Assistant to clarify complicated concepts, discover fun facts, or learn key details from the notes. Whatever questions you have, AI Assistant is here to help.
   
2. Embed Supplementary Materials to Your Audio-Based Notes
   You can now import supplementary materials, including slides, PDFs, and images, directly into your audio-based notes, ensuring that all relevant resources are easily accessible alongside your notes for a more organized learning experience.
   
3. Embed Personalized Illustrations With Our New Whiteboard
   You can now add personalized illustrations through the whiteboard, including drawings, shapes, text, images, or embedded websites to visually capture complex concepts during note-taking. Additionally, you can import predesigned icons or symbols from the library to better organize your notes.
   
4. New Option to Disable Waveform Animation During Audio Playback
   If waveform animation is no longer needed, we’ve added a new setting that lets you disable it for audio playback.
5. Improved Responsiveness for Mobile and Tablet View
   We’ve updated the AccessNotes interface for improved responsiveness with various screen sizes, allowing you to access your Audio-Based notes on web, mobile, or tablet devices with a consistent layout.

We have successfully pushed an update to all YuJa Accessibility AutoPilot.AI instances residing in the US, Canada, Australia, Singapore, the Middle East, and the European Union. This update includes a new AutoPilot Report that offers in-depth insights into your document remediation analytics.

1. New AutoPilot Report Offers More In-Depth Analytics to Track Document Remediations
   The new AutoPilot report offers insights into your document remediation analytics and progress, summarizing our AutoPilot usage with key metrics such as the number of remediated documents, issues resolved, and time saved. Additionally, you can filter by term and account level to compare documentation improvements across different semesters.
   

We have successfully pushed an update to all YuJa Website Accessibility Widget instances residing in the US, Canada, Australia, Singapore, the Middle East, and the European Union. This update includes a new color-blind filter tailored to three common types of color blindness.

1. Improved Web Accessibility With Color-Blind Filters
   You can now enhance the accessibility of web content in your LMS by allowing users to select from color-blind filters tailored to three common types of color blindness: Protanopia, Deuteranopia, and Tritanopia, addressing the diverse learning needs of your users.
   

We have successfully pushed an update to all YuJa SmartSpeaker.AI instances residing in the US, Canada, Australia, Singapore, the Middle East, and the European Union. This update includes the expanded voice options, option to highlight both words and phrases during audio playing, customize highlight colors with color contrast preview, automatically scroll your content during audio playback, download an MP3 file of your selected content, and more.

1. Customize Your Listening Experience with Expanded Voice Options
   SmartSpeaker now offers three additional voice options, giving you a wider selection of voices across different genders and tones, allowing you to choose the one that best suits your listening preferences.
   
2. New Option to Highlight Both Words and Phrases During Audio Playing
   In addition to highlighting individual words, SmartSpeaker can now highlight both words and phrases during audio playing. Simply enable the adaptive spotlight option in the settings to activate highlighting phrases as SmartSpeaker reads along.
   
3. Customize Highlight and Font Colors with Color Contrast Previews
   You can now customize the highlight colors for words, phrases, and font colors to match your reading preferences. Additionally, you can preview the color contrast in a sample sentence before playing the audio to ensure readability.
   
4. Auto-Scrolling Content In Sync with Audio Playback for Easy Follow-Along
   SmartSpeaker now features an auto-scrolling option that automatically scrolls your content in sync with the audio playback, ensuring you can still follow along with the content without the need of manually scrolling through.
   
5. Downloadable Audio Files in MP3 Format for Offline Listening
   You can now download an MP3 file of your selected content from SmartSpeaker, allowing you to listen offline on your devices and easily share the audio content with others.
   
6. SmartSpeaker Is Integrated With the Enhanced HTML Document Alternative Format
   If your institution utilizes SmartSpeaker, it will now be automatically available for you when generating an Enhanced HTML Document from the Alternative Formats menu.
   
7. Directly Use SmartSpeaker in the LMS Without the Extension Installed
   If Panorama is integrated into your LMS, faculty, and students will no longer need to download the Panorama Browser Extension to use SmartSpeaker. It will simply be displayed on-screen if it is enabled at the course or institution level.
   

We have successfully pushed an update to all YuJa Structural Remediation Max Add-On Platform instances residing in the United States, Canada, European Union, and Australia. This release provides updated interface with icons for each content element type, and the option to add alternative text to images during PDF Structural Remediation.

1. Updated Interface with Icons for Each Content Element Type
   We’ve updated the interface to include icons for each content element type, helping you categorize different content elements and visualize the reading structure more clearly.
   
2. Add Alternative Text to Images During PDF Structural Remediation
   You can now add or change the language of the alternative text during the PDF structural remediation. Simply click the Figure tag to edit the alternative text for your image, ensuring comprehensive accessibility improvements for your PDF documents.
   

We have successfully pushed an update to all YuJa LMS Accessible Design Add-On Platform instances residing in the United States, Canada, European Union, and Australia. This release provides new option to enable necessary designer elements, specify your preferred image padding, and save your recently selected colors.

1. New Administrator Option to Enable Necessary Designer Elements
   If you’re an administrator, you can customize which LMS Designer elements are available to faculty. Simply access your General Settings and enable the elements your institution requires to structure content more efficiently.
   
2. Specify Your Preferred Image Padding Within the LMS Designer
   Previously, you had to adjust image padding in the HTML code editor after embedding the image. Now, you can simply enter your desired padding during the image embedding Process in the LMS Designer.
   
3. Recently Selected Colors Are Saved in the LMS Designer
   Previously, you had to manually select the color for each design element. Now, you can easily choose from your recent selections in the LMS Designer, allowing you to quickly apply your frequently used colors to different content elements.
   

We have successfully pushed an update to all YuJa Panorama LMS Accessibility Platform instances residing in the US, Canada, Australia, Singapore, the Middle East, and the European Union. This update includes improved transparency of document accessibility scores, a new Power BI report template, a redesigned side bar with animated icons, the option to detect missing captions in the Video Platform’s videos, hide the To-Do List, view remediated documents and their analytics in the Course Report, and more.

1. Improved Transparency of Document Accessibility Scores with Detailed Calculation Breakdown
   As an administrator, you can now view a detailed breakdown of scoring rubrics for your documents across different accessibility models. Each model’s accessibility score is calculated using specific formulas based on the number of elements scanned and the proportions of minor, major, and severe issues. Simply hover over the info icon to view the calculation formulas and sample scenarios for each model, providing greater transparency into your accessibility scores.
   
2. New Report Template for Presenting Accessibility Analytics in Power BI
   As an administrator, you can now present your accessibility analytics easily in Power BI using our LMS report template. Simply upload the template along with your exported report in a JSON format to visualize your accessibility report.
   
3. Integrate the Enterprise Video Platform With Panorama to Detect Missing Captions in Videos
   You can now easily integrate the Enterprise Video Platform with Panorama by adding an access key. After the integration is complete, any videos embedded from the Video Platform into WYSIWYG content that Panorama can scan will automatically be checked for the presence of captions. If a video has missing captions, you will receive detailed instructions on how to add auto-captions through the Video Platform.
   
4. Updated Sidebar Iconography with Subtle Animation Element
   Panorama’s sidebar has been redesigned with new animated icons for all menu items and improved keyboard accessibility for navigation.
5. New Institution-Wide Setting to Hide the To-Do List
   If Panorama’s To-Do List is no longer required, we’ve added a new setting that allows administrators to hide it across your institution. This will ensure that any items in the To-Do List are preserved in case instructors and administrators are granted access to the feature again.
   
6. View Remediated Documents and Their Analytics in the Course Report
   We’ve improved our course report to provide an overview of all remediated documents within a selected course. This allows you to see remediation types, compare document scores before and after remediation, and track your file remediation history.
   
7. Enhanced Arrow key Navigation With NVDA Screen Reader
   We’ve updated Panorama’s screen reader compatibility with NVDA, ensuring the Alternative Formats Menu can be navigated using arrow keys. Previously, this functionality was restricted if certain NVDA settings were enabled.
   
8. Bulk Upload Users to the Panorama Roster Via CSV File Upload
   ​​As an administrator, you can now avoid the hassle of individually adding users to your Panorama roster. Update the Panorama roster by bulk uploading a CSV file containing a list of users and their required information.
   

We have successfully pushed an update to all instances residing in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the European Union. This update includes integrated live proctoring sessions within the proctoring setup wizard, an updated Verity results page allowing you to switch between test-takers, a redesigned institution report and course report to provide more in-depth insights, centralized proctoring analytics in the new assessment report, and more.

1. Integration of Live Proctoring Session Within Proctoring Setup Wizard
   Verity now offers a unified workflow for live and non-live proctoring setup. Previously, as an instructor, you could only create a live assessment after setting up a proctored assessment within Verity. Now, we’ve simplified the process by integrating steps for creating a live assessment within our Setup Proctoring wizard.
   
2. New “Speed-Grader” Results Page Features Ability to Flip Through All Test-Takers in a Single View
   When reviewing proctored assessments, you can now quickly switch between a test-taker’s attempts and those of others all within the same view. Simply select a test-taker from the drop-down list and their attempts to begin reviewing recordings and relevant information, including room scans, ID photos, and configuration details. Additionally, you can also filter test-taker events by flag level, allowing you to analyze the most concerning issues.
   
3. The Institution Report Offers More In-Depth Analytics to Track Verity’s Usage
   We’ve improved our institution report to offer more key metrics that administrators can utilize to track Verity’s usage over time, along with Course Analytics showcasing an overview of Verity’s usage in particular courses. Some of the analytics include:
   • A graph illustrating the attempts associated with each proctoring method. 
   • The total number of times that test-takers have attempted assessments. 
   • The total number of assessments proctored. 
   • The total number of hours proctored.

   

4. Improved Course Report Provides New Data Representations to Assess Test-Taker Performance
   The new course report offers insights into flag levels within your course, helping you assess the frequency of severe, major, and minor events flagged in assessments. Additionally, Assessment Analytics provides an overview of each assessment, showing the total number of test-takers, the number of flagged events, and the highest flag level recorded.
   
5. Centralized Proctoring Analytics in the New Assessment Report
   The new Assessment Report offers proctoring analytics for any assessment you wish to review. It summarizes the status of completed assessments, the number of test-takers marked with Severe, Major, or Minor events, and access detailed analytics for individual test-takers.
   
6. Modernized Video Player Interface with Redesigned Progress Bar and Icons
   With the modernized video player, you can now view test-takers’ recordings with a redesigned progress bar and icons, making it easier to navigate through the content and quickly access key moments in the recordings.
7. Verity Mobile Lockdown App Support for Blackboard
   Building on our support for proctored assessments on mobile devices in D2L Brightspace and Moodle, test-takers can now take proctored assessments in Blackboard on their mobile devices.
   
8. Enhanced Guidance for Screen Sharing in the Verity Lockdown App
   We’ve added a how-to video in the Verity Lockdown app setup process to help test-takers resolve issues related to screen setup for assessments.
   
9. Resolved Session Time-Outs During Assessments in Blackboard
   Previously, test-takers experienced session time-outs when accessing assessments on Blackboard. Now, we’ve resolved this issue, and test-takers can expect questions to appear within a few seconds.
10. System Check No longer Required for Exempted Test-Takers
    Previously, exempted test-takers were required to undergo a system check before taking an assessment in the Lockdown app. Now, we’ve resolved this issue, and they can proceed to an assessment without any restriction.
    
11. Canvas Instructors Can Grade Proctored Assessments Without Requiring the Verity Browser Extension
    Canvas instructors no longer need to download the Verity Browser Extension to grade proctored assessments. They can directly click on their assessment within the Verity Platform, allowing them to grade results on a wider range of browsers and devices, including Safari and iPads.
    

We have successfully pushed an update to all YuJa Engage Student Response System instances residing in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the European Union. This release includes multiple rich-text styling options for question titles, new activity reports for creators, and geofence location configuration in administrator accounts.

1. Add Rich-Text Styling to Question Titles
   With our new rich-text editor, you can now customize the styling of question titles for a unique appearance across both web and mobile versions of Engage. Some of these styles include:
   
   • Bold, underline, and italicize words
   • Adjust the font color
   • Highlight text

   

2. New Creator’s Activity Report – View Analytics of Your Activities
   As a creator, you can now access detailed reports of your personal activities, including analytics for standalone activities and those published in courses. Additionally, you can gain insights into participant engagement by reviewing reports for individual activities.
   
3. Set Up the Default Geofence Locations for Your Institution
   As an administrator, you can now set up multiple geofence locations for your entire institution, allowing attendance creators to select from a predefined list of locations.