WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Accessible web/Voice/Audio Conferencing

for

From: Aaron Cannon
Date: Mar 21, 2008 9:50AM

I believe it can be opporated in either mode. If I am not mistaken, the moderator can mute and unmute participants at will.

Aaron

>>> "Emma Duke-Williams" < <EMAIL REMOVED> > 3/21/2008 10:09 AM >>>

On 21/03/2008, Aaron Cannon < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Skype works well with Jaws, but standard conferences have a limit to the number of participants. Last I checked that limit was 4-5, so it is generally unsuitable for any but the smallest of groups. However, Skype also has a free beta service called SkypeCasts. https://skypecasts.skype.com/skypecasts/homeThis allows you to have a conference with up to 100 participants. I'm not sure how accessible the interface is for the moderator though.
>
> Aaron
>

I've not used Skypecast - is it a "one way" kind of conference - i.e.
1 main speaker & lots of listeners? The reason that I ask is that I've
found that having multiple access discussions with too many people is
just way too confusing; which brings in other aspects of
accessibility, notably the ease with which people with cognitive
disabilities can participate.
I've used Flashmeeting, but not with screen readers. However, as it
was developed by the Open University in the UK, and they've got quite
a lot of visually impaired students, they may well have built in
screen reader compatibilty.

http://www.flashmeeting.com has some information, though you have to
register with Labspace ( http://labspace.open.ac.uk/ ) to use it.

Emma

--
Emma Duke-Williams:
School of Computing/ Faculty eLearning Co-ordinator.
Blog: http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/