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Thanks and regarding Sakai, we would appreciate your feedback

for

From: Mary Stores
Date: Dec 9, 2010 12:51PM

Hello,

As a member of the Sakai Accessibility Working Group since 2002, I
wanted to say thank you for your recognition that Sakai takes
accessibility seriously. Also, I would like to ask for feedback from
anyone that has had experience with Sakai relative to accessibility.
Currently we perform exhaustive manual code reviews using accessibility
evaluators and have a few devoted people who primarily use JAWS to
perform tool tests. Since we’d like to ensure that Sakai is accessible
to the widest audience possible, we’d really appreciate receiving
feedback from users of other assistive technologies.

Please feel free to share your Sakai experience, both good points and
frustrations, by joining the Accessibility Working Group e-mail list.
Information about the e-mail list can be found at
http://collab.sakaiproject.org/mailman/listinfo/accessibility .

You can also get involved in improving the accessibility of Sakai by
signing up to review tools. For each tool, Brian Richwine (the Sakai
Accessibility lead) creates accessibility walkthrough scripts that you
can follow to test for usability and accessibility. These walkthrough
scripts are not technology-specific, which means you can use a screen
reader, screen magnifier, speech dictation software, or some other
assistive technology. The walkthrough scripts have the tester perform
tasks that a student or instructor would normally perform on Sakai.

Finally, the Sakai Accessibility Working Group has biweekly
teleconferences where accessibility issues and resolutions to those
issues are discussed. The next one is a week from Today, December 16.
You can find out more information about the teleconference by visiting
this link:
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/2ACC/Sakai+Accessibility+Working+Group+Teleconference
.

If you have any further questions about Sakai, how the review process
works, and how you can get involved, please feel free to e-mail me off
list, or you can contact the Sakai Accessibility Lead, Brian Richwine (
<EMAIL REMOVED> , (812) 856-4112.)

Kind Regards,

Mary


Quoting <EMAIL REMOVED> :

> Sam asked:
>
> "I am looking for a SCORM compliant e-learning software and
> authoring tool that is accessible. Ideally, both the authoring
> tools and the courses they produce should be accessible. "
>
> And Michael Langum responded:
>
> "Don't forget that an accessible course is only half the issue.
> You (or you client) will also need to ensure that your Learning
> Management System (LMS) is also accessible."
>
> I will also add, the classes are only accessible as the course
> designers make them. No matter how much accessibility is built
> into the learning management system, if the professor/course
> designer puts up videos without captions, flash without
> accessibility, and images without alternative text. Training your
> faculty/course designers is a huge part of making sure your
> classes are accessible.
>
> (Also, kudos for making sure that both the authoring tools and
> the courses be accessible -- many course designers have
> accessibility needs as well! As do the LMS administrators, so
> make sure that the administration tools are also accessible.)
>
> In any case, I've been very impressed with both Moodle and Sakai,
> fairly unimpressed with Blackboard, and exceedingly unimpressed
> with Angel. The latter two obfuscate what they mean by
> accessibility and what their accessibility efforts are. Moodle
> and Sakai, on the other hand, both take accessibility very
> seriously and are very open about what they mean by accessibility
> and what their efforts are:
>
> http://docs.moodle.org/en/Moodle_Accessibility_Specification
> http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/2ACC/Sakai's+Current+Accessibility
>
> My favorite part of the Moodle accessibility specification is at
> <http://docs.moodle.org/en/Moodle_Accessibility_Specification#Rationale_for_Moodle_accessibility>;:
> the legal, moral, and market argument for taking accessibility
> seriously.
>
> -Deborah
>