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Re: Citrix and JAWS

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From: Patterson, David K (ITD)
Date: Nov 7, 2011 8:48AM

Hi,

One of the requirements for using JAWS within a Citrix environment is that JAWS needs to be installed and configured on both the Citrix XenApp Server, as well as the client computer. Furthermore, you need to purchase the Remote Access option for both JAWS installation to have it work at all. So, you cannot control your online students' computer equipment and their Assistive Technology software, then you may have a major problem in providing a Citrix solution that would be fully accessible.

You should know that there are other assistive technologies and all of them would need to be compatible in a Citrix based environment. For example, from my understanding, ZoomText, a screen reader / magnifier from AI Squared does not support remote access.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts looked into these very issues a couple years ago and found that the Citrix solutions used with various AT software did not meet our accessibility standards. That may have changed somewhat since then, but we have done any further work on that.

Your comment that "Microsoft Office applications, are 'accessible' but via Citrix these become inaccessible" is what we had found too, let alone other types of applications. You might be better off deploying eLearning based solutions that have a better likelihood of being more accessible for your students.

I hope some of this helps.

David