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Canvas Studio and PaperCut MF breaking due to incompatibility with NDVA screen reader

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From: Brian Ward
Date: Aug 10, 2023 4:28PM

If your school uses Canvas LMS or PaperCut, please read and make your voice
heard...

Both PaperCut MF, printer-spooling/billing software, and Canvas Studio,
specifically the screenrecording software of Canvas, break on only a few
computers on our campus. We traced it to a line of code in a file that gets
created by the NDVA screenreader. This file allows windows screen readers
to access Java accessibility features for working with Java apps.

The file, C:Users[username].accessibility.properties, gets recreated
each time NDVA starts up. The line of code (below) causing the problem can
be commented out (hashed). However the next NDVA starts up, the file is
recreated and the line is active again.

assistive_technologies=com.sun.java.accessibility.AccessBridge

The NDVA user community has known about this problem for many years and the
developer and community insist (and it seems Oracle confirms) that the
screenreader is writing the correct code. The user community are quite
upset that other software companies don't implement their own code properly
and are indifferent to the problem.

PaperCut confirms the error (known about it for years), and its solution
<https://www.papercut.com/kb/Main/AssistiveTechnologynotfound> is to tell
people to comment out the line of code. Yes, that's right, they are telling
blind people using screen readers to comment out a line of code that their
screenreader needs and will automatically recreate anyway next time they
restart it. Unfortunately other institutions
<https://tdx.maine.edu/TDClient/2624/Portal/KB/ArticleDet?ID9079> aren't
telling PaperCut to fix the problem.

PaperCut's technical support, while very sympathetic to the problem,
doesn't seem to want to push the issue to the developers. I am still
trying. Perhaps those of you with the paid version of LinkedIn could bring
this to the attention of CEO Jack Dance
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-dance-65aa649/> . Also if your
institution uses PaperCut let your vendor know about that problem and that
their product makes your institution unfriendly to the visually impaired.

Canvas LMS has a video creating and management software piece called Canvas
Studio. Studio can create webcam or screen recordings. The screen recording
software that gets installed locally to the users' computer is made by
Screencast-o-matic. This software breaks (won't start) when that line of
code is in the .accessibility.properties file. Specifically, if the
screenrecording software is installed, it can't start it, so it prompts the
user to download and install again. This would be endless loop as it never
recognizes the software is installed. However, if you comment out the line
of code, screenrecording works as it is supposed to. Canvas tech support
seemed unaware of the issue and but I think I have almost convinced them
that my Java install is plain vanilla and the issue is their software.
Still working with them.

If you have Canvas Studio and NDVA, please confirm this for yourself and
then contact Canvas help support to notify them of the problem. This way
they may take it seriously. You can also email them at
<EMAIL REMOVED>

Finally, I'm on a small campus and don't have a copy of JAWs here. Would
someone please test to see if JAWS creates anything like the file and code
I have mentioned above?

Thanks,

Brian
Crossposted with Educause IT Accessibility Community

*Brian Ward*
Instructional Technologist
Instructional Design and Technology
208-467-8359
Book a Meeting With Me <https://calendar.app.google/ecJNrPLxvaKMBjMY7>

*IDT Resources*

NNU Teaching Toolkit <https://nnu.instructure.com/courses/29924>

Canvas Guides <https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Guides/ct-p/guides>

TA Request Form: Course Help
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfl5LRsJiVFpeTDZW2pihnUXMLO7WKMec-Mwj3noOz723b6Kg/viewform?usp=sf_link>

TA Request Form: Test Building
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScAw_pB0UGP55Kw_0g1CajYktfVCTlirN1JC7mER8wauE0zTQ/viewform?usp=sf_link>


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