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RE: FW: Moodle and accessibility

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From: Glenda Watson Hyatt
Date: Aug 9, 2005 11:09AM

Hi Michael,

I appreciate your feedback. It is somewhat encouraging. However, I am
concerned when you mention there are accessibility issues with the
installation and configuration. Once it is installed and configured, is
there a need to go back in there to tweak anything? An online community
wishes to use Moodle, so there will be a wide range of computer skills and
disabilities involved, and I'm wondering how simple this will be for them to
use and maintain.

Please feel free to contact me offlist to discuss this further.

Cheers,
Glenda

Glenda Watson Hyatt, Principal
Soaring Eagle Communications
Accessible websites. Accessible content. Accessible solutions.
www.webaccessibility.biz


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]On Behalf Of Michael Roush
Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2005 12:03 PM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: [WebAIM] FW: Moodle and accessibility


Ive been using Moodle for about 6 months now. I found out about it when
the organization I work for was presented with an opportunity to make use of
a system called BlackBoard. We were very interested, but I was
concerned about what I felt were some accessibility issues with the system
when I started learning about it. Someone in a PHP users group I am part
of suggested I check out Moodle, and thats what we have gone with.

As of Moodle v1.5 (released in June), they have made some advances in the
realm of accessibility, but arent all the way there yet. They do have as
a goal that all of Moodles pages out of the box will comply with US
Section 508 guidelines by version 1.6. The worst accessibility barriers I
have found with it have been with the installation and configuration of it
more so than the student-side use of it. All that the developers really
knew about testing for accessibility when I started using it was running the
code through Cynthia Says. Before you scoff, realize that their
bug-reporting forum has been open since day one for anyone to go in and
supply information.

For me, the best part of the Moodle system is that it is open source
software. If you find something that isnt accessible, you can do more
than just complain about it or sue someone over it. You can fix it. And
the lead developers are dying to have people use Moodle and report the bugs
they find so it can be improved. If anyone out there would like to spend
some time working on an open-source online learning environment to make
online learning more accessible for people, Moodle is waiting for you.

Michael D. Roush, Technology Consultant
Hopewell SERRC







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