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Number of posts in this thread: 13 (In chronological order)

From: TX Knight
Date: Thu, Dec 09 2010 8:27AM
Subject: Accessible SCORM Compliant E-Learning Software
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Hi everyone,



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. Does anyone have any suggestions?



Thanks in advance,

~Sam

From: Langum, Michael J
Date: Thu, Dec 09 2010 8:57AM
Subject: Re: Accessible SCORM Compliant E-Learning Software
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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.
-- Mike

From: deborah.kaplan
Date: Thu, Dec 09 2010 9:48AM
Subject: Re: Accessible SCORM Compliant E-Learning Software
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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

From: John E. Brandt
Date: Thu, Dec 09 2010 9:54AM
Subject: Re: Accessible SCORM Compliant E-Learning Software
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Moodle.

Also realize that you need to provide training to the users to make sure
they understand the need for accessibility and that all documents (word
processor, spreadsheets, presentational and audio-visual media) need to also
be accessible.

Written a couple of year ago... http://tinyurl.com/2a8ul4w

~j

John E. Brandt
jebswebs.com
Augusta, ME USA
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
www.jebswebs.com

From: Terrill Bennett
Date: Thu, Dec 09 2010 10:18AM
Subject: Re: Accessible SCORM Compliant E-Learning Software
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Take a look at:

http://atutor.ca/index.php


At 10:25 AM 12/9/2010, you wrote:
>Hi everyone,
>
>
>
>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. Does anyone have any suggestions?
>
>
>
>Thanks in advance,
>
>~Sam
>

From: Pollard, Larry W. (DRS)
Date: Thu, Dec 09 2010 10:57AM
Subject: Re: Accessible SCORM Compliant E-Learning Software
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John

With the rapid advance of E-Learning in the work place as well as the
school, everybody is on the bandwagon to push the latest and greatest
E-Learning software, but there is one thing that should be kept in mind
just because a software product meets VPAT requirements does not mean
that it will produce a accessible and compliant E-Learning course.
Most of the modules I have seen so far appear to be created from
PowerPoint and translated into a more web-capable format. Unfortunately,
it seems that people are being misled to believe that anything created
through course development software is accessible, which is not correct.
Most E-Learning software will meet certain parts of Section 508
compliance but as far as producing 100% compliant courses that is
something that the developer of the online E-learning course is
responsible for.


Larry. Pollard
Accessibility Webmaster
Department of Rehabilitative Services

From: Gunderson, Jon R
Date: Thu, Dec 09 2010 11:21AM
Subject: Re: Accessible SCORM Compliant E-Learning Software
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We need authoring tools that support accessibility by default and also produce compelling learning content.

Most instructors use Powerpoint because that is the only tool available to them.

We really need are authoring tools that support best practices for online instruction and support accessibility by default.

Right now we have "accessibility by exception". You have to know something about accessibility, know something about how to make accessibility happen in your authoring environment to get accessible content. These are two big of steps for most instructors for most instructors to overcome.

We need tools that support "accessibility by default".

Jon

From: John E. Brandt
Date: Thu, Dec 09 2010 8:06PM
Subject: Re: Accessible SCORM Compliant E-Learning Software
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Yes, my point exactly.

~j

John E. Brandt
jebswebs.com
Augusta, ME USA
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
www.jebswebs.com

From: TX Knight
Date: Fri, Dec 10 2010 9:00AM
Subject: Re: Accessible SCORM Compliant E-Learning Software
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Thanks everyone!

So it looks like Moodle, Sakai, and ATutor look like strong contenders.

For my two cents, I would recommend staying away from Articulate and
SoftChalk. At least from my experience, it doesn't seem like you can make
the courses they produce accessible without actually hacking the courses.

Michael, thanks for the advice on the LMS. Unfortunately, the LMS has
already been chosen for me, so I have no say in that.

Thanks again!
~Sam

From: Rangin, Hadi Bargi
Date: Tue, Dec 14 2010 9:57AM
Subject: Re: Accessible SCORM Compliant E-Learning Software
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Hi Deborah,

To be fair to Blackboard, I need to mention that they have been trying hard to become more accessible in the past 2-3 years. It is more accessible than you probably have seen it last time especially in the 9.1 version. They have realized the fact that the best time to address accessibility is at the design stage and they continue to collaborate with blackboard accessibility group for selected new modules or modules to be redesigned. I wished that they could do it for all modules but our resources are limited.

I would like to use this opportunity to invite anyone who is interested in improving the accessibility of Blackboard to join the blackboard Accessibility Collaboration Group and help us in this effort. Please visit http://collaborate.athenpro.org/group/bb or drop an e-mail to me if you are interested to join the group.

At the upcoming CSUN conference one of my colleague at Indiana University and I will be comparing 4 LMS including Moodle, Sakai, Desire2Learn, and Blackboard. It is very difficult to simply say which one is accessible because some of them are significantly more complex than others and clearly a more complex system can be exposed to more accessibility issues.
There are definitely accessibility issues that need to be addressed with Blackboard LMS but again, it is getting better after each release.

Thanks,
Hadi

From: Cramer, Brian
Date: Tue, Dec 14 2010 12:57PM
Subject: Re: Accessible SCORM Compliant E-Learning Software
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I have yet to find a course development tool which produces good
accessible output. Captivate seems to take it pretty seriously and comes
pretty close. It offers captioning, alternative text, etc. but there are
several issues ("button button", navigation pains) and you are fairly
limited to the WYSIWYG capabilities unless you jump into flash and then
some of the accessibility features become disabled. The bandwidth needs
for the all-flash output become a dissuading factor as well.

We have ended up using a modified HTML/JS based framework called
LibSCORM which is pretty easy to configure and loads content files (HTML
or SWF) via XHR requests and handles all the API communication. I'd
highly recommend it as it leaves much of the output under the control of
the developers.

The eLML markup language and corresponding tools look promising as well.
We have not explored using these as part of the production/delivery but
will probably do so in our next course development.

+1 on the recommendation of Moodle or Sakai as well for an LMS solution.

LibSCORM: http://code.google.com/p/libscorm/
eLML: http://www.elml.ch/website/en/html/index.php

Brian Cramer

From: Hoffman, Allen
Date: Wed, Dec 15 2010 10:30AM
Subject: Re: Accessible SCORM Compliant E-Learning Software
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I'd be interested to hear comments regarding Course Avenue products.

From: Morin, Gary (NIH/OD) [E]
Date: Thu, Dec 16 2010 7:24AM
Subject: Re: Accessible SCORM Compliant E-Learning Software
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I'd be interested in hearing others' feedback as well on Course Avenue products. It is marketed as Section 508-conformant and as producing Section 508-conformant and SCORM Compliant elearning materials. I spoke with their staff at the Section 508 coordinators' meeting in Gettysburg (Nov. 2010). They did acknowledge that it wasn't tested with speech recognition software, as it had been with screen readers, but it was still designed to the Section 508 standards from the Access Board (so theoretically it should be speech recognition software-compatible).

Gary M. Morin, Program Analyst
NIH Office of the Chief Information Officer
10401 Fernwood Rd, Room 3G-17
Bethesda, MD 20892, Mail Stop: 4833
(301) 402-3924 Voice, 451-9326 TTY/NTS; (301) 402-4464 Fax
NIH Section 508 Team: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = or, for Section 508 Guidance, http://www.hhs.gov/web/508/index.html

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