[Athen] LMS accessibility

[Hadi Rangin]

Dan,

Ken Petri and I and many colleagues across multiple institutions have been 
working with two major LMS vendor namely D2L and Blackboard. Our main goal 
from working with them is to improve the accessibility/usability of their 
products. Of course, we test and evaluate constantly but we don't publish 
our findings because first we are under NDA and secondly, we primeraly work 
on future products and not existing products. We have realized working on 
existing products is not very effective considering the limited resources we 
have. By time the vendors address the accessibility issues with existing 
products in the market, institutions upgrade to new releases/versions and 
all those work would be waisted. So we decided to work on upcoming releases 
instead and try to incorporate accessibility part of their future design.

Last time we wrote a whitepaper on Blackboard was in 2005 and it is not 
relevant anymore because BB has changed drastically since then.

The most recent evaluation has been done by our colleagues at CSU. They have 
systematically evaluated 5 LMS. If I am not mistaking it is from early 2008. 
You can find the report at:
http://www.calstate.edu/Accessibility/webaccessibility/evaluation/index.shtml

Note that both BB and D2L have invested a lot into accessibility of their 
product since 2008 and the result of the evaluation is not relevant anymore.

Here's my suggestion:
1. Bring together a few accessibility experts,
2. define and develop your accessibility criteria and matrix, and
3. perform the accessibility testing locally on the version your institution 
is considering to upgrade.

This is the only way that you can get a fair and up-to-date accessibility 
report.

I can help you with #2 and I am positive other members on this list like Ken 
Petri and Terry Thompson will be glad to help you too.

Hadi


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Burke, Dan (DSS)" <burke at mso.umt.edu>
To: "Access Technology Higher Education Network" <athen at athenpro.org>
Sent: Monday, December 07, 2009 1:08 PM
Subject: [Athen] LMS accessibility



> The director of online learning asked me if there are any third-party

> assessments of various learning management systems, such as Blackboard,

> etc.  Any info in this direction would be helpful -- they're looking

> ahead to acquiring a new or upgraded LMS at Montana.

>

> Dan

>

>

> Daniel J. Burke

> Assistant Director/Coordinator

> Disability Services for Students

> Emma B. Lommasson 154

> The University of Montana

> Missoula, MT 59812

>

> www.umt.edu/dss/

>

> 406.243.2243 voice/text

> 406.243.4424 direct line

> 406.243.5330 fax

>

>

>

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