[Athen] Community of Practice sites

[Ken Petri]

Hi Sharon,

Ning can be made pretty accessible without too much trouble, but it takes
using JavaScript to inject code into it to fix it--add labels, headings,
make things tab focusable, etc. If you have a developer who is willing to
work a bit on it, she can start from our code here:

if (typeof(x$) != 'undefined')
{
    x$(".htmlpostbody > br").remove(); // remove breaks from postbody
    var siteNavSemHeading = '<h2 class="offleft-css">Site Navigation</h2>';
    x$("#xg_navigation").before(siteNavSemHeading);
    var siteSearchLabel = '<label for="xn_bar_menu_search_query">Search
Site</label>';
    x$("#xn_bar_menu_search_query").before(siteSearchLabel);
    x$("#xg_sitename").replaceWith('<h1 ><a href="/">Your shite
name</a></h1>');
    setTimeout("allowEditorFocus()",10000); // need to time because dojo
toolbar loads last
    function allowEditorFocus() {
        x$("p.texteditor_toolbar > a").attr("tabindex","0");
    }
}

This goes into the "Analytics" section in the "Manage" area of your Ning
site. I'm not including the CSS, but it is pretty standard stuff--developers
will know about offleft positioning for screen reader access.

No guarantees. This code is about a year old and may need tweaking.  This
code takes advantage of the jquery that is used by Ning.

We also developed an easy and accessible way to embed YouTube videos (with
captions) into Ning. The foundation of that is here:
http://wac.osu.edu/examples/youtube-player-controls/

One thing that is a big problem with Ning is that its user WYSIWYG editor is
sort of crappy. Lots of people have complained about this for the last
couple of years and Ning hasn't moved forward with it yet.... Also, the Ning
sign up uses an inaccessible CAPTCHA. There is no good work-around for that
one. It will require someone to assist screen reader users.

Best regards,
ken
---
 Ken Petri
 Program Director
 OSU Web Accessibility Center
 102D Pomerene Hall
 1760 Neil Avenue
 Columbus, Ohio  43210
 Phone: (614) 292-1760
 Fax: (614) 292-4190
 mailto:petri.1 at osu.edu


On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 8:28 AM, Sharon Trerise <trerise at cayuga-cc.edu>wrote:


>  Does anyone know of a Community of Practice site that is accessible?  We

> have a project that we would like to use a CoP for, but cannot find one that

> appears to be accessible.  We have looked at Ning, SocialGo and

> SocialEngine.

>

>

>

> Thank you.

>

>

>

> Sharon

>

>

>

> Sharon Trerise

>

> Coordinator of Disability Services

>

> Cayuga Community College

>

> 197 Franklin St.

>

> Auburn, NY 13021

>

> 315-294-8606

>

>

>

> _______________________________________________

> Athen mailing list

> Athen at athenpro.org

> http://athenpro.org/mailman/listinfo/athen_athenpro.org

>

>

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