[Athen] ALEKS Accessibility

Howard Kramer howard.kramer at Colorado.EDU
Thu Jan 15 09:17:59 PST 2015


Thanks Carmen.

From: Schafer, Carmen [mailto:schafercg at missouri.edu]
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2015 10:15 AM
To: Howard Kramer
Subject: RE: [Athen] ALEKS Accessibility

Sure and I will forward you the email that I received.

From: Howard Kramer [mailto:howard.kramer at Colorado.EDU]
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2015 11:10 AM
To: Schafer, Carmen
Cc: Karen Sorensen; OSullivan, Abbie R.; McGinnity, Julie A. (MU-Student); Hammer, Barbara L.
Subject: RE: [Athen] ALEKS Accessibility

Hi Carmen,

Thank you for the information. I’d be very interested in seeing McGraw-Hill’s response. I wasn’t aware that ALEKS included course work. Karen seems to know the scope of the product very well – perhaps she could address that.

Do you mind if I copy this to the ATHEN list? Paul Paire and I believe some other folks would probably be interested in the topic.

-Howard

From: Schafer, Carmen [mailto:schafercg at missouri.edu]
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2015 8:10 AM
To: Howard Kramer
Cc: Karen Sorensen; OSullivan, Abbie R.; McGinnity, Julie A. (MU-Student); Hammer, Barbara L.
Subject: RE: [Athen] ALEKS Accessibility

Howard and Karen,
Thank you for picking this topic back up and sharing the alternative information.
I did not realize that WebWork provides an alternative to the ALEKS placement test or is it just the course work? We have worked with WebWorks in the past as well. I’m still trying to understand what all ALEKS includes (i.e. placement test, course work, etc.)

Our department (MU Adaptive Computing Technology Center) and our MU Disability Center started investigating the accessibility of the ALEKS placement test. We received an updated VPAT (attached) and an employee who has CP did some mobility testing on the practice test for us. We have a document of the accessibility and usability issues that he found. I finally received a response from the company after several attempts in Dec 2014, and can forward it to you if you’d like. They have offered (in the email) a conversation to address any specific questions that we have. Once we get those questions compiled we planned to meet with them and share our testing results with them.

With appreciation,

Carmen Schafer
Univ of MO | Division of IT | ACT Center
http://actcenter.missouri.edu<http://actcenter.missouri.edu/>
(573)882-8838

From: athen-list [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman13.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Howard Kramer
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2015 7:57 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network
Cc: Karen Sorensen
Subject: Re: [Athen] ALEKS Accessibility

Hello All:

It doesn't look like anyone replied to this question on ALEKS accessibility updates. Does anyone have any updated information? Is there any work being undertaken to make the graphical elements of the placement exam accessible through long descriptions or tactile graphics?

I'm also told there are no alternative accessible products to ALEKS. Is this true?

I'm now working with the accessibility and remediation committees on our campus that were formed in response to UCB's OCR complaint, hence my interest.

Thanks in advance for any info.

Regards,
Howard

On Mon, Dec 1, 2014 at 8:43 AM, McGinnity, Julie A. (MU-Student) <jamzk7 at mail.missouri.edu<mailto:jamzk7 at mail.missouri.edu>> wrote:
Good morning,

We are investigating the current state of ALEKS accessibility. I read up on ATHEN posts from last year, and they were helpful. But now I am curious to know the outcome of the graphing issue. Is the company still not providing tactile graphs? Is ALEKS accessible with the latest versions of screen readers? I have never used it myself but was led to believe that ALEKS was not fully accessible in the past. Any information you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
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Howard Kramer
CO-PI - UDUC
Promoting the Integration of Universal Design into University Curricula (UDUC)
Lecturer, Cont. Ed - Evening & Cred Admin
303-492-8672
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