[Athen] Promoting greater ALEKS Accessibility

[Howard Kramer]

Hello All:

Picking up this topic once again. I've been conducting some accessibility
testing and research regarding ALEKS over the last few weeks and thought I
would give everyone an update. To boil down the current situation, there
are 2 versions of the ALEKS exam, the "traditional" version, which seems to
fail for accessibility, according to my testing, and the "accessible"
version, which seems very accessible, again, according to my testing.

The issue with the accessible version, however, is that it excludes about
100 questions deemed too visual or spatial to present in an accessible
digital format. Without these 100 questions, the blind or screenreader user
taking the accessible version can not achieve as high a placement as the
student taking the "traditional" version.

We'd like to encourage ALEKS/MHE to work towards adding as many of the
excluded questions from the "accessible" version of the exam and eventually
have one universal and accessible version. If there are any other
institutions using ALEKS who are interested in collaborating with us on
this effort, perhaps signing a letter of support, please let me know. If
you'd like to have a phone conversation about this to discuss further, my
number is below.

If anyone would like a copy of my accessibility audit, I'm willing to send
that out upon request.

Thanks,
Howard
303-492-8672

On Mon, Dec 1, 2014 at 8:43 AM, McGinnity, Julie A. (MU-Student) <
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.

> _______________________________________________

> athen-list mailing list

> athen-list at mailman13.u.washington.edu

> http://mailman13.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list

>




-- 
Howard Kramer
CO-PI - UDUC
*Promoting the Integration of Universal Design into University Curricula*
(UDUC)
Lecturer, Cont. Ed - Evening & Cred Admin
303-492-8672
cell: 720-351-8668
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