[Athen] Respondus with a screen reader?

[Russell Solowoniuk]

Hi all,

Sorry for cross posting...

Has anyone had success using a screen reader with the Respondus LockDown Browser?

I've had a chance to test Respondus with Jaws 2020, the latest version of NVDA, and VoiceOver on Mac OS Catalina, and the results were terrible. Jaws and NVDA were not able to read any of the questions in a test exam at all. If I hadn't had my Braille display connected, I wouldn't have been able to complete the exam. I was able to read the questions with the Braille display, and, Jaws did read the multiple choice answers, except it repeated the answer that was highlighted 2 or 3 times as well as the answer just below the selected answer, so I had no way of knowing for sure that I was focused on the answer I wanted to choose. On some pages, Jaws would start reading the page, and I wasn't able to stop the reading. Pressing CTRL did nothing. The log in process was a nightmare as well. There were multiple screens, for example, a screen to take a picture of yourself, take a picture of your student ID card, pan around the room with your webcam, etc. One screen had "facial recognition", and you had to click on "start" and then "continue" when the facial recognition was done, but I was not able to get to the "continue" button with Jaws. Jaws would say "continue", but a sighted person told me the focus was not on the continue button. When I tried the test on my iMac, I didn't even get that far. A screen popped up asking if I wanted to allow Respondus to use my camera, but VO didn't read this prompt and I wasn't able to get to it in any of the usual ways, like pressing VO + F2 quickly to bring up a list of running windows.

Maybe the version of Respondus we are using is the issue. We are using Respondus LockDown Browser - Version 2.0.6.06. Or maybe I am doing something wrong? Any ideas welcome!

If no one else has had any luck using Respondus with a screen reader, how can they get away with claiming it is accessible with a screen reader?

Thanks all,

Russell

Russell Solowoniuk
AT Educational Assistant, Services to Students with Disabilities
MacEwan University
7-198 D4, 10700-104 Ave.
Edmonton, AB  T5J 4S2
E: solowoniukr at macewan.ca<mailto:solowoniukr at macewan.ca>
T:  780-497-5826
F:  780-497-4018
macewan.ca
[MacEwan Logo]
This communication is intended for the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed and may contain confidential, personal, and/or privileged information.  Please contact me immediately if you are not the intended recipient of this communication, and do not copy, distribute, or take action relying on it.  Any communication received in error, or subsequent reply, should be deleted or destroyed.
Please consider the environment before printing this email

We acknowledge that the land on which we gather in Treaty Six Territory is the traditional gathering place for many Indigenous people. We honour and respect the history, languages, ceremonies and culture of the First Nations, Métis and Inuit who call this territory home.


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman12.u.washington.edu/pipermail/athen-list/attachments/20200604/f2202d4a/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 3516 bytes
Desc: image001.jpg
URL: <http://mailman12.u.washington.edu/pipermail/athen-list/attachments/20200604/f2202d4a/attachment.jpg>