[Athen] athen-list Digest, Vol 172, Issue 7

Pyatt, Elizabeth J ejp10 at psu.edu
Mon May 11 06:04:49 PDT 2020


We've been licensing VoiceThread for a while at Penn State and can confirm that Cassandra's list is fairly accurate from when we last reviewed it. Having said that, they have been improving over time.

I'm happy to hear about the beta of a new VoiceThread Universal.

Elizabeth

On May 8, 2020, at 3:00 PM, athen-list-request at mailman12.u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list-request at mailman12.u.washington.edu> wrote:

Message: 3
Date: Thu, 7 May 2020 13:08:42 -0700
From: Cassandra Tex <clt3 at humboldt.edu<mailto:clt3 at humboldt.edu>>
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network
<athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Athen] VoiceThread
Message-ID: <b4d7dfbfe189ae95ef9a90459d73eae1 at mail.gmail.com<mailto:b4d7dfbfe189ae95ef9a90459d73eae1 at mail.gmail.com>>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Greetings!

We just finished our review of VoiceThread. We do have some concerns
regarding the accessibility of the product:

? VoiceThread Universal does not have the same functionality that
is available in VoiceThread Standard (e.g., you cannot share VoiceThreads
in Universal)

? Everything that comes into VoiceThread (PowerPoint, PDF, etc),
come in as images, regardless of their original state. Text-to-speech
software will not be able to read the contents of the slides, pages, etc.
If downloading is allowed, it appeared that when downloaded, it would
download in the original state (if accessible, it would download as
accessible)

? VoiceThread Platinum does include automatic captioning, but of
course, it?s automatic?not necessarily accurate. Would need to edit for
accuracy (bulk of work is completed by the automatic task though)

? The captions that were present scrolled through the middle of the
voicethread. The placement, sizing, etc. is not adjustable at this time.



They are developing a new VoiceThread Universal (it?s in Beta now), that is
better than the previous Universal. They are also planning on doing away
with the two separate programs, but they didn?t have a timeline for that
just yet.



We will meet with the requesting department to discuss equally effective
alternate access plans and/or accommodations that may be necessary if
implemented.



I hope this helps!



Cassandra Tex

Humboldt State University

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Elizabeth J. Pyatt, Ph.D.
Accessibility IT Consultant
ejp10 at psu.edu<mailto:ejp10 at psu.edu>

The 300 Building, 112
304 West College Avenue
University Park, PA 16802
accessibility.psu.edu<http://accessibility.psu.edu>





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