[Athen] Jaws issue with Discussion Board in Blackboard

Deborah Armstrong armstrongdeborah at fhda.edu
Wed Jan 13 12:22:08 PST 2021


I have seen this problem with the latest Chrome JAWS 2021 and Canvas's rich text editor as well. I have not used Blackboard but for Canvas, I make sure I am in applications mode and then issue one of the keystrokes to call up the menu bar or toolbar in the editor. Then I press Escape which is that editor's keystroke to return focus to the editor. This seems to convince JAWS and Chrome that I am, actually in the editor.

Another keystroke for both JAWS and NVDA is insert-Escape. This refreshes its off-screen model as it resyncs with the document object model. Try issuing that keystroke before applications mode is triggered.

Also try finding the form field for the editor and typing the content first, and then tabbing back to enter the subject last.

I'm pretty sure this is a bug with JAWS and Chrome and not necessarily related to Blackboard.


From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> On Behalf Of Russell Solowoniuk
Sent: Sunday, January 10, 2021 11:42 AM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Jaws issue with Discussion Board in Blackboard

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to let you know that I found a solution to the Jaws and Discussion Board issue. The student is using Chrome as his browser, so I've been trying to solve the problem using Chrome, to no avail. This morning I tried using Firefox, and the Discussion Board seems to work fine with Jaws in Firefox.

As the student is more familiar using Chrome, if anyone has any ideas how to get this working in Chrome, that would be greatly appreciated.

I also tried using Edge, but no luck there, and no surprise as it is also based on Chromium.

Thanks,

Russell

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu>> On Behalf Of Russell Solowoniuk
Sent: Sunday, January 10, 2021 8:28 AM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Subject: [Athen] Jaws issue with Discussion Board in Blackboard

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Hi everyone,

I hope the new year is treating you all well.

I have an issue with a student using Jaws 2021 and the Discussion Board in Blackboard Learn. I sent the below email to the Jaws Discussion list, but thought I'd check with you all as well.

I'm working with a student who is using Jaws 2021 and is enrolled in an English course. The course is being delivered mostly online in Blackboard, version 9.1, I believe.

The issue we are having is with the Discussion Board. The students must post an introduction in the Discussion Board, and read and respond to at least 2 other student introductions.

When the student clicks on "Create Thread" to start his introduction, Jaws goes into "Application Mode. In this mode, the student can type in the Subject line, but there seems to be no way to get to the editor where the student must type in his introduction. Well, he can get to it by tabbing twice, but once there, he is not able to type anything in this editor, and there is no indication that he has entered the editor. Jaws reads "Thread: Self introduction. - ENGL-102-AS07(1) - 2021 Win..." when tabbing twice from the subject field. We can confirm that no text is being entered when typing by getting out of Applications Mode and narrowing down to where the Word count is shown, and it shows 0 words. The student is able to type his introduction in Word, copy all the text, and then paste it into the editor, but can not then read what he has pasted. We know the text has been pasted by the Word count, and once he submits his post, we are able to open it and read it with Jaws.
The same thing happens when trying to respond to another student's introduction. He is able to read the introduction, press enter on "Reply" but cannot type or even know when or if he is in the Editor. He is able to type the response in Word, and copy and paste it into the Editor, but it seems like sometimes pressing tab twice from the subject field takes him into the editor, and sometimes he must tab 3 times, and since there is no indication that he is in the Editor, it is really hit and miss and quite frustrating.

Are there settings in Blackboard that can be changed to allow Jaws to work with the Editor in the Discussions area? Are there any Jaws settings that can be changed to make this work?

I also experience this same issue on my PC, so it's not specific to the student's computer. The problem also exists with NVDA. We are both running Windows 10 and Jaws 2021.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Russell

Russell Solowoniuk
AT Educational Assistant, Access and Disability Resources
MacEwan University
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Edmonton, AB T5J 4S2
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