[Athen] Why cannot accessibility experts do their job?

[Deborah Armstrong]

I enrolled for a beginning course on Python from Harvard, with a LMS maintained by Edx. I had trouble figuring out how to make the environment where homework is accepted accessible to me, a screen reader user. It’s frustrating that their accessibility expert simply redirected me and that I am stuck myself figuring out partial solutions – see my correspondence below.
At the college where I work, we’ve seen quite a few screen reader users fail or drop courses because nobody knows much about accessibility. I do what I can to troubleshoot issues and find work-arounds but I’m just an advanced level screen reader user, not an accessibility expert myself nor was I hired to be one. It’s really the manufacturers of products who should be confirming accessibility or the platform maintainers who should be working on this.
In the example below, I knew beforehand the platform was accessible, but one aspect is tricky and I haven’t fully figured it out yet.


From: Deborah Armstrong
Sent: Friday, May 27, 2022 8:27 AM
To: certificates at cs50.harvard.edu
Cc: accessibility at edx.org
Subject: FW: [edX] Re: CS50P and CodeSpaces

I originally sent this accessibility query to the accessibility email address at Edx and was, as you can see from the below email, redirected to you.
I don’t know who handles accessibility for this course, but my query should be passed on to them.
In the meanwhile, I have figured out a partial solution. Though the normal way to get to Settings in CodeSpaces is to click on the “gear icon” the keystroke is control-comma, that is the comma key pressed together with control.
After that an accessible tree view opens. The user arrows down to editor, and then in to the accessibility subgroup. There, Screen reader is set to Auto. This works with VSCode on the desktop, but not in CodeSpaces because there, VSCode has no way of determining whether the user has a screen reader running. It has to be set to on, which automatically turns all the other screen reader choices in that subgroup to on as well. This also makes the editor work well with a Braille display.
After that, the screen reader does read the terminal output. However I still have not figured out how to paste from the terminal – I need to paste my public key. Pasting in to the terminal works fine. Luckily I already know Linux so I just have to find some sort of work-around there.
I suggest that accessibility instructions for screen reader users  be included in one of the help topics for the course. Most students will be beginners and if they cannot figure out accessibility will drop the course and perhaps never enter this field.
At a conference I attended, it was my understanding that both Harvard and Edx have full-time accessibility experts, so it seems to me they should be doing their job and writing these help topics!

Respectfully,
Deborah Armstrong
(User ID DebeeArmstrong)
Milpitas, CA


From: edX accessibility <accessibility at edx.org<mailto:accessibility at edx.org>>
Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2022 6:48 PM
To: Deborah Armstrong <armstrongdeborah at fhda.edu<mailto:armstrongdeborah at fhda.edu>>
Subject: [edX] Re: CS50P and CodeSpaces

##- Please type your reply above this line -##

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Your inquiry (CS50P and CodeSpaces) has been closed with the message below. If you wish to reopen this request, simply reply to this email.
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Maria (edX)

May 26, 2022, 8:47 PM CDT
Hello Deborah,

Thank you for your participation with edX. We appreciate your enrollment in CS50.

We understand that being redirected when asking for help is inconvenient. However, support for this course is handled by the Harvard course staff outside of edX.

For support with your CS50 course, please contact the CS50 team directly at certificates at cs50.harvard.edu<mailto:certificates at cs50.harvard.edu> for assistance.

Thank you.

Best Regards,

Maria
the edX team
Find more answers in our edX Help Center<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/support.edx.org/hc/en-us__;!!A-B3JKCz!BwILBnvNJnFU5aWPv-Ot5AE6mfl5_XKM11d2sni20Vn7h2dMbfx451XyTwxu3szqq4WAsy4Fk_g-Rdgsyfz8GosCjy166Q$>

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Deborah Armstrong

May 26, 2022, 5:07 PM CDT

I am a screen reader user on Windows. I know all three popular screen readers on this platform.

I’m taking CS50, the Python version of the course. I already know how to write code, but not in Python and not in a cloud-based environment.

To do my project assignments I understand I use codespaces on github. I also understand this cloud environment is accessible.

However, I cannot read the terminal output. I did a little searching and understand that an environment variable for screen readers needs to be set to True.

I am not experienced enough to know if I can do this myself, or even how to do it. Can this be documented with the beginner in mind, or can you reply to my email with instructions?

Thanks for your time.

--Deborah Armstrong

Edx User id: DebeeArmstrong

Edx User Email: armstrongdeborah at deanza.edu<mailto:armstrongdeborah at deanza.edu>
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