[humanser] Have any students/university educators used this software?

[Doug Lee]

I see a lot of information on this program at http://edu.cengage.co.uk/catalogue/product.aspx?isbn=1111827931
(You've probably been there already.)

I also see an email address for ordering "inspection copies," and I am blind-copying it on this reply (blind
copy to avoid placing the email address in list archives without permission).

For the benefit of the added recipient: This discussion is about use of Sniffy the Lab Rat Pro by a blind college student.
I will follow up with a direct email to discuss means of testing this program for usability for a specific student now
taking a course that will use this application. The rest of this message addresses the student's questions as best I can
before seeing a running copy.

The System Requirements mention that it runs on MacOS and Windows, but the supported Windows versions listed
are old; so my first questions are

1. Is this to be run in a classroom or lab setting or on student-owned machines, and

2. Are Windows, Mac, or both platforms supported for this class?

Of course, accessibility issues are likely to differ between MacOS and Windows platforms. The following
comments are general and based only on the information at the above web site and on my personal experiences as
an assistive technology programmer:

This program sounds graphical in nature, what with the Skinner box and such; but it appears there is also an
option to run experiments where Sniffy the rat is invisible (and much faster, too). If all you need for this
class is to execute experiments and exercises and gather data, you may be in luck. It may also be possible to
get a copy for accessibility testing, for which reason I am opening a dialog with the company.

The page I mentioned does say you can export data to a format readable by spreadsheet programs, and I assume
this includes Excel. That may be enough to let you run an experiment and then analyze results using proven
technologies.

So remaining questions are

3. Can we get a demo copy of the program for accessibility testing?

4. Can we get documentation, even if unable to test the software in advance, in order to map out required
usage scenarios for discussion with the authors? Your instructors may also be able to give you information on
the types of tasks the class will require in this application.

If we can get a demo, I can help test it. If we just get docs, I can probably help analyze those for clues as
to where to go next.

On Thu, Dec 31, 2015 at 01:33:00AM -0500, Kaiti Shelton via humanser wrote:
Hi all,

I will be taking a Psychology of Learning course this semester, and
the professor has just responded to my email regarding accommodations.
She tells me that part of our assignments will be done using a program
called Sniffy the Lab Rat Pro (version 3.0 by Wadsworth-Cengage
Learning).  Sniffy is a simulation of what it is like to train a lab
rat to perform various tasks, and we have four assignments on it
spread out through the semester.  I'm planning on calling Cengage to
see what they can tell me about Sniffy's accessibility, but I'm hoping
to find information from people who use it with screenreaders so I
have a better idea of accessibility.  I've emailed on NABS and social
sciences thus far, and while the social sciences list seems somewhat
familiar with it, I'm primarily getting a lot of emails that say
"Sorry, never heard of it either," which aren't really helpful.  If
anyone on this list has used Sniffy as a student or educator, I'd be
really interested to hear what your user experience was like.  I'm
running windows 7 with either Jaws 13 or the latest NVDA version.

Thanks,
-- 
Kaiti Shelton

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-- 
Doug Lee                 dgl at dlee.org                http://www.dlee.org
SSB BART Group           doug.lee at ssbbartgroup.com   http://www.ssbbartgroup.com
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds
new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' ('I found it!') but rather 'hmm....
that's funny...'"  --   Isaac Asimov