[NABS-L] Blackboard Collaborate

[Kendra Schaber]

Hi!
I had to go online this spring as well. I personally think Blackboard is pretty accessible overall. There are some features I don’t like. I find that embedded links and other visual information that gets linked to some of the courses to be totally inaccessible. The discussion board that’s on there is accessible to screen readers via being able to read the screen itself. On the other hand, it’s not fully accessible when you include user friendlyness, and work flow equality because it’s very clunky and doesn’t allow blind people to work it in an equivelant work flow when compared to sighted students who also use it too. There might be some technical tricks that are on there that I don’t know about, conciddering I’m middle of the road with my tech skills. But I think it takes longer for blind students than sighted students to work the discussion board, even when blindness related technique is taken into account. There are also websites, videos, documents and the like that are posted that are not accessible. Also, keep in mind that websites such as the one to your school’s library might have issues with accessibility or that post inaccessible content. Usually, I have run into both problems with my school’s library website. So, be sure to explore your whole school’s website and look out for all accessibility barriers including work flow issues that are caused by accessibility issues such as inaccessible buttons that allow for you to make the website function with your screen reader along with the ability to read posted materials and/or being able to perform all tasks in an equivelant manor to your fellow sighted class mates.

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________________________________
From: NABS-L <nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org> on behalf of Jorge Alejandro Paez via NABS-L <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2020 11:46
To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Cc: Jorge Alejandro Paez
Subject: [NABS-L] Blackboard Collaborate

Hello everyone.
My name is Jorge ALejandro Paez, from South Florida, and I”m currently finishing my Associate of Arts degree.
Because of the virus, my college has switched the on campus classes to online, however we now have 2 online campuses.
One is the traditional online campus with discussion questions, quizs etc. and the other one is the online version of the on-campus experience, using BlackBoard Collaborate for everything.
I know there have been issues with their accessibility before, I was in Dallas during the 2010 convention for all that, however I was in highschool at the time and the college I’m in now never used Collaborate before this point.
Can anyone fill me in on the accessibility of the platform with VoiceOver?

Thanks,

Jorge
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