[NABS-L] JAWS and exams on Canvas?

[Mike Gilmore]

Hi everyone,

Is there anyone out there who has taken their exams on the system known as Canvas? (It's similar to Blackboard.) Anyway, I've encountered an issue when taking exams that have questions asking to list something or write a short essay of say a paragraph. Beginning last spring, JAWS was treating those text boxes like they didn't exist. The issue became a regular one this past semester and last fall.
At first, I thought it was because I was running JAWS 2020. So, I upgraded to JAWS 2024 and am having the same problem. The funny thing is that it came out of nowhere last spring (on one exam) and then became a regular occurrence last fall and this spring.

So, has anyone encountered this issue? If so, how did you solve it? Is there something in JAWS that needs to be checked? I find it odd that the problem occurred all of a sudden with an old version and still is with the new. I've contacted the folks at the school who handle all the tech stuff and they said that Canvas should work with the latest versions of JAWS (of course they don't know JAWS so they can't really confirm this.)

Thanks.

Mike