Blackboard/WebCT
From ATHEN
Accessibility is critical in learning management systems such as Blackboard and WebCT, since these systems play a paramount role in the delivery of online educational content.
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Blackboard Accessibility Interest Group
The Blackboard Accessibility Interest Group is a consortium of accessibility-minded representatives from dozens of colleges and universities in the United States, Canada, and abroad, working in collaboration with Blackboard, Inc. to improve the accessibility of Blackboard's products. Members of the group meet with Blackboard representatives during regular teleconferences, and provide input and feedback to Blackboard related to accessibility.
The group is currently organized into four subgroups:
Design sub-group
The Design sub-group acts and works with Blackboard as an advisory group at very early stage to discuss the new features and techniques that Blackboard is considering to incorporate in new products or new versions of existing products that haven't been released yet.
The goal is to help Blackboard to evolve to apply Universal Design. This way will we can make sure that the accessibility of the intended technologies to be used is going to be accessible. This subgroup tests new products or upcoming releases for accessibility features to make sure that accessibility features are incorproated in them.
Members of this subgroup are required to sign an NDA agreement with blackboard. If you are interested in joining this subgroup, please drop a note to Terry Thompson, the leader of this subgroup at tft@u.washington.edu or to hadi Rangin at hadi@uiuc.edu.
Minutes of the meetings and their findings is not accessible to the public due to proprietory information of unreleased products.
Testing sub-group
The Testing sub-group will be testing and evaluating the accessibility of the new development during the implementation process and work with relevant groups at Blackboard to address identified accessibility issues. Blackboard will setup a server for our group and it will be updated frequently to reflect the recent modifications and bug fixes so we can verify the fixes before it goes into production.
For more information go to the BB-Testing Page
Documentation sub-group
The Documentation sub-group will work with the Technical Communication team at Blackboard to improve the contents and layout of accessibility related materials. Providing Inline instruction incorporated in the application is another factor in improving the usability/accessibility of the product. The documentation sub-group will also work with the Technical support Team and educate them about the basics of Assistive Technology hardware/software and the potential accessibility problems related to each disability group. The goal is to incorporate information about accessibility in the support documentations, a typical technical support understand the basics about the accessibility and can route the accessibility related problem to the right people in Blackboard if he/she can not resolve it by himself/herself.
For more information go to the BB-DOC Subgroup page.
Quality Assurance (QA) sub-group
The QA sub-group will be working with the QA department to help and educate them how to test for accessibility and define testing procedures that can be integrated in the standard QA processes.
Accessibility Procedures and Workarounds
Providing Extended Time on Quizzes in Blackboard Vista 4
Blackboard Vista 4 makes it possible to create 'selective-release' online quizzes for students requiring additional time.
- Create the selective-release quiz
- Create the assessment for your class as you normally would. (You'll base your selective-release quiz on it.)
- Then, from the Assessments Tool (Build > Course Tools > Assessments), select Create Assessment.
- Enter your settings to create the new assessment:
- Click the radio button next to "Base on an existing assessment," and click the arrow to open the dropdown menu.
- In the dropdown menu, select the assessment that you previously created.
- Click Save. You're returned to the Assessments Tool.
- Change the duration setting
- In the Assessments Tool, find your selective-release quiz in the list and click on the ActionLinks icon (at the end of the quiz name) to show a dropdown menu. Select Edit Properties.
- In the Edit Assessment Properties, under Duration, increase the amount of time for the quiz.
- Click Save. You're returned to the Assessments Tool.
- Set selective release for the quiz
- Selective release will ensure that only the student(s) you specify will be able to take the extended-duration, selective-release quiz.
- In the Assessments Tool, find your selective-release quiz in the list and click on the ActionLinks icon to show a dropdown menu. Select Set Release Criteria.
- Click Add Member Criteria.
- In the Add Member Criteria window, select User ID “equals”, then click the checkbox next to the name of the student(s) needing extended time. Click Save, then at the confirmation, click Save again.
- Make the quiz available
- As with all quizzes, you need to make the new quiz "Available." In the Assessments Tool, find your selective-release quiz in the list and click on the ActionLinks icon to show a dropdown menu. Select Show Item.
- Set selective release for the original quiz
- Selective release will ensure that the student(s) taking the extended-duration quiz will NOT have access to the standard-duration (original) version of the quiz.
- In the Assessments Tool, find your original quiz in the list and click on the ActionLinks icon to show a dropdown menu. Select Set Release Criteria.
- Click Add Member Criteria.
- In the Add Member Criteria window, select User ID “does not equal”, then click the checkbox next to the name of the student(s) needing extended time. Click Save, then at the confirmation, click Save again.
- Inform the student(s)
- Be sure to communicate the name of the extended-duration quiz you just created to the student(s) needing additional time.
