Yes, accessibility is important! As more and more university services and classes are placed online (and some are solely available online), this is an increasingly significant issue...
Blind students and professors suffer “pervasive and ongoing discrimination” at Penn State University because of the widely inaccessible nature of technology used on the campus, according to a federal complaint filed today by the country’s largest organization of blind people.
Another particular problem is the university’s Angel course-management software, a digital classroom that “is almost totally inaccessible for blind users,” according to the complaint.
In its full version, Angel’s e-mail, calendar, assignments, chat, discussion groups and gradebook are all inaccessible, the complaint says. Blind students must use a “PDA mode,” the complaint says, which has less utility but some accessibility features.
A spokesman for Blackboard, which owns and supports Angel, had no immediate comment beyond noting that the National Federation of the Blind recently certified the latest release of Blackboard Learn for accessibility.
via chronicle.com
