Web CT Accessibility, Usability and the Disabled Student

WebCT has made a commitment to bring their program into compliance with the industry standard for accessibility. This commitment is extremely encouraging for all people interested in access, and we applaud their efforts that are underway. However, the student who currently enrolls in a WebCT course still faces significant barriers. The good news is that these barriers, with a little pre-planning, can be reduced or, in some cases, removed entirely.

The first easily remedied barrier is information. WebCT does not currently offer a tutorial on using its program with assistive technology. However, this kind of information can make a critical difference in the level of access for a student with certain disabilities. Therefore, it will fall to the instructor, department or institution to provide this kind information (before a student needs to access or register in a WebCT course).

The second barrier, for many students, is the use of frames. WebCT version 3.x uses 4 named frames for its basic design. Frames are especially difficult for individuals using screen readers or refreshable Braille displays since each frame is read like a separate page.

The third barrier is the use of specific tools in WebCT, which are not accessible. If these tools are used to provide required or important content or interaction, the designer must also provide an accessible alternative. This is the most insurmountable of all the barriers. Often, it can only be overcome with extraordinary effort and, even then, only to provide a second-rate solution. These tools will be broken out and discussed in the table below.

The fourth barrier is the use of popup windows and opening content in new browser windows. Although the advantages of these are obviously to many of us, to other students they go completely unnoticed or require unusual effort to access.

The fifth barrier is the use of fields that allow designers to add images easily to certain areas of their course, but these fields are not given an option to include the alt tag.

The sixth barrier is the placement of certain elements so close that they are difficult to click, especially for students with motor skill limitations.

The following 4 column table discusses various WebCT tools and features along with their web interfaces. Column 1 lists the tool or feature. Column 2 states whether the tool is accessible. Column 3 rates the ease of use of each tool for students using assistive technology. This is done on a scale of 0 to 10; zero being inaccessible, and ten being fully accessible. Column 4 gives the authors' observations and recommendations for using or improving the tool.

Watch a video on the use of assistive technology with the internet and WebCT. To play the video the Realplayer plugin is required. Look for the for the free download of the Realplayer 8 Basic within the Realplayer website.

Table A: WebCT Tool Accessibility Evaluation

Tool or Feature	Access Yes/No	Ease of Use	Observations / Recommendations
Assignments Tool	Yes	4 to 7	Does not use images as links at the first level.Ê Can be made inaccessible by the inclusion of files that are not accessible.Ê Submitting assignments is more complex for the student using a screen reader.
Audio Links	Yes/no	N/A	Text equivalents need to be provided.Ê Difficult to navigate to with a screen reader.
Bookmark	Yes	5	Navigating to the bookmark link can be difficult.
Calendar	No/Yes	3	All new events open in new window.Ê The calendar itself can be navigated with a small amount of difficulty. However, there are at least 30 links on the page, and the farther inside any tool one goes in WebCT, the less accessible it generally becomes for the student.
CD-ROM	N/A	N/A, 8	Designer issues.Ê If well designed should work just fine and still be the powerful tool it is.Ê Note: multimedia will still need accessible, synchronized alternatives.
Chat Rooms	No	0	This Java applet is currently not accessibleÊÊ One option is to link to an outside chat tool that is accessible while staying inside WebCT.
Compile Tool	Yes	5	Would be more useful for an instructor to compile each module and post it for students who find it cumbersome to use. Too many links for anyone with motor skill limitations to choose only some files.Ê Lists all the pages in a Content Module that have to be selected before viewing in a new window.Ê Easy to choose all or none.Ê Haven't tested this with a Braille printer.
Content Module	Yes/No/Maybe	3 to 6	Lots of design issues with this tool.Ê First designer may choose to have the Table of Contents show all the time creating extra frames.Ê Two if headings and indented items are used and create the twisty, then screen readers do not know what it is or how to interpret it.Ê Content under a twisty is inaccessible. Three if the files themselves are not designed for access then the screen reader is no real use; this however, is not a WebCT issue, but relevant.Ê Four, the action menu is hard to access both with screen reader and someone with motor skills limits.Ê Individual option in the action menu will be discussed separately.
Discussions Tool	Yes	2	Navigating the message board can be very confusing.Ê With no tutorial or data on how to use it, someone with a screen reader would probably give up.Ê Would be nice to be able to jump from subject to subject or have a subject line with # of replies view.Ê Dropdown boxes are accessible but not user friendly. One option is to link to an outside discussion tool that is more accessible and user-friendly while staying inside WebCT.
E-mail	Yes	4	Although these tools are accessible it is difficult to navigate and very easy to get lost.
Glossary	Yes	6
Help	No/Yes technically but...	5	Opens in new window.Ê Contains two frames.Ê Maybe there should be an ãassistive technologyä help for tutorial help as well as tool help.
Home page	Yes	8	But Homepage should be two words, home & page to make sense to screen readers.Ê Sounds like ho-ma-pahgz.Ê Also myWebCT is a nonsensical pronunciation. Although frames are named, they are not user friendly for screen readers.Ê Helps to close left hand navigation.Ê Also, links in Course Menu may be a little too close for people with any motor skill issues. Way too many links on one page for ease of navigation with screen readers.Ê The home pages tool can be easily navigated through but the content they are linked to may not be.
Home Page Icons for tools	Yes/No	3 to 8	Icons have alt tags, but the alt tag is the file name and thus will read something like ãimage 2345.jpg.äÊ This gives the student no idea of what the image is or does. Also, screen readers read this info twice, once for the icon, once for the title.Ê Some of this can be worked around. Images are used as links.Ê Placing the images after the text link will fix this problem. Need to know html to place the <img src> tag inside the title field.Ê Then works quite nicely.
Image Database	Yes	6	Images database is accessible as long as ALT tags are used.Ê Good opportunity to give long descriptions and other vital information.Ê Could be used as a depository for all charts and graphs with long descriptions for the course.Ê Could also be conditionally released just to certain students if interpreting the chart or graph is part of the teaching style.
Index	Yes	6	Can be too many links, like the Course Map, but can help with other issues of access.Ê Requires a lot of creative thought on the instructor's part to use outside the box.
Movie Links	Yes / no	N/A	If a movie must be seen to be understood, a text equivalent is required. Difficult to navigate to with a screen reader.
My Grades	Yes	8	Navigation of the My grades area is not necessary with a screen reader.Ê Accessing the statistics for any grade column however is an issue since the link presents a bar graph.
My notes	Yes	5	Difficulty navigating to the link.Ê Getting to the Action Menu is not user friendly with a screen reader.Ê Also, motor skills issues with size of links and closeness to each other.
My Progress	Yes	8	Although it produces a bar graph, the numbers are accessible and can fairly easily be of use to most/all students.
Presentations	No/Yes	2	Not all presentation formats are accessible.Ê Depends on students knowing how to use Universal Design.Ê Can be a good opportunity to teach more people about Universal Design and Access.Ê Also, once a student using a screen reader clicks on the ãEdit Filesä link, then dealing with the Manage Files interface could be a nightmare.Ê Would take a lot of instruction for this population to use.
Quiz	No	1	Opens in new window.Ê Is almost impossible to navigate. Any link that opens a new window makes a barrier to ease of use.Ê Also, every time you click the ãSave Answerä button, the screen reader starts at the beginning of the window.Ê Could be a little alleviated by releasing questions one at a time and letting students know that a new window will open.Ê Timed tests would be very inappropriate for several populations.
References	Yes	8	Although getting to the link is difficult for some students.Ê Can be accomplished with a simple link in the text itself.
Search	Yes	9	Dropdown lists are not terrible friendly for people with motor skill limitations or screen readers, and forms require special attention on the part of those using screen readers.Ê With a little modification (get rid of dropdown list and include the image database, discussion, calendar, email, single pages, home and organizer pages, assignments, glossary, and any area that a student might have to revisit or remember where it was in the search options) this could be a real learning aid for all populations but especially those using a screen reader or those with learning disabilities.Ê This tool w
Self Test	No	1	Screen readers have to know the option is there.Ê Then find it in the Action Menu. Then it launches two frames.Ê The question and answers are in one, the feedback is in yet another frame.Ê A screen reader will not know that anything has happen when clicking an answer and will entirely miss all feedback.Ê Defeats its purpose.Ê Need alternative.Ê Even when added to the home page the split frame is unworkable for some students.
Student Home Pages	Yes	4	The tool makes accessing the student home pages easy.Ê Design issues with the home pages mean that the pages may be of little or no help to certain populations.Ê Also, for a student with a screen reader to post html code to put up a home page is not a very good option.
Student Tips	No/Yes	4	Technically, yes, but since it opens a new popup window, some students will never see it or know it's there.Ê Therefore any information in the tips should be available through another means.
Syllabus files	N/A	N/A	If the files are designed to be accessible, but this is not well understood by most instructors.
Syllabus tool	Yes	10	Navigation not really necessary.Ê Allows instructor to create an accessible syllabus rich with information.Ê Unfortunately, this can be time consuming especially if an instructor already has a syllabus in electronic form.
Targets/Goals	Yes	6	May be difficult to reach in the Action Menu, but otherwise, very accessible.Ê
White board	No	0	If significant course work is down using this tool, then several populations will be totally excluded from participating.Ê One option is to link to an outside whiteboard tool that is accessible while staying inside WebCT.
	These data were gathered and compiled at Georgia State University by Stephen Rehberg, Web Resources Manager of the Division of Distance & Distributed Learning, Caroline Gergely, Director of the Office of Disability Services, Thomas Hall, Web Designer and JAWS expert, and Corey Bray, Undergraduate Math major and JAWS user.Ê Therefore they are still considered subjective data coupled with considerable expertise in the various softwares and accessibility issues.

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WebCT, Accessibility, Usability and the Disabled Student

Table A: WebCT Tool Accessibility Evaluation

Ten Things Any WebCT Course Designer can Easily Do to Greatly Increase the Accessibility