WebCT, Accessibility, Usability and the Disabled Student

This document was prepared and presented by Caroline Gergely and Stephen Rehberg in 2001 at the 12^th International Conference on College Teaching and Learning Conference in Jacksonville, Florida and at the 3^rd Annual WebCT Users’ Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. Ms. Gergely is the Director of the Office of Disability Services at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia. Mr. Rehberg is the Web Resources Manager of the Division of Distance and Distributed Learning at GSU. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of this handbook as well as a Certified WebCT trainer and a Dr. C.

WebCT has made a commitment to conforming with the industry standards 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 preplanning, can be reduced or, in some cases, removed entirely.

As a result, supplying information may fall to the instructor, department or institution. At Georgia State, the Division of Distance and Distributed Learning and the Office of Disability Services work together to supply students with this type of information.

The second barrier, for many students, is the use of frames. WebCT version 3.x uses four 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.

1. The logo frame: This contains only a logo for WebCT or the institution, and the Hide/Show Navigation link.
2. Top Menu frame: This contains important links for the students. This frame is not as easy to return to because screen readers often ignore redundant information. Breadcrumbs are also in this frame. This refers to the generating navigation aid that gives the path a student has taken through the course from the Homepage.
3. Navigation frame: This frame contains whatever links to material and tools the instructor chooses. The instructor has the option of using or not using this frame entirely, however, this removes any element of choice for the student. The student has the option to hide this frame if the instructor uses it, and this is the option that we recommend for the greatest benefit to all students.
4. Mainframe: This frame provides the bulk of the workspace, content area and interactivity space for the course. Note that within the Main frame certain tools such as Self Test will divide the frame into additional frames.

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 instructor/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 less desirable 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 obvious 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 instructor/designers to add images easily to certain areas of their course, but these fields are not given an option to include an alt tag.

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

A four-column table within this section 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 tools.