Accessibility and the Blackboard Academic Suite
Blackboard is committed to ensuring that our e-Education platform is usable and accessible. To fulfill this promise we are continually auditing our code and user interface design to ensure that our applications are usable by everyone, to the greatest extent possible, regardless of age, ability, or situation. Blackboard measures and evaluates accessibility levels using two sets of standards; Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act issued from the United States federal government and the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) issued by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
About Accessibility Standards
Section 508 was amended to the Rehabilitation Act in 1998 to require federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. The intent of this legislation is to remove the barriers in information technology, give new opportunities to people with disabilities, and encourage development of new technologies that achieve these goals. The application of Section 508 covers all communication, computing, storage, presentation, and production using computers, networks, software and other peripherals.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was founded in 1994 as a world-wide body whose mission is to create Web standards and guidelines. These standards help to ensure that the benefits of the Web are available to all people whatever hardware, software, culture, geographical location, physical or metal ability. In 1997, W3C published its first set of Web Accessibility Guidelines (WAI) for Web content, user agents (for example browsers), and authoring tools. WAI guidelines are continually updated as Web technology advances, and as our understanding of how people perceive, navigate, and interact with the Web grows.
Accessibility Audit
Blackboard has conducted regular audits of its software using third party firms to ensure compliance with these standards. Full audits were conducted of the Release 6.1 and 7.1 of the Blackboard Academic Suite. These audits include a complete review of instructor, student and administrative views. Auditing is done with both manual testing and automated tools. Users of assistive technology such as screen readers participated in the audits. Automated tools that were used in the audit include HiSoftware®AccVerify® Professional Version DS2 2005 (http://www.hisoftware.com). The browser tools used in the audit were Firefox Browser 1.5.1 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.x.
By using the standards set out by Section 508 and WAI in an independent audit, Blackboard has set benchmarks for continually measuring current levels of accessibility throughout our software. Our commitment to accessibility is reflected in our regular engagement in an accessibility discussion group with a consortium of universities and our mandate that all new development ensure accessibility and standards compliance.