On-line teaching applications have the potential to present serious difficulties to people with disabilities, especially those products which employ various multimedia tools.  In particular, attention should be paid to the use of on-line teaching tools such as WebCT and Blackboard , to determine whether they are compatible with the most commonly used screen readers, or whether they require adaptive tools available to make these applications 508 compliant.  Currently Web CT advanced HTML features such as frames, forms javascript alert boxes, graphics (via alt tags) and tables are supported in JAWS 3.7 or later.  Blackboard's soon to be released version 5.5 claims to be nearly 100% compliant, however, its current 5.0 version is not.

For additional information about the Web CT Accessibility Initiative, contact Glen Low (WebCT Accessibility Coordinator) or Laurie Harrison (ATRC-Web CT Support).