What accessibility supports does EdReady provide?

This article contains the following information:

• About Accessibility in EdReady
• EdReady's Accessible Features
• Enabling EdReady's Accessibility Supports
• Available Settings:
  • Use EdReady with a screen reader
  • Enable keyboard focus wherever possible
  • Enable contrast controls
  • Enable table of contents for all pages

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About Accessibility in EdReady

For the NROC Project, "accessibility" is a fairly broad construct, encompassing the idea that we should be able to accommodate the unique learning needs of every learner somehow, whether linguistic, motile, auditory, visual, or otherwise. This aspiration is not easily achieved, but together with our members and partners, we continue to improve EdReady’s accessibility on multiple fronts.

The NROC Project adheres to best practices in software development and WCAG 2.0 guidelines to the degree that it can to build in accessibility by design; however, EdReady is a complex, multimedia-rich platform that cannot provide a truly equivalent learning experience for all users, especially those who are visually impaired. We have undertaken great effort to make EdReady compatible with most screen readers, as well as providing additional settings to assist users with varying degrees of visual impairment. Users with mobility impairments should be able to navigate the application using a keyboard or other assistive technologies.

You can download our VPAT and Accessibility Statement for complete technical details.

EdReady's Accessible Features

Features include:

• Full coverage of every learning objective with assessment items (i.e., test questions) with complete alt-text descriptions for every embedded image.
• Similar alt-text treatment for all of the topic texts.

 

Students can enable the "Use EdReady with a screen reader" setting (see details below): when applied, all of the testing and learning objects will be focused on items which are deemed fully accessible. You will not have access to video learning objects since they are not compatible with a screen reader. If you want to watch or listen to the video content, you may wish to turn this setting off temporarily.

(Your EdReady Administrators can also activate/deactivate this option for you if needed.)

  

Enabling EdReady's Accessibility Supports

As a student, you can enable EdReady's Accessibility supports by clicking the Show Additional Options link and then selecting the Use EdReady with a screen reader setting (or other settings of interest - see more details below) during registration or on your My Account page:

 

Be sure to either click the Sign Up for EdReady button (if registering) or the Save Changes button (on the My Account page) to save your selection.

Available Settings

Use EdReady with a screen reader

EdReady is compatible with most screen readers, however, NROC strongly recommends using the Chrome browser from Google and installing the ChromeVox extension with “Google US English” voice enabled. This is what we use as our testing standard for screen readers

You may be able to use EdReady with a screen reader without enabling the 'Use EdReady with a screen reader' setting. However, some portions of EdReady that are not screen reader friendly, such as videos and some types of assessment questions, will remain available and may be difficult to navigate.

Once the 'Use EdReady with a screen reader' setting is enabled, the student experience will focus on the questions (in all test activities: diagnostic, unit tests, and topic tests) and learning objects that are fully accessible with a screen reader. This functionality will work seamlessly in the background for students, and there will be a small green banner indicating that it is enabled when you click the Learn button from your study path:

The banner across the top of the page will confirm that Accessibility Support is ENABLED. If you see this as a student and did not intend to enable this setting, you can click the Disable this Option link to turn off the associated setting.

Enable keyboard focus wherever possible

Allows users to more easily navigate via tabbing through the on-screen elements

Enable contrast controls

Enable the Enable contrast controls setting and you will have an option to select your Desired contrast controls from the dropdown menu:

The display of EdReady will reflect the selected contrast option.

If you want to temporarily change or disable your selection, click the + show display preferences field near the top of the page: the display will expand to allow you to change or disable your contrast setting:

If you'd like to permanently change your contrast selection, visit the My Account page and update your selections there.

Enable table of contents for all pages

When the Enable table of contents for all pages setting is enabled, a Table of Contents will be displayed at the top of the page, above the EdReady header:

If you want to temporarily disable the Table of Contents, click the + show display preferences field near the top of the page: the display will expand to allow you to indicate that you want the Table of Contents turned off:

If you'd like to permanently change this setting, visit the My Account page and update your selections there.