[Athen] Accessibility of Social Annotation Tools?

[Deborah Armstrong via athen-list]

Perusall has a lot of accessibility tools, a comprehensive list of keyboard shortcuts, a read out loud button and ability to change themes, fonts and such.
But I'm having some issues using it with a screen reader, because it wants users to highlight text using caret browsing mode, and screen readers do not see it as a web app the way they do with the Google suite or Office online.
Also the instructor must provide text rather than images of a textbook for students to annotate, otherwise it becomes inaccessible. The system attempts to OCR the text but does a terrible job.
I think for many disabilities Perusall would work well, and I'm still trying to find a way for a screen reader to know when text is being highlighted and read while text is being selected.
--Debee


From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> On Behalf Of Russell Solowoniuk
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2021 9:47 AM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network (athen-list at u.washington.edu) <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: [Athen] Accessibility of Social Annotation Tools?

Hi everyone,

We will be switching our LMS from Blackboard Learn to Moodle beginning in the spring 2022 term. There is some discussion about including social annotation tools within the LMS. Has anyone had any experience with social annotation tools? If so, how accessible are they? Here is a brief description of social annotation tools, followed by a list of the 3 tools being considered at our institution. If anyone has any information as to how accessible any of the below tools are, that would be greatly appreciated.

Definition: What is social annotation? Social annotation is reading and thinking together. It brings the age-old process of marking up texts to the digital learning space while making it a collaborative exercise.

Three tools being considered:

  1.  Hyposthes.is<https://web.hypothes.is/> (browser extension) - Open Source but cost to integrate it into LMS

https://web.hypothes.is/blog/annotating-with-hypothesis-is-fully-accessible/

https://d242fdlp0qlcia.cloudfront.net/uploads/2021/02/14144633/Hypothesis-VPAT-2020.07.22.pdf


  1.  Perusall<https://perusall.com/> (LTI) - actual e-reader with annotation tools

https://perusall.com/downloads/vpat.pdf



  1.  Talis Elevate<https://talis.com/talis-elevate/>

https://support.talis.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000695158-Web-Accessibility-Statement


Vanderbilt University comparison chart of Hypothes.is and Perusall<https://cdn.vanderbilt.edu/vu-wp0/wp-content/uploads/sites/156/2020/08/13141759/Social-Annotation-Tools.pdf>

Thank you for any information at all.

Take care,

Russell

Russell Solowoniuk
AT Educational Assistant, Access and Disability Resources
MacEwan University
7-164K, 10700-104 Ave.
Edmonton, AB  T5J 4S2
E: solowoniukr at macewan.ca<mailto:solowoniukr at macewan.ca>
T:  780-497-5826
F:  780-497-4018
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