[Athen] [EXT] Question re online labs' accessibility

[ELIZABETH KILLINGER via athen-list]

I don't know what publisher it is with, but most of the bigger ones have
techs that can help with this. It takes some transferring.

I would sit down with the student first and have them login and demonstrate
the issue. If you cannot troubleshoot. Then you can reach out to the
publisher.

One thing to note, that if your school is using any of these resources, you
should have a VPAT on file for them - verifying they are accessible to
current standards.

*Elizabeth Killinger*
*Associate Coordinator*

*FIT-ABLE | Office of Disability ServicesFashion Institute of Technology*
David Dubinsky Student Center, A570
Phone: 212.217.4090
Website: fitnyc.edu/fitable


On Fri, Jan 16, 2026 at 10:59 AM Deborah Armstrong via athen-list <
athen-list at u.washington.edu> wrote:


> What is the latest on the accessibility of online labs from the big

> publishers, Pearson, Cengage, Mcgraw-Hill, etc.?

>

> We have more and more instructors requiring them and at our community

> colleges we get vision-impaired students new to college and new to vision

> loss and new to using a screen reader.

>

> So when a student tells me that their lab is not accessible, I’m really

> not sure what to do. Is it the student’s lack of screen reader skill, or is

> the lab truly not accessible? As a screen reader user myself I hear these

> complaints often, but I’m a worker bee, not even faculty, so there’s not a

> lot I actually can do about the situation. We have a computer access lab

> where I send students to get one-on-one assistance, but I often don’t know

> if the lab is really going to work out for them.

>

> I can get an access code from the instructor and play with the lab a

> little, but it takes time away from what I’m supposed to be doing. Because

> I’m a screen reader user myself, students and instructors think I have

> magic solutions. And once in a while I actually do. But not always.

>

> When I’ve taken courses using some of these labs, I haven’t run in to a

> lot of access issues, and the few I had were easy to work around. But that

> doesn’t mean my students’ complaints are not real.

>

> I am curious how often this is occurring, and what you on this list

> typically do to resolve the issue.

>

> --Debee

>

>

>

>

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