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Accessibility Compliant?
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Does CourseLab have the necessary vpat software to be considered accessible, as per federal accessibility requirements?
 
For a starter 'vpat' isn't software it's just the name describes, a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template which federal (US) contracting officials can use to make preliminary assessments of a piece of software (or it's output) to see the services and features it has to support accessibility. It is a part of 508.
As a note for non-US users this 508 compliance is for things that are either directly or indirectly federally funded. It doesn't actually legally apply to the same thing if it is non-federally funded although other accessibility rules can apply. There are also national demarkations so if you'r module is on a web host in Brazil then none of the above applies unless you want to use it but local brazilian rules may apply.
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You are asking more than one question here, is courselab accessible and is it's output accessible.
As you are obviously US based your concern would be 508, with the core courselab product Section 1194.21 Software Applications and Operating Systems rules would be applied, the output a mix of this and .22 .23 .24 and maybe .31 and .41
Now the software itself is the creation tool and the module the object the user interacts with, and both would need to be considered seperately.
So....
**The creation tool, courselab, just needs to be described using the standard vpat template which is something that the creators would need to do. This is essentially a description of the software and what it does, as all of the MS office family is considered OK then there isn't a reason to suppose there would be a problem with courselab in this respect.
It would however require someone in the development team to produce and lodge a vpat. A pain with this is that it doesn't seem to be one body that manages this but it is at state level which has made the production of vpat's a very lucrative business. This is partially due to the insane level of complexity that has been written into the standards.
And...
**The output can support 508, however this isn't in the hands of the software creation tool but what you the user choose to make it do and to a degree the PC platform it is being used on and the assitive technology available there. It is possible to make very user unfriendly modules and it is also possible to produce extremely user friendly modules. The normal range of assistive tools can be used as long as they are present on the host pc or the server or LMS delivering the module.
This means that you could easily prove that courselab is CAPABLE of producing 508 compliant modules BUT each individual module would have to be uniqely considered for it's compliance because it is unique and may differ considerably depending on how you produce it. It may also differ wildly in its accessibility on different PC platforms with different software load outs. So you may create the most accessible module only to have it fall flat on it's face because the users PC lacks a piece of assistive software.
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This is one for either the dev team or the distributer in the US (Akuter Inc), you'll find their details on the partners page on this site (About -> Partners
 
 
I'm trying to get an 'official' take on this for you...... watch this space
 
 
 

So far I have this which is from the develpment team...

"We take into account W3C WAI suggestions (Web Accessibility Initiative http://www.w3.org/WAI/), in particular, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) part: http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC-WCAG20-20081211/
Most of its requirements can be met if the course author wants to do that. I.e. CourseLab does not force authors to create alternatives according to WCAG, but there is a possibility to make alternatives if the author wants to spend additional time on their creation.
As far as we know, 508 rules are quite similar to W3C WAI".

As I have already noted the software is one thing and can meet the accessibility criteria given suitable accessibility extensions on the local PC. However it is the output that really needs to be accessible and how much compliance is built into any individual module is entirely in the hands of the creator.
For example:
..... there are several forms of colour blindness, you should be deciding the colour scheme that best suits this range of disability
..... Text clarity is increased with size and contrast, you need to decide or research and utilise what is optimal for your target audience.

So the answer is still yes compliance is possible but it your responsibility.

Akuter are looking in to VPAT at the moment.
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