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“Accessible means a person with a disability is afforded the opportunity to acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same services as a person without a disability in an equally effective and equally integrated manner, with substantially equivalent ease of use. A person with a disability must be able to obtain the information as fully, equally, and independently as a person without a disability. Although this might not result in identical ease of use compared to that of persons without disabilities, it still must ensure equal opportunity to the educational benefits and opportunities afforded by the technology and equal treatment in the use of such technology.” Source: https://www.visionpointmarketing.com/blog/entry/website-accessibility-higher-ed
The University of the West Indies is committed to promoting access to persons with disabilities, while maintaining academic and professional standards. A further commitment is to work towards supporting and enabling students and staff with physical disabilities, sensory impairment, specific learning disabilities, special psychological needs and medical conditions which may have an impact on day-to-day activities, to take part in all aspects of the University’s academic, professional and social programmes.
The University of the West Indies, recognises the following types of disabilities:
1. Blindness/Visual Impairment
2. Deafness/Hard-of-hearing
3. Speech Disorders
4. Physical Disabilities
5. Neurological Disorders
6. Learning Disabilities
7. Intellectual Disabilities
8. Mental Illness
Blackboard Ally is a revolutionary product that focuses on making digital course content more accessible. Using inclusivity, sustainability and automation as its key pillars, Blackboard Ally helps you understand and tackle accessibility in a way that benefits all students. It does this by:
Automatically scanning course content and providing accessibility scores and feedback on how to improve the accessibility of the content.
Generating alternative accessible formats for uploaded files that users can download for their personal use.
Ally scans the following types of content in your Blackboard site:
PDF files
Microsoft Word files
Microsoft PowerPoint files
OpenOffice/LibreOffice files
HTML files
Image files (JPG, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BPM, TIFF)
JAWS, Job Access With Speech, is the world’s most popular screen reader, developed for computer users whose vision loss prevents them from seeing screen content or navigating with a mouse. JAWS provides speech and Braille output for the most popular computer applications on your PC. You will be able to navigate the Internet, write a document, read an email and create presentations from your office, remote desktop, or from home. JAWS allows you to:
Read documents. emails, websites and apps
Easily navigate with your mouse
Scan and read all of your documents, including PDF
Fill out webforms with ease
Easy to use with Daisy formatted basic training
Save time with Skim Reading and Text Analyzer
Surf the net with web browsing keystrokes