An evaluation of accessibility in online learning management systems

Millions of computer users in the USA have a disability making it difficult to use the Web. The University of Wisconsin System recently required that all System Web pages meet Priority 1 accessibility guidelines as set by the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Accessibility Initiative (W3C/WAI). Class materials available in online learning management systems should also be accessible to students with disabilities. Four systems, Blackboard 4 and 5, Prometheus 3, and WebCT 3, were assessed against theW3C/WAI guidelines for a numerical statistic of accessibility. Practical accessibility was tested with Lynx, IBM Homepage Reader, and JAWS. Validation was performed with A‐Prompt and the W3C/WAI checklist.