Accessibility
Commitment to Accessibility
“I am totally convinced that Accessibility across the product line is a priority at Blackboard. They are already spending quality time and extensive resources working with a number of schools to make significant improvements. I have no doubts about Blackboard's commitment to Accessibility.”
- Ed Garay, Assistant Director for Academic Computing, University of Illinois at Chicago
Blackboard® is committed to ensuring that our platform is usable and accessible. The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) recently awarded Blackboard Learn™, Release 9.1 with a Nonvisual Accessibility Gold Certification, making it the first and only learning management system to achieve certification.
With valuable input from our clients and a strong set of development tools, we invest in developing accessible products and capabilities that meet the wide range of our client’s needs. To fulfill this promise we are continually auditing our code and user interface design techniques to ensure that our applications are usable by everyone, to the greatest extent possible, regardless of age, ability, or situation.
Blackboard measures and evaluates accessibility levels using two sets of standards: Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act issued from the United States federal government and the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) issued by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Audits of our software releases are conducted by a third party to ensure the accessibility of the products.
The Blackboard Accessibility Grant
In recognition of great contributors such as Dr. Bolotin and the National Federation of the Blind, Blackboard announced the Blackboard Accessibility Grant, a program to support work enabling education for students with disabilities. Learn more about this program.
The Blackboard Accessibility Interest Group
With over 100 clients participating, the Blackboard Accessibility Interest Group meets regularly to create sub-committees on various topics and to provide guidance to the Blackboard community at large. Blackboard team members have also been invited to take part in the group's activities and continue to work closely with this strategic group of clients.
Learn more about this important client-lead team.