The State of Accessibility in Blackboard: Survey and User Reviews Case Study

Context: Nowadays, mobile applications (or apps) have become vital in our daily life, particularly within education. Many institutions increasingly rely on mobile apps to provide access to all their students. However, many education mobile apps remain inaccessible to users with disabilities who need to utilize accessibility features like talkback or screen reader features. Accessibility features have to be considered in mobile apps to foster equity and inclusion in the educational environment allowing to use of such apps without limitations. Gaps in the accessibility to educational systems persist. Objective: In this paper, we focus on the accessibility of the Blackboard mobile app, which is one of the most common Learning Management Systems (LMS) used by many universities, especially during the current COVID-19 pandemic. Method: This study is divided into two-fold. First, we conduct a survey using questionnaires and interviews to explore the extent to which students consider the Blackboard mobile app usability. A Total of 1,308 hearing students and 65 deaf and hard-of-hearing students participated in the study. Second, we collected 15,478 user reviews from the Google Play Store and analyzed the reviews to extract accessibility issues. Result: We observed that most deaf and hard-of-hearing students found difficulty in the Blackboard mobile app, compared to hearing students. Also, our app store analysis showed that only 31% of the reviews reported violations of accessibility principles that apps like Blackboard must comply with. This study highlights these violations and their corresponding implications to support LMS frameworks in becoming more inclusive for all users. © 2023 ACM.

Teachers Perspectives on Transition to Online Teaching Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study

Education has faced various challenges due to the COVID- 19 pandemic. These challenges were even more dramatic for deaf and hard-of-hearing students as they transitioned to the online setting. This paper aims to explore the teachers' perspectives on transitioning to educating computer science deaf students at a technical college in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Therefore, the paper presents the results of 10 surveys and 5 interviews with faculty to identify the main obstacles that teachers have faced during the transition. This study outcomes reveal several challenges related to poor accessibility of learning tools, issues with the online availability of materials, no updates on the teaching pedagogy to accommodate the new settings and communication problems between teachers and students. Our study outlines important takeaways to provide deaf and hard-of-hearing students with a better learning experience. © 2023 ACM.