Issues with Quiz Accessibility

[BrittanyGreer]

Has anyone had an issue with screen readers not reading all the quiz answers? 

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @BrittanyGreer,

I have not heard of any issues like that with quizzes (classic or new) in Canvas.  I suppose it's possible that something about a specific quiz answer was not entered by the quiz creator in an accessible way.  I would suggest reaching out to your teacher or your school/institution's Canvas team (usually in the eLearning / IT / Digital Education area) with details about what your screenreader had difficulty with to see if they could make any adjustments to the quiz.

I hope this helps a bit.  Good luck with your courses!

-Chris

[LatashaSummers]

no, u probably have zoom in cause my screen sometimes looks blurry to me and i have to zoom in.

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @BrittanyGreer,

I have not heard of any issues like that with quizzes (classic or new) in Canvas.  I suppose it's possible that something about a specific quiz answer was not entered by the quiz creator in an accessible way.  I would suggest reaching out to your teacher or your school/institution's Canvas team (usually in the eLearning / IT / Digital Education area) with details about what your screenreader had difficulty with to see if they could make any adjustments to the quiz.

I hope this helps a bit.  Good luck with your courses!

-Chris

[DannyMcDonald]

Hi Chris. A student at my institution has had the same issue recently (in the past several days) where their screen reader skipped over answer choices. As of now I do not see a solution. Any guidance is appreciated.

[DonnaLove]

Our blind student's screenreading software also cannot read the answer options in Quizzes.  It only can read the question text.  Also, the Canvas Immersive Reader option is not present when a Quiz is open. This is all very disappointing.

[DonnaLove]

I forgot to add that we are using Classic Quizzes.  It sounds like it won't get any better if we change to New Quizzes.  I couldn't find anything about accessibility for Quizzes in the Canvas Guides.

[saustin]

Good afternoon, the response below came from the topic "Quizzed not working with JAWS on Chrome and Edge"

10-17-2023 09:04 AM

One example. The Reader (Kurzweil) worked for the first 9 questions and starting at question 10 it no longer read the questions of the test or the answers. The problems may be related to multiple choice questions. Attempted to log in/out Kurzweil, same symptom persisted. Attempted to change settings options in Kurzweil, same symptom persisted. Attempted to move student to a new station, same symptom persisted. Restarted their workstation and the same symptom persisted. 

It appears the key factor is the 'New Quizzes' feature within Canvas, as it seems there are several question types exhibiting the issue and it's not present in classic quizzes. Natural Reader and Read Aloud do not work at all.
The free/limited TextHelp Read & Write Chrome extension appears to work inconsistently. Yesterday it worked OK (not perfectly), but this morning it is behaving similarly to Kurzweil when reading Multiple Answer questions - it bounces back up to the top of the page after reading the question.

[saustin]

One example. The Reader (Kurzweil) worked for the first 9 questions and starting at question 10 it no longer read the questions of the test or the answers. The problems may be related to multiple choice questions. Attempted to log in/out Kurzweil, same symptom persisted. Attempted to change settings options in Kurzweil, same symptom persisted. Attempted to move student to a new station, same symptom persisted. Restarted their workstation and the same symptom persisted. 

It appears the key factor is the 'New Quizzes' feature within Canvas, as it seems there are several question types exhibiting the issue and it's not present in classic quizzes. Natural Reader and Read Aloud do not work at all.
The free/limited TextHelp Read & Write Chrome extension appears to work inconsistently. Yesterday it worked OK (not perfectly), but this morning it is behaving similarly to Kurzweil when reading Multiple Answer questions - it bounces back up to the top of the page after reading the question.

[DannyMcDonald]

Chris, I'm not the Canvas admin on our campus, and the new IT person is still learning the role at this particular campus. How do I know if we have the New or Classic quiz in Canvas?

[paul_fynn · Accepted solution]

Hi Danny

New Quizzes runs through an external app, Classic Quizzes is internal to Canvas. Look and feel is very different. See https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-create-a-quiz-using-New-Quizzes/ta-p/11... 

If New Analytics is important to you (ie you want student interactions to be reported to the Canvas User Logs and New Analytisc) then stick with Classic Quizzes until Canvas resolve the issue of Canvas not returning the event data from New Quizzes.

[paul_fynn]

Adding to Chris's response, in our institution we have determined that New Quizzes, along with all of our other quiz and polling tools, is not fully accessible to students with visual challenges in a way that would avoid disadvantaging some students or allow us to be fully compliant.

We have two strategies to address this:-

1. We encourage our teachers to give students a practice quiz with exactly the same style and construction of questions so that they can identify anything that is an issue in the practice
2. Any student can apply to our Dyslexia and Disability Services to have
   1. a reader and/or
   2. a scribe

DDS have a team of people who are trained to log on over Teams and support students by reading and entering the quiz for them

In practice many of our 'extra time' students find that they get on better with Canvas New quizzes than other assessment types.

[haley_marek]

Hi Brittany -

We are also getting reports of screen reader skipping random question choices. Were you able to resolve?

[JoyJoyJ]

Hi @BrittanyGreer We are having a lot of problems with new quizzes in Canvas. Specifically with the screen reader Kurzweil. Which screen reader have you been having issues with?