Accessibility White Paper
Read our new "No User Left Behind: Elluminate and the Accessibility Imperative" white paper. There's even a version that's screen reader friendly. Download now!
See V10 in action!
View V10 Sneak Peek Webinar recording. Click on CC icon in top tool bar to view session closed captioning.
Why is accessibility important?
It's the law It's the right thing to do It's just good business It benefits ALL users
Elluminate Live!® V10
Equal Opportunity Education—for ALL
At Elluminate, our unified learning and collaboration approach includes unifying the learning experience for everyone. We believe 21st century learning means an easy-to-use, inclusive environment that eliminates barriers to supporting individual needs and learning styles.
That’s why the newest version of our flagship product Elluminate Live!® is all about accessibility—and not just for those with disabilities. V10 highlights include:
- Even greater access than ever before for users with blindness or low vision
- Improved user interface for screen readers creates easier-to-use environment for all
- Enhanced whiteboard, application sharing, and audio tools for higher-quality collaboration
- Increased engagement and awareness for educators and learners with new Activity Window
When you build in accessibility from the ground up, the end result is a richer, more interactive online teaching and learning environment for all, regardless of geography, economy, or ability. Think of it as universal design for education. Read V10 datasheet.
Click on the above screen shot to enlarge the Activity Window.
History of Accessibility
Our core No User Left Behind™ philosophy has guided us for almost 10 years. We began with low-bandwidth connectivity and cross-platform support, adding increasingly comprehensive features and functionality designed to enable an increasingly wide range of users to fully engage and participate.
With Elluminate Live! V10, we’ve taken accessibility to a whole new level that encompassed real user-driven development. Our Accessibility Taskforce includes a cross-functional Elluminate team, along with members of the educational accessibility community and educators and students with disabilities, who continue to serve as our valued advisors and product testers.
We also made a significant investment in training, testing tools, hardware, and software to ensure accessibility is a core component of the Elluminate platform. The result: a 21st century teaching, learning, and collaboration environment that truly brings accessibility to life.
Focus on Quality of Experience
The centerpiece of our Elluminate Learning Suite™, Elluminate Live! V10 also offers greater performance and usability. We’re especially excited about the new Activity Window, which provides unprecedented awareness of session activities for both educator and learner.
Our focus remains on the continuous improvement of your Elluminate experience—whether you are an individual student, educator, or entire class. So if you are totally in sync or struggling a bit with online teaching and learning, Elluminate can help YOU, providing equal opportunity education for everyone, everywhere.
Elluminate Live! V10 At a Glance
Features
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Benefits
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Accessibility features and functionality
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What do YOU want to do?
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Innovative Activity Window
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How much information do YOU want?
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Key performance and usability improvements
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Enhance the quality of YOUR Elluminate experience.
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Look who’s talking about Elluminate Live! V10
“Higher education consumers worldwide benefit from product improvements that present opportunities for and remove barriers from learning. Often, those improvements provide benefits to those beyond the group they’re initially aimed at. It’s not just about making a better product for those who are disabled. It's about making a better product for everyone. Elluminate is not just along for the ride. They want to take things to a higher level.” Read case study.
Mark Turner
Director for the Center for Accessible Media
California State University Office of the Chancellor
“Whether it’s distance learning or in the classroom, technology is impacting how learning gets done. If there are any barriers, individuals with disabilities can’t access the education they want and deserve. I can’t overstate the role of awareness—how important it is for faculty and technology vendors to be aware of barriers and issues. If they’re aware, they can address those needs. Elluminate has taken it upon themselves to become aware—and they’re acting on that awareness.”
Debbie Faires, Assistant Director for Distance Learning
School of Library and Information Science
San Jose State University
“Elluminate really “gets” the value of user involvement. Their work with users is important and exemplary. It’s difficult if you have a disability and you have to rely on others to get it right for you, especially when it comes to deciding among tradeoffs. People really don’t have a clue about tradeoffs if they’re not disabled.”
Deborah Kaplan
Director, Accessible Technology Initiative
California State University Chancellor's Office
“Ten years ago, we couldn't have dreamed of the potential. New technology makes things amazingly easier—as long as it's made accessible. Because we live our disability, we know how we can give feedback about what works and what doesn't. It's all well and good to design something with the best of intentions, but sometimes that results in a partial solution that's not really a solution at all. I really appreciate that Elluminate initiated their process for hearing from people with disabilities, not just relying on what they think should be a workable solution.”
Carin Headrick
Student and Accessibility Consultant
“The Activity Window is key, especially for those of us with low vision or blindness. It’s wonderful to have one place to focus, and I like the fact that Elluminate doesn’t put all users in the same box. Users can customize the environment so that it does what they want.”
L. Penny Rosenblum, Ph.D., Adjunct Associate Professor
Department of Disability and Psychoeducational Studies
Specialization in Visual Impairment
University of Arizona
“It is very encouraging to work with vendors like Elluminate that have realized the need for a universally-accessible web conferencing tool that is accessible to everyone, including people with disabilities.”
Hadi Rangin
Software Development Specialist
Division of Disability Resources and Educational Services
College of Applied Health Sciences
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Elluminate’s Assistive Technology
Being accessible enables people with disabilities to fully engage and participate in the teaching and learning experience. Here’s a summary of how Elluminate removes the barriers to universal access.
For those who are blind or have low vision …
- Inherited user-defined operating system color/contrast schemes
- Customizable user interface with personalized settings remembered from session to session
- Whiteboard content scalable by both moderators and participants
- Audible notifications of key events in session (raised hand, participant joined/left, incoming chat message, etc.)
- Full screen reader support throughout main interface
- Activity Window with text “timeline” of all session activities, including text from PPT slides for screen read access
For those who are deaf or hard of hearing …
- Activity Window with text timeline of all session activities
- Text messaging area
- Integrated closed captioning
- Multi-stream
- Ability to save by all participants
- Captured live and in archives
- Manual or voice-recognition input of captions
- Ability to enlarge font
- Ability to relocate, resize closed captioning window
For those who have mobility challenges …
- Full-keyboard navigation throughout main interface and all secondary windows
- F6 navigation between major modules (participants window, chat, audio, whiteboard)
- Shortcut/accelerator keys for key functions/interactions (complete list available in help section)
- Command-line interface in Activity Window to type commands (example: /hand up to raise hand)
For those who have learning disabilities …
- Activity Window consolidates what’s happening in session to help focus
- Ability to provide additional time to read slide presentation
- Ability to explain visual content using VOIP or telephony to students who have difficulty reading
- Breakout Rooms available for one-on-one time, additional practice, tutoring
- Ability to respond verbally with microphone/phone or by typing in chat window
- Fully interactive recordings for repeating class/content as often as needed
- Ability to save whiteboard material for further review outside of class
- Ability for instructor to file transfer notes to aid in studying
