Why We Love the Pope Tech Tool

Accessibility checker tools for our CA Community College system:

PopeTech available free to all CA community colleges

UDOIT – open source (free) OR cloud-based (premium)

The free open-source version of UDOIT requires hosting on a server. That could be somewhere on your college server, or, if that’s not possible, Heroku is a free cloud server option.
Installation directions for UDOIT
Installing Heroku
There is also a cloud-based version of UDOIT which is hosted but requires purchase as part of Cidi Labs (some colleges have already done so – consider requesting that CidiLabs be added to the STAC list).

Ally (Blackboard) – fully funded for CCCs through June 30, 2021
If your CA community college would like to set up an Ally account, please contact support@cvc.edu.

Posted in Byte-Sized Canvas, Rubric Section D, Uncategorized.

Passionate about teaching and learning, Helen enjoys showing instructors how to apply best pedagogical practices in Canvas to create dynamic courses that keep their students engaged.

5 Comments

  1. Thank you. Clear, concise and easy to understand like all your Byte-sized Canvas videos. Thank you. I really appreciate PopeTech.

    Maris

    PS(Above it says Blackboard Ally is funded through June 30, 2021? Is this an error?)

    • You’re welcome, Maris. I love PopeTech too. I think it’s a game changer in the relationship between faculty and accessibility! =-)

      As for Ally, the CVC has an agreement to cover implementation costs for colleges that install the application through June ’22 but the “full coverage” contract for services ended this past June.

  2. I love the bit-sizes…

    Can we use UDOIT?

    As a POCR reviewer, it would be much more efficient to check the whole entire course, instead of page by page.

    • Hi, Miryan,

      There’s no accessibility tool mandated by CVC for use by faculty or reviewers. In fact, we strongly recommend collecting a variety of favorite tools since there’s not one accessibility tool that’s useful for all contexts. So, feel free to include UDOIT as part of your accessibility toolbox. (Do be aware of its pitfalls as well as benefits.)

      While reviewers are generally just doing a spot-check of content to determine if proper accessibility formatting has been used, instructors need to ensure that all the course content has been made accessible, which typically means checking each page. The Pope Tech tool greatly simplifies that process!

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