LMS Accessibility Comparison: Blackboard vs Desire2Learn vs Moodle vs SAKAI

Summary: Would you be interested in a Learning Management Systems Accessibility comparison especially for higher education?

LMS Accessibility Comparison: Blackboard vs Desire2Learn vs Moodle vs SAKAI

A few days ago I read the following report A Comparison of Learning Management System Accessibility were the authors compared Blackboard vs Desire2Learn vs Moodle vs SAKAI. It is true to say, that accessibility, the ability to access, is extremely important in the selection of a LMS if we want students and teachers with disabilities to fully benefit from the use of an LMS.

The authors evaluated the above LMSs based on the following 7 categories:

  1. Login, Configuration, and Compatibility
  2. Personalization and Customization
  3. Navigation
  4. Forms
  5. Help and Documentation
  6. Tools, such as announcements, discussion, email, chat, assignments, activities, course content, grade book, quizzing/testing components
  7. Authoring Tools and Content Creation

I highly encourage you to read the A Comparison of Learning Management System Accessibility report by

  • Hadi Rangin, Information Technology & Collaboration Coordinator from the University of Illinois,
  • Ken Petri, Director of the Web Accessibility Center at The Ohio State University,
  • Marc Thompson, instructional designer at the University of Illinois,
  • Joe Humbert, Adaptive  Technology and Accessibility Specialist from Indian University, and
  • Dan Hahn, eLearning Professional at University of Illinois.