} Northern Arizona University

} / Michael Chasen
President and Chief Executive Officer
Blackboard, Inc.
650 Massachusetts Avenue N.W.
6th Floor
Washington, DC 20001-3796
/ Alfred Estrella
Chief Information Technology Officer
Northern Arizona University
Box 5100
Flagstaff, AZ 86011

Dear Mr. Chasen,

As a government agency, Northern Arizona University must comply with Sections 503, 504, and 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Our goal for software services we develop or procure is to apply universal design principles in order to maximize access and minimize unnecessary, costly, and stigmatizing accommodations for students with disabilities. I am sure you agree that today’s software should be designed to be as inclusive as possible.

I am writing to ask you help to rectify problems we have identified in Blackboard Vista. While Vista appears to have many universal design features, there remain areas in the product that do not meet our expectations. For example, several of the Course Tools, including the Calendar, Discussion and Mail components are not easily accessible or compatible with standard screen readers for students who are blind.

We are committed to working with our vendors and professional organizations such as the Association on Higher Education and Disability (see www.ahead.org) on behalf of our students with disabilities. We also encourage our vendors to fill out the “Voluntary Product Accessibility” template offered by the U.S. General Services Administration (see http://buyaccessible.gov) as a way to assist government procurement efforts.

Please let us know this is an important issue for Blackboard and that you are working toward fixing the accessibility problems we identified above. We would be glad to provide more information on this matter to your designers if that would help.

Sincerely,

Alfred Estrella

Chief Information Technology Officer

Northern Arizona University

March 15, 2010

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