According to a news release this month, upgrades to the courseware, or educational computer program, include a keyboard-accessible control panel that allows vision-impaired students to use the program without a mouse. In addition, the program can provide a real-time audio reading of detailed alternative text to describe what's taking place on the screen as students use these interactive tools. Alchemie also added support for color contrast and screen magnification.
The upgraded courseware became available for students this fall as a result of a partnership between Wiley and ed-tech company Alchemie, which makes interactive tools for STEM students in both K-12 and higher education. It received financial support via grants from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institutes of Health.
Alchemie CEO and founder Julia Winter, who taught high school chemistry classes for more than 20 years, said Wiley is the company’s first commercial partner.
The Alchemie tools embedded in Wiley’s general chemistry courseware allow students to build and explore chemical equations, structures and models using a game-like interface. Students can operate these “interactives,” as the company calls them, without a mouse, using Alchemie's keyboard-accessible control panel.
Equally crucial to the accessibility of these tools is Alchemie’s real-time alternative text feature, which is screen reader compatible and designed to describe any aspect of a chemistry equation or model in a clear, consistent manner. This upgrade from basic, static alternative text allows vision-impaired students to more accurately explore and envision what’s happening onscreen, Winter said.
“When they make a move, it tells them what they did and tells them what’s on the screen,” she said. “So any visuals a sighted person would get, the screen reader user can get that through their screen reader.”
This descriptive alternative text is critical for vision-impaired students studying chemistry, Winter said, which relies on visual representations of matter and can therefore be challenging for people who can't see. Wiley chose to deploy the Alchemie tools in its assessment program for beginning chemistry students first in order to address this challenge from the outset, according to Lyssa Vanderbeek, the company's vice president for courseware.
“Ensuring that all students have an equal playing field when they’re coming into these early courses is so important,” Vanderbeek said. “If a student drops out or fails chemistry there, they may not pursue a career in science.”
Wiley's general chemistry courseware is an adaptive assessment program used by about 15,000 college students, most of whom are incoming freshmen, Vanderbeek said. The program automatically alters difficulty based on individual student ability and is typically used for online homework assignments throughout the semester, she said, so vision-impaired students won't be the only beneficiaries of recent upgrades.
“They’re all going to be using these tools to ... complete their assignments,” Vanderbeek said. “Everyone gets to benefit from the interactive nature of these tools.”
Vanderbeek said plans are underway to apply Alchemie’s tools to all of Wiley’s chemistry programs, which serve around 100,000 students.
