Surpass® e-Assessment content achieves AbilityNet ‘Accredited Plus’ Award

BTL Group Ltd is delighted to announce that accessible e-Assessment content, created using the Surpass® Assessment Platform, has been awarded ‘Accredited Plus’ by the UK’s leading pan-disability charity, AbilityNet.

To achieve ‘Accredited Plus’, BTL created an exemplar assessment which was rigorously tested by people with a diverse range of disabilities and was reviewed for compliance with WCAG 2.0 AA. The key issues identified during the testing and review procedures have been subsequently resolved to provide ‘real-life accessibility’.

Achieving ‘Accredited Plus’ demonstrates that the Surpass® Assessment Platform can be used to create and deliver highly accessible e-Assessments.

Accessibility features in the Surpass® Platform include:

• JAWS screen reader compatibility
• Keyboard-only navigation
• Colour preference options for dyslexic and visually impaired users
• Additional time for candidates with special requirements
• Alternative text descriptions for images

Head of Digital Inclusion at Abilitynet, Robin Christopherson says “It is very encouraging to see an organisation take accessibility as seriously as BTL and adopt such a clear sighted, pan-disability approach. We hope that by ensuring that their products can be used by everyone regardless of any impairment, BTL will help accessibility best practice become a benchmark industry-wide.”

Paul Davis, Interaction Designer at BTL, states: ‘As an educational software provider we recognise our responsibility to create software that can be used by everyone regardless of disability. Working with AbilityNet has raised our understanding of the needs of disabled users and we aim to use this knowledge to ensure that all users have a positive and engaging experience with our software’.

BTL has produced guidelines which detail how accessible content can be created using the Surpass® Assessment Platform. These guidelines will be made available to all users of the Surpass® Platform.

To view the accredited exemplar, please visit www.btl.com/surpass/accessibility

BTL is an independently owned, client-driven company, working with some of the largest Awarding, Professional and Governmental Bodies in the UK, and internationally, to create a variety of e‑Learning and Assessment solutions.

BTL has created one of the most comprehensive, secure and innovative Assessment solutions on the market: Surpass®. Surpass® is used by a number of leading national and international Awarding and Professional Bodies to develop and deliver their global Assessment programmes.

Further information about BTL and its products and services can be found at www.btl.com

About AbilityNet
AbilityNet is a national charity specialising in ICT accessibility and usability, providing a wide range of services, including the development and implementation of corporate accessibility standards as well as disabled user testing and support for individuals through assessment and training.

For more information about AbilityNet, please visit www.abilitynet.org.uk

Contact
Hawa Mahmood
Marketing Manager

BTL Group Limited
Tel: 01274 203 255
Fax: 01274 203 251
Email: [email protected]