Hi Everyone,

I'm working with a student who is using Jaws 2021 and is enrolled in
an English course. The course is being delivered mostly online in
Blackboard, version 9.1, I believe.

The issue we are having is with the Discussion Board. The students
must post an introduction in the Discussion Board, and read and
respond to at least 2 other student introductions.

When the student clicks on "Create Thread" to start his introduction,
Jaws goes into "Application Mode. In this mode, the student can type
in the Subject line, but there seems to be no way to get to the editor
where the student must type in his introduction. Well, he can get to
it by tabbing twice, but once there, he is not able to type anything
in this editor, and there is no indication that he has entered the
editor. Jaws reads "Thread: Self introduction. – ENGL-102-AS07(1) -
2021 Win..." when tabbing twice from the subject field. We can confirm
that no text is being entered when typing by getting out of
Applications Mode and narrowing down to where the Word count is shown,
and it shows 0 words. The student is able to type his introduction in
Word, copy all the text, and then paste it into the editor, but can
not then read what he has pasted. We know the text has been pasted by
the Word count, and once he submits his post, we are able to open it
and read it with Jaws.
The same thing happens when trying to respond to another student's
introduction. He is able to read the introduction, press enter on
"Reply" but cannot type or even know when or if he is in the Editor.
He is able to type the response in Word, and copy and paste it into
the Editor, but it seems like sometimes pressing tab twice from the
subject field takes him into the editor, and sometimes he must tab 3
times, and since there is no indication that he is in the Editor, it
is really hit and miss and quite frustrating.

Are there settings in Blackboard that can be changed to allow Jaws to
work with the Editor in the Discussions area? Are there any Jaws
settings that can be changed to make this work?

I also experience this same issue on my PC, so it's not specific to
the student's computer. The problem also exists with NVDA. We are both
running Windows 10 and Jaws 2021.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Russell