Streamlining Javascript Usage in Tests

1 Description

The usage and activation of Javascript in Tests should be streamlined. Javascript fallbacks are not mandatory in the ILIAS application since ILIAS 4.1. Currently there is some confusion due to the different activations on the  info screen and the question pages. Furthermore the behaviour is not consistent in all question types, see e.g. bug 8747.
 
We ask all users (and the current test maintainer) to post their comments and opinions on the topic.

2 Status

• Scheduled for: Release 5.0
• Funding: Required
• Maintainer: Björn Heyser
• Development: Feature is to be developed by Databay AG

3 Additional Information

• If you want to know more about this feature, its implementation or funding, please contact: mjansen (at) databay.de

4 Discussion

JF 2 Apr 2012: We schedule this improvement for 4.3. Please participate in the discussion.

MB 15 Aug 2013: As far as I understand, ILIAS as a whole is not usable with deactivated Javascript. Accordingly, it would not make sense to ignore the policy change with 4.1 in one module. T&A should remove support for non-JS interactions in general. Due to the absence of other opinions, I put this on the JF agenda again for a final decision on the matter.

JF Nov 25 2013: We agree with Max' comment of 15 Aug 2013. We would like to have only one implementation which may rely on Javascript. We schedule this change for 4.5.

YS Jan 07 2014: Javascript could/should make easier the usability of adding new answers too (f.e. "definitions" in matching questions). In ILIAS 4.3.5 the site scrolls up to the top after you've added a new definition (should have an "anchor").

Mirco Hilbert Jan 13, 2015: It should still be possible to deactivate JavaScript for single tests as it was possible in ILIAS 4.4. This has accessibility reasons. Blind people, which use a screen reader to take part at a test, cannot handle drag&drop questions (as the matching or the ordering question). They can in these cases use the form mode easily as we already have tested. When they have to deactivate JavaScript in each drag&drop question it would be an extra barrier for them.
Surely, activated JavaScript should be the default value for this option, so the option should be "JavaScript deaktivieren" instead of "JavaScript erzwingen".

Fabian Kruse, 16.01.2015: I can follow Mirco Hilbert's reasoning. In case this is relevant for other ILIAS objects, it might be a good idea to move this option to the Accessibility tab in the Admininstration. If, on the other hand, we want to empower participants to control this (which would make a lot of sense, as it’s not the admin or test author who should decide on this, but the end user), we would - most importantly - need to keep this option on the test's info tab.

JF 19 Jan 2015: This item has been open for discussion since over a year and no feedback has been made related to the removal of the JS mode. We agree that accessibility of the current implementation could be improved, but think that this does not need a complete separate implementation and now, after a year, it would need a new feature request and funding again. If accessibility is a requirement for users we would not recommend to use these question types.

Mirco Hilbert, 21.01.2015: I was the first time pointed to this request by the screenshots in Mapping of Settings-tab in the Test Object of ILIAS 5.0 and ILIAS 4.4, which were posted a week ago.
 
As I understand the status of this feature request, the funding is still required to abandon the option in question. Therefore, it should not need any extra funding to just keep the option as it currently is or to simply change the default value as I proposed. Am I wrong?
 
ILIAS presents itself as a low barrier system following the Accessibility Guidelines of the W3C. And as each student has the human right by the United Nation's "Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities" to full access, I find it incomprehensible and even dangerous to abandon this option with the effect to lower the accessibility of the e-assessment functionality of ILIAS.
 
At the Justus Liebig University Gießen we have a central project "Barrier-free systems of study information and registration" and the head of this project continuously tested the ILIAS system concerning accessibility features. For us the option to disable JavaScript to make drag&drop questions accessible for visually impaired people and to increase the didactical possibilities of tests is (besides the form mode of the ILIAS content editor which is still a bit bulky) the major feature of ILIAS with which we are promoting and advertising ILIAS that makes online self-tests accessible.

5 Follow-Up