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What's in store for WebCT at MCC?
October 2001 Edition
Submitted by Jeffrey Anderson
Greetings MCC Faculty and Staff Last Summer I had the wonderful opportunity along with Peggy Johnson from Life Science, and Sheila Merritt from Communication to attend the 2001 WebCT Conference in beautiful downtown Vancouver, B.C. While we were there, I attended several seminars run by WebCT that communicated what was in the future for WebCT. It was shortly thereafter that the latest version of the WebCT Software was released, version 3.6 to be exact. Currently, here at Mesa we use version 3.5. However we will be upgrading to version 3.6 over the Winter break. Does this mean you who use WebCT will have to learn a new user interface all over again? Absolutely not! So why the push to upgrade? WebCT version 3.6 offers a few key features over 3.5 that we need to have in place by January. The most notable of these is WebCT's support of Section 508 or ADA (Americans With Disabilities act) compliance. It is anticipated that we will be required by law to make sure any of MCC's hosted web sites will be ADA Compliant. WebCT version 3.6 has been modified from the 3.5 version to include support for ADA compliancy. To most of us, there won't really be any change visually to WebCT itself once the upgrade has taken place. However, to folks who require special software to access websites such as sight-impaired individuals, WebCT's user interface will now support such software. That is the main reason the upgrade is taking place. For those who use WebCT, the transition will be smooth; you may not notice any difference once the upgrade has taken place. For more information about new features available in WebCT 3.6, please visit the following link to WebCT's website: Link For other information about Section 508 and ADA compliancy visit the following websites: http://janweb.icdi.wvu.edu/kinder/overview.htm
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