Increasing Access and Success in Online Education for Students with Disabilities (original) (raw)
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From Disability to Usability in Online Instruction
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
This article is a primer on the work needed to ensure accessibility in online instruction. It discusses different disabilities, reviews relevant laws and standards, and explores the relationship between accessibility and the principles of universal design. The article introduces a number of best practices for creating accessibility in online instruction.
E-Accessibility for Students with Disabilities
Global journal for research analysis, 2020
The study attempts to understand and address the various issues and challenges faced by students with disabilities in accessing digital resources especially at higher educational levels. The research objectives framed or the study aimed at: a) identifying the various standards of accessibility, b) understanding the barriers faced in e-accessibility and c) nding solutions to the challenges faced by students with special needs. The research method adopted for the study consisted of collecting both primary and secondary data. A survey of 10 educators from schools in and around Coimbatore district, Tamil Nadu, including both special and general educators, was carried out to gain primary data on the barriers faced by students with special educational needs in accessing digital content. The secondary data helped in the identication of various standard guidelines and principles for promoting web accessibility. The study ndings reveal that educators, students and authors of e-content should be sensitized towards the various web accessibility guidelines and techniques. Further, the use of assistive technology should be promoted as a reasonable accommodation for accessing digital information based on user preferences which should be mapped with the e-learning resources and environment through generation of user proles. The study also supports the inclusion of assistive technology in a child's individualized educational program for facilitating e-inclusion and e-accessibility thereby promoting academic progress of the child.
Understanding disabilities & online student success
2013
Online learning has been growing at an exponential rate over the past decade, providing new opportunities for students seeking quality courses and programs offered through flexible formats. However, as higher education continues to expand online offerings, services must be expanded simultaneously to support all students. This article focuses on online student success and the importance of ensuring that accessibility is at the forefront of course design. Included are responses to 20 questions regarding disabilities and online student success. The article is interactive and provides readers with the opportunity to engage in simulations, to complete online assessments, and to watch/listen to demonstrations on assistive technologies. Recommended resources and strategies are provided that can be integrated into course design and faculty development.
Effects of New Supportive Technologies for Blind and Deaf Engineering Students in Online Learning
IEEE Transactions on Education
Contribution: A redesign of the Moodle platform to adapt digital educational content [learning objects (LOs)] to the specific needs of students with disabilities. The approach, extendable to a range of disciplines, was empirically tested with blind and deaf engineering students. Background: Previous studies identified difficulties that blind and deaf students face in accessing digital content for learning. General guidelines and specific tools are available to help educators adapt digital content and existing learning platforms for access by students with varying abilities/capacities. Such tools are usually for a specific disability rather than a range of capacities, and few provide empirical evidence of effectiveness. Intended Outcomes: The engineering-related digital content adapted using the techniques described in this paper should enable blind and/or deaf students to use an oscilloscope, understand communication channels, and distinguish the different types of telecommunication networks. Application Design: The Moodle learning platform was adapted using existing e-learning accessibility standards so that digital LOs could be automatically presented in formats accessible to blind and/or deaf students. This model is extendable for other types of disabilities, helping educators adapt existing content for access by students with differing capacities. The teacher adds content (in non-auditory and non-visual formats to describe content otherwise inaccessible to deaf or blind students) and students upload reusable profiles/metadata describing their specific accessibility needs to connect to suitably adjusted content. Findings: Learning improvement with the adjusted platform was evaluated via multiple choice pre-and post-tests. Students' learning performance improved significantly across all groups: blind (45%), deaf (46.25%) and deaf-blind (87.5%).
Some Accessibility Problems of Educational Technologies for People with Disabilities
EDULEARN19 Proceedings, 2019
The World Wide Web has become an integral part of the everyday life of many people, and this also applies to the world of education. People with special educational needs need to have equal rights and opportunities to use the modern innovative educational technologies. However, people with disabilities in Bulgaria have a number of limitations and barriers to their training and it is interesting to consider some issues are available for educational technologies for people with disabilities. The article examines some of the problems of acquiring knowledge about people with disabilities in Bulgaria. The most common digital barriers to disability are studied that make access to training difficult for them or made this training even impossible. Tools and methods for assessing access to educational services have been developed. For research purposes, an online survey and a digital repository have been created. More specifically, the state of web accessibility for people with disabilities ...
IEEE Access
People with different capacities, such as the deaf and blind, have problems accessing educational content due to lack of accessible technology. Accessibility and usability are closely related concepts that share the goals for a satisfactory user experience. Existing literature establishes a direct relation between accessibility and usability, and reports that there are problems with both in learning platforms, and more generally with most websites. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the accessibility and usability of a learning platform by interrogating its participants. Three groups of students with different capacities (blind, deaf and deaf-blind) used an accessible learning platform prototype to assess the accessibility and usability of the platform and its contents. This article presents a comparative study of the perception and attitude of blind and deaf students towards the use of a learning platform adapted to their personal needs. Results showed that their attitude to the adaptation was very positive but there were differences in the perception of the ease of use of the application and with the level of difficulty to access the learning content. This work contributes to the body of knowledge by showing the effects that adaptations have on learning contents for blind and deaf students in terms of accessibility and ease of use through the analysis of the perceptions of participants. Future work may consider increasing the sample of students, as well as developing and testing new technologies and approaches that address other forms of functional diversity.
Computer-based Assistive Technologies in Education for Students with Disabilities
2013
The aim of this paper is to accentuate the role of computer-based assistive technologies in the education process of students with disabilities. The paper presents preferred assistive technologies and types of educational problems that disabled students face. Impact of assistive technologies on independence in education and on quality of studying was also analyzed. Since the focus of this paper lies on the usability of computer-based assistive technologies, as fundamental elements of the education of disabled students, the importance of their accessibility is being particularly emphasized.
The Accessibility of E-learning Systems for Disabled
Studia commercialia Bratislavensia, 2012
This paper provides an overview of conditions which discriminate the use of regular elearning systems by disabled individuals. It also offers information about solutions on the side of provider and teacher which can be categorized as software or application solutions and hardware or assistive technology solutions.