MOOC Accessibility from the Educator Perspective (original) (raw)
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The flexibility of the MOOC service allows students to learn at their own time, place and pace, enhancing continuous communication and interaction between all participants in knowledge and community building. This model especially benefits people with disabilities, which can improve therefore their level of employability and social inclusion, reaching a better quality of life. Unfortunately the access to MOOC platforms present severe barriers: there is a lack of accessibility on the learning resources, the communicating tools and personalized user interfaces. All these issues add extra difficulties such as the need to develop specific digital or even social skills for students with functional diversity. In this context, MOOCs are leading a revolutionary computer and mobile-based scenario along with social technologies that will emerge new kinds of learning applications that enhance communication and collaboration processes. For that reason, this paper describes the need for designin...
Actas del V Congreso Internacional sobre Calidad y Accesibilidad de la Formación Virtual (CAFVIR 2014), 2014
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities stresses that persons with disabilities should be able to participate fully in all aspects of life, including education. Nevertheless, statistics shows than a low percentage of persons with disabilities complete higher education. MOOCs, being online courses available to a very large number of people, have a great potential to satisfy the learning needs of millions of people. When designing a MOOC, it is important to consider the diversity of abilities of all potential learners. Genuine universality and openness can only be achieved if all kind of users can access and use MOOCs to engage in learning regardless their abilities. This paper proposes two categories of web accessibility requirements: for personal and for non-personal disabilities. Each category is characterized and a preliminary list of web accessibility requirements for each one is presented. Both MOOC's platforms and contents must meet web accessibility requirements. If contents are accessible but not the platform, or vice versa, the MOOC is not accessible.
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This report presents a review of the accessibility models in Learning Resources and MOOCs with the aim of establishing common terms in the research of the EduTech project and other projects associated with virtual accessibility in member HEIs. This study is based on the search and analysis of articles and publications related to the subject following the MLR format. The results showed a lack of applicability and data that support the current situation in Latin America, however, the experiences of European projects and regulations that support their sustainability, establish guidelines that could guide implementation processes in higher education institutions in partner countries
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Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) were designed to enhance access to education to all that desire it. The open access drive seeks to promote free and equitable access to basic, higher, formal and informal education. The main aim of MOOCs is to de-institutionalize education moving it from the formalized class to the open platform where there are no admission requirements. The second aim of MOOCs is to provide access to lifelong learning for those who want to learn for the sake of knowing and developing their competencies. The objective of this document analysis based paper is to analyze primary qualitative-research academic sources dealing with strategies to make MOOCs accessible to people with visual impairments. This paper uses Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles as a lens through which accessibility of MOOCs to people with visual impairments are examined. The document analysis involved a careful examination of research methodologies that had been used to gather data. ...
Universal Design and Accessibility Standards in Online Learning Objects
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This article notes that the media used in distance learning mode can create barriers to access such content for people who have some form of disabilities. Introduces the principles of universal design, aggregates the standards, guidelines and recommendations for creating accessible web content, developing a set of guidelines for creating accessible learning objects, aiming to support content-developing teachers in creating learning objects accessible to people with disabilities.
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There are some similarities in developing a traditional Higher Education (HE) eLearning course and MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), due to the use of the basis of eLearning instructional design. But in MOOCs, students should be continually influenced by information, social interactions and experiences forcing the faculty to come up with new approaches and ideas to develop a really engaging course. In this paper, the process of MOOCifying an online course on Universal Accessibility is detailed. The needed quality model is based upon the one used for all online degree programs at our university and on a variable metric specially designed for UNED MOOC courses making possible to control how each course was structured, what kind of resources were used and how activities, interaction and assessment were included. The learning activities were completely adapted, along with the content itself and the on-line assessment. For this purpose, the Gardner's Multiple Intelligences Product Grid has been selected.
Holistic vision for creating accessible services based on MOOCs
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MOOCs are examples of the evolution of eLearning environments towards more a revolutionary computer and mobile-based scenario along with social technologies that will lead to the emergence of new kinds of learning applications that enhance communication and collaboration processes. The flexibility of the learning service students to learn at their own time, place and pace, enhancing continuous communication and interaction between all participants in knowledge and community building, especially benefits people with disabilities and therefore can improve their level of employability and social inclusion. However, the access to MOOC platforms still present barriers, there is also a lack of accessibility on the learning resources, the communicating tools and even personalized user interfaces. All these issues present definitive barriers that add extra difficulties such as the need to develop specific digital or even social skills for students with functional diversity. Therefore, an holistic vision of different strategies regarding the achievement of accessibility (from content to user preferences) is presented in this paper, strategies than should be addressed in order to achieve the better accessibility level while designing new learning services for people with functional diversity based upon MOOC
Optimizing Accessibility Training in Online Higher Education
In higher education and technology-enhanced learning environments, there is an increasing need for faculty members, instructional designers, and other learning professionals to be aware of and to use technologies and other learning and teaching tools that are accessible to all students, regardless of disability or other additional need. In this study, we evaluated our experience in training faculty members and eLearning professionals in accessibility and universal design principles, and we investigated the impact of these training workshops on the professional lives of faculty and eLearning professionals, as well as the impact on the overall quality of the University's course design and instructional materials. The aim of this study was to best address the specific needs of faculty and eLearning professionals in a wide variety of discipline areas, such as Veterinary Medicine, Business, Computer Science, Mathematics, and Liberal Arts and Sciences. Overall, our training analysis is aimed at empowering faculty and eLearning professionals to effectively create and deliver more universally designed instruction. As such, the ultimate beneficiaries of our study will be the students, who will have access to more accessible educational materials created according to universal design principles.
How Could MOOCs Become Accessible? The Case of edX and the Future of Inclusive Online Learning
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have great potential to provide learning opportunities for people around the world. However, to reach their full potential, MOOCs need to meet the accessibility needs of diverse learners, with and without disabilities. In the literature review, we have found some published research on accessibility evaluations of MOOCs content and platforms, but we have not found published research on how to design existing and future MOOC platforms to assist authors in producing accessible content.