Digital Accessibility & MOOCS Mrs E.A. Draffan

Digital Accessibility
&
MOOCS
Mrs E.A. Draffan
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gforsythe/
Changing Demographics & Relationships
• more mature, part-time, distance & online
students,
• increasing student numbers (including the
recruitment of more students from outside the UK),
• exploration of overseas markets,
• strained or declining finances and pressure on
physical estates and
• the need to develop employability skills in
graduates.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/garryknight/
Digital Accessibility?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gforsythe/
Working from Strengths
Strengths:
Individual
preferences
Visual, Auditory
& Kinaesthetic
Dexterity &
Mobility
Confidence
Processing speed
& attention
Health
Perceived
benefit
Tasks:
Reading &
understanding
information
Resources:
Expertise:
Financial
Prior knowledge &
experience
Training
Writing
Organisation &
Planning
Peer support
Communication
Support
Professionals
Memory & Recall
Time, Money &
Numeracy
Daily Living
Technical support
Information
Processing
Working Memory
Technology skills &
confidence
Motivation
Environment:
Tools:
Workplace / Study /
Living environment
Text to speech / eReading
Accessibility/
Constraints
Word processing &
proofing tools
Compatibility
Graphical mapping /
Planning
Security & IT
Policies
Reminders
Speech recognition
Daily Living needs
Calculators & Maths
Study support
Alarms & environmental
controls
Wearable technology
Communication devices
Draffan E.A. & James A. (2013)
Tools for the tasks
Access
Personalisation
and Accessibility
Productivity Tools
Free, Portable and Online
Technologies
Questions to ask those creating
academic content …
• What are the best ways to achieve the learning
objective?
• Why are you using a particular type of multimedia?
• What are the barriers to its use?
• Do all learners need to use it?
• Do certain alternatives impact on learning
outcomes?
• What are the alternatives on offer?
• Can they be achieved and allow for
personalisation?
Dublin Institute
of Technology
University
of Southampton
Université
Paris 8
HiOA Oslo
TU Dresden
HdM Stuttgart
JKU Linz
University
of the Aegean
http://gpii.eu/moocap/
Collaboration
Stepwise Approach
A record of all the steps
is kept for reference –
useful when advising
about ease of access for
all stakeholders
Each week is made up of activities
broken down into small steps
representing the type of content
Each step is timed,
checked for accessibility
with named author
Copyright and
legal requirements
signed off.
Internationalisation and Interoperability
Existing Content
Standards
Content
Type-set
PDF creation
e-assessment
PDF
Assistive
Viewer Technology
.
Existing
Technical
Standards
James A. (2015)
Individual issues and Improvements for All
Free Document Accessibility Checkers
• Structured Word document (using heading and
styles e.g. Microsoft Accessibility Checker)
• Accessible PDFs - free checker PAC 2 or online
PAVE
• Calibre to convert to ePub and many other
formats
• Accessible ebook checker (ePub) from
International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF)
Localising multimedia tools?
• Notetaking – Synote
• Technology support - ClaroRead YouTube
• Maths notation with text to speech - STEMReader
Web Accessibility – can we make it
easier?
• Video from Fix the Web (YouTube – captions for
translation)
• Automatic checkers compared – 50% of the WCAG
2.0 criteria
• IBM Bluemix services Digital Content
Checker and Automated Accessibility Tester (free
trial)
• ATbar and Web2Access updates
Open Source and Crowd Source
Xerte
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gforsythe/
Responsive Design
Slidewiki
Created by ali1k.
Crowd Learn
Conclusion
• Wide range of expertise – learning from each other
and spreading this knowledge out to stakeholders
• Crossing boundaries between accessibility, usability
and personalisation.
• Opening the subject of digital accessibility out
beyond the gatekeepers
Thank you