The current state of accessibility of MOOCs: What are the next steps?

Francisco Iniesto, Patrick McAndrew, Shailey Minocha and Tim Coughlan

Institute of educational Technology

and

Faculty of Mathematics, Computing and Technology

The Open University

1. Rationale. Study context

2. MOOCs and accessibility research

3. A research plan to support design of accessible MOOCs

4. Conclusions

Indeed, the Porto Declaration on European

MOOCs highlights:

“Importantly, we stress that MOOCs must not be

seen as the outcome or exemplar of online

education. Rather they need to be understood in a

wider context as there is a long history of

research on open and online education and a

variety of approaches and tools to provide quality

learning opportunities to all.”

opportunities to all? -> MOOCs accessible to all.

Context: ICT + Disabilities:

• ICT -> possibility of their insertion into the work market.

• To make digital people increases the work rate.

• 100% consider that the incorporation of ICT into the workplace has increased their work possibilities.

Context: Accessible MOOC Learning:

Benefits such as:

• Openness

• Low cost

• Ubiquity (Time, place and pace)

• Acquiring knowledge

• Social learning: Connectivism

• Achieving new competences

• Develop professionally

Image retrieved from Open Education Europa

OU’s Equality and Diversity Annual Report:

“More than 21,000 disabled students are now registered, representing just over 12% of the OU student body. This is double the proportion of three years ago and far in excess of the performance indicator in the University’s equality objectives”.

Distance education and open education:

• 14% of students of the Open University

• (8% in the rest of UK universities)

• 23% of the users of open resources published by the OU (via iTunesU, YouTube and OpenLearn)

MOOC platforms:

• Web based eLearning engines • Scheduling academic curriculum • Synchronous and asynchronous

communication

Interface elements:

• Logging in, logging out • Navigating in courses and content• Multi layered structures

eLearning materials:

• Specific technology.

Barriers :

• The interface elements• The manner in which users interact

with these objects • Components which do not always

share a consistency of interface logic:

• Posting in a forum • Making up elements in

tests or timed quizzes• Embedded videos • Variety of document

formats

The minimum required level of accessibility :

Guarantee access to the content by means of the platforms.

Produce the content accessible in itself.

Evaluate the access conditions.

The technological platform.

The content of the MOOC must be the same for all of the students.

The students must be able to access the content using assistive technologies.

It is necessary to offer alternative textual descriptions for multimedia content.

Assistance must be provided.

How should the model for an accessible MOOC platform be?

Group of papers Reference Description

Assessment with users

Sanchez-Gordon &

Luján-Mora, 2013

Five Coursera courses for evaluating the accessibility of the

Coursera platform and the contents of these courses, with a

particular focus on learners in their old age

Al-mouh, Al-khalifa &

Al-khalifa, 2014

Ten Coursera courses of different disciplines for their suitability

for blind or partially sighted learners; none of the courses

reached the minimum level of accessibility

Bohnsack & Puh, 2014 Five MOOC platforms for blind users: Udacity, Coursera, edX,

OpenCourseWorld, Iversity. Except for edX, all the other

platforms had severe accessibility problems.

Student data

Rizzardini, Chang,

Gütl & Amado-

Salvatierra, 2013

MOOC that incorporated accessibility features to benefit a true

open online education for the wider population. The MOOC at

Galileo University was designed to provide equity access

Liyanagunawardena &

Williams, 2016

Pre-course survey for 10 courses on the FutureLearn platform to

show evidence that learners in their old age are already

participating in MOOCs

MOOC framework

Sanchez-Gordon &

Luján-Mora, 2014

Two categories of web accessibility requirements: for personal

and for non-personal disabilities. Both MOOC's platforms and

contents must meet web accessibility requirements

Sanchez-Gordon &

Luján-Mora, 2015

Three-layer architecture to extend the Open edX platform to

enhance the accessibility

Rodríguez-Ascaso &

Boticario, 2015

MOOC framework consisting of services, standards and quality

procedures related to accessibility

A RESEARCH PLAN TO SUPPORT DESIGN OF ACCESSIBLE MOOCS

•Methodologically -> the study will be mixed-methods.

•Interviews

•Questionnaires

•Usability and accessibility test

•Technical accessibility evaluation-> evaluation instrument

Viewpoints of stakeholders in accessibility practice:

• Semi-structured Interviews: MOOC platform providers, course providers and MOOC experts, end-users

• Existing data from FutureLearn -> Open University

• Iterative method of trial and error.

• Iteration 0 -> results publised

• Iteration 1 -> the use of automatic tools, tutored by an expert from the IET in order to avoid biases.

• Iteration 2 -> vector of characteristics, it will be reviewed by several international accessibility experts.

• Iteration 3 -> the final vector of characteristics -> Adaptation

EVALUATION INSTRUMENT

Accessibility evaluation of MOOC platforms and courses

• COLMENIA: Weprendo + UnX• UNED COMA • Miriada X • UAb iMOOC

All platforms obtain average results 5 – 6 /10 ->. None of the platforms achieve reasonable values (higher than 60%).

For the educational content -> no standards

Lack of accessibility of audiovisual resources.

In particular learning disabilities guidelines are very difficult to be checked.

eLearning platform standards:

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 (2008)

Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology1.0

•Documents: PDF, Word. Follow Accessibility guidelines for documents

•Videos (pills): Include subtitles, Sign Language Interpreter, Include alternative text to the video content. Textual description

A selection of a set of Web pages:

•The platform’s homepage.•The registration\login page•A representative page of the course.•A course page including a test.•A course page including a forum.•A course page including a p2p.

Educational resources (Knowledge Pills)Text based: PDF, Word,…Multimedia, Video lessons.

Methodology that combines:

Conformance reviews.

Screening techniques.

Iteration 0:

Evaluation through automatic accessibility tools :

WCAG Accessibility Validation

Disability Simulators

Usability and User Experience (UX)

Testing Tools

User evaluation

Educational content evaluation

The MOOC platform

The educational content.

Iteration 1:

• Evaluation through accessibility tools:

• WCAG accessibility validation

• Disability simulators

• Text based documents and video lessons accessibility validation.

• Evaluation of Usability and User Experience (UX):

• Usability Testing tools

• Manual techniques of user experience testing with learners

• Educational content (pedagogical design) evaluation.

• Review of intended learning outcomes.

• Activity run-throughs or developmental testing with users.

Iteration 01 x platform

COLMENIA: Weprendo + UnX:

UNED COMA

Miriada X

UAb iMOOC

Iteration 13 x platform, different course providers

FutureLearn

Coursera

edX

Udacity

Iteration 0

Evaluation through automatic accessibility tools :

WCAG Accessibility Validation: eXaminator

Disability Simulators: aDesigner

User Experience (UX)

Testing Tools: Sortsite

Educational content evaluation: Manually

Iteration 1

• Evaluation through accessibility tools:

• WCAG accessibility validation

• eXaminator

• Mobile: TAW

• Disability simulators, for example

• aDesigner

• NVDA

• Text based documents and video lessons accessibility validation.

• Video-lessons: Manually

• PDF: PAC2

• Evaluation of Usability and User Experience (UX):

• Usability Testing tools

• Sortsite

• Achecker

• Pigdom

• Manual techniques of user experience testing with learners

• Educational content (pedagogical design) evaluation.

CONCLUSIONS

Accessibility assessments and empirical investigations with stakeholder-groups:

To derive recommendations for accessible MOOCs

To develop guidance on how MOOCs can be accessed through the assistive technologies.

To provide the foundation for supporting those with disabilities to follow a route to open learning that meets their particular needs.

Image retrieved from Mary Robinson Foundation

Francisco Iniesto, Patrick McAndrew, Shailey Minocha and Tim Coughlan

Institute of Educational Technology

&

Faculty of Mathematics, Computing and Technology

The Open University, UK

francisco.iniesto@open.ac.uk, patrick.mcandrew@open.ac.uk, shailey.minocha@open.ac.uk, tim.coughlan@open.ac.uk