Integrate Web AccessibilityEnhance Quality of e-LearningPoonsri Vate-U-Lan, Ed.D.

The National e-Learning Conference 2010 “Enhancing the Quality of e-Learning”, August 10-11 Bangkok, Thailand

by The Thailand Cyber University Project under the Commission on Higher Education, Ministry of Education, Thailand

A blind girl says “my journey to the light”. A deaf boy invites people to his silent world.

A picture is worth a thousand words

•Agenda

What is this paper about?A research based paper conducted in Thailand, Definition of terms,

A Researcher and ParticipantsA Researcher: Full-time Lecturer in eLearning Methodology, College of Internet Distance Education, Assumption UniversityParticipants: Web administrators who respond to produce e-Learning in Thailand

Research result and Discussion The result shows a directions and how to transfer this knowledge into practice.

Recommendation for future research

What

Who

What

Why

What

Integrate Web Accessibility Enhance Quality of e-LearningThere is only an unclear and insufficient information regarding to this issue.

All people which include people with disabilities have the equal right to perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the information on the web site, and they should be able to contribute .

Definition of terms•Web Accessibility

Online student who is deaf - captioned

audio from multimedia

University student who is blind - appropriate

table markup and alternative text

• Thailand• The section 55 of Thai

former constitution

• The US• Section 508 of the US

Rehabilitation Act

• UK• Disability

Discrimination Act (DDA)

•Web accessibilityhas been introduced to be a standard across nations.

MORE THAN 44,318 MEMBERS

• July 2008 • July 2010

MORE THAN 101,574 MEMBERS

•Thailand Cyber UniversityOrganization responsible to provide on-line education for higher education in Thailand

increased 64.5 % per year

approximately

The number of Thai Internet users who were seeking e-Learning courses has been increasing dramatically.

• According to the Bureau of Special Education Administration, (2008) approximately three fifths or more than half of students under the service, continued study in Thai education system.

• There were 1,928 university students with disabilities. This data was derived from 187 higher education institutes under the jurisdiction of the Commission on Higher Education (CHE) of Thailand (2007).

• The summary conducted by CHE concluded that 64.35 % of higher education institutes in Thailand had university students with disabilities.

•Students with Learning Disability in ThailandReferring to the literature review

Therefore, it seems necessary that the web administrator, instructional designer and e-Learning producer should learn, develop and disseminate web accessibility design rules for all electronic learning materials.

is an ideal to defect prevention and upgrade the quality of product (Crosby & Weiss, 2010).•“Do the job right the first time.”

Gender Residence Work place

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80Profiles of participants

•58.5 % were female and 41.5 % were male.

•72.9% were web administrators for e-Learning who work in Bangkok, only 27.1% lived in other provinces.

•72% of the participants were working in higher education institutions, 28% about three tenths of participants were working at a school level.

•Profiles of participantsGender, residence and work place for 118 participants

54%

25%5

%

15%

MOODLE Blackboard Atutor other

The majority 54.2% of participants indicated they were MOODLE users, 25.4% or one fourth of participants indicated they were Blackboard users and 5.1% of participants indicated they were Atutor users. The remainder, 15 % of participants indicated they were users of other kinds of LMS.

•Learning Management Systems (LMS)

54.2 % 25.4 % 5.1 % 15%

67%

30%3

%

Did not know Knew Used The majority of participants indicated that they did not know about web accessibility (67%). Only 30 % indicated that they knew about web accessibility, while 3% indicated that they were web accessibility users.

•Knowledge on web accessibility

67% 30% 3%

56%

43%

1%

Willing to use Not sure Will not use

More than half or 55.9% indicated that they are willing to use features of web accessibility in LMS in the future. However, 43.2 % indicated that they were not sure they would use it and less than one per cent (0.8%) indicated that they will not use it in the future.

•Future situation of web accessibility

55.9% 43% 0.8%

61.9 % stated they had no experiences with using web accessibility.

48.3 % stated they were very interested but lacked knowledge

39 % stated they lacked the time to learn what web accessibility is

34.7 % stated they lacked an understanding of web accessibility

•Experience in web accessibility

16 % indicated only a few students had disabilities• They misunderstood that applied web accessibility rule

in the on-line projects requires additional time

12 %• lacked of motivation to use it

8.5 %• believed that web accessibility was very complex

3.4 %• thought web accessibility was meaningless

•Why individual ignore web accessibility

•Delivery web accessibility method

Options Percentage

Training program 34.7

On-line self learning 33.9

Onsite training plus help center 21.2

Seminar and workshop 8.5

•The factors that most influenceto use web accessibility guideline

Factors Level of opinions (out of 5)

Moral support, students with disabilities should not be ignored

Agree (3.8)

Commercial concern Agree (3.6)

Legal issue Average (2.9)

• There is a high demand for training in web accessibility for e-Learning

• Students with disabilities have equal rights

• On-line information of web accessibility should be developed and distributed

•Suggestions

Thank you for your attention!

Questions ?Contact poonsri.vate@gmail.com

A measure of any society is how they treat their most fragile

members.Plato

• Henry, S. L. (2005). Introduction to Web Accessibility. Retrieved August 4, 2010, from http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/accessibility

•Bibliography