A European Unified Approach for Accessible Life-long learning

Spanish track at EC-TEL 2010

Alicia Fernández del VisoECTEL 2010 – Barcelona

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AGENDA

01 What is EU4ALL?

02 Goals and objectives

03 The EU4ALL architecture

04 Adaptive components: device model, content personalisation

05 Architecture instantiation

06 Advantages of EU4ALL

06 User Requirements

06 Consortium & references

What is EU4ALL?

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European Unified Approach for Accessible Life-long learning

“EU4ALL aims to be the reference in Technology enhancing Accessible Lifelong

Learning”

WHY EU4ALL?

What is EU4ALL doing?

Support the Life Long Learning paradigm in Higher Education Institutions for people with special needs

Open, standard-based, reusable and extensible architecture of services for ALL which supports learners and service providers

User-centred services that consider individual user’s needs and preferences, pedagogical guidelines and adaptive behaviour based on users’ interactions

EU4ALL GOALSEUROPEAN APPROACH TO ACCESSIBLE LIFE-LONG LEARNING

eInclusion: ensuring equal access for all to Information Society and developing assisted systems to facilitate the participation of people with disabilities and ageing citizens in society

Technology Enhanced Learning and e-Learning: contributing to new understandings of the learning processes by exploring link between human learning, cognition and technologies

Software and Services: creating and extending open and interoperable platforms, methodologies, middleware, standards and tools

EU4ALL CONSTRIBUTION TO IST PRIORITIESA EUROPEAN APPROACH TO ACCESSIBLE LIFE-LONG LEARNING

What is the EU4ALL

Architecture?

Service architecture based on standardsEU4ALL FRAMEWORK

Adaptive components?

….show me some examples

Interface Adaptation via Device modelling (CC/PP)

Device ModellingEU4ALL SERVICE ARCHITECTURE – CORE COMPONENTS

Content PersonalisationEU4ALL SERVICE ARCHITECTURE – CORE COMPONENTS

How do I instantiate EU4ALLin my institution?

25-Apr-07

Real Context (institutions) EU4ALL innovation

Institutions’ implementation

end-user services

eServices

Un

ive

rsit

y A

Un

ive

rsit

y B

Needs (A)

Needs (B)

Sa

Sc

Sb

SeSd

Un

ive

rsit

y A

Un

ive

rsit

y B

General Framework

existing + new servicesEU4ALL compliant

s/w (B)

s/w (A)

Tech. services components

+

S7

S5

S8

S6

S9

S4

S2S1 S3

O-ASA

G4AllUM

DM

RS

CP

ePMS

LOMR

Tr

AM

S7

S5

S8

S6

S9

S4

S2 S3

S7

S5

S8 S9

S4

S1Third-party components

C1

C3 C4

C2

Institutions solved their needs and their users’ after applying EU4ALL framework on their existing software and integrating new components

EU4ALL is not a single corporate isolated solution

... it is an open framework: standardized, flexible, open source

An Open FrameworkEU4ALL OPEN STANDARD ARCHITECTURE

Is EU4ALLbeneficial regardless

the maturity levelof my institution?

•Intervention

•Informal networks

•No political programmes

•Provision of resources unclear

•Pilot projects

•Ambivalence

•Insiders' knowledge

•Benefit unclear

•Cooperation

•Defined roles, formal networks

•Political programmes, changes of legal frameworks

•Resources provided for limited time

•Communities

•Acceptance

•Experts knowledge

•Benefit through experience

•Routine

•Professional roles, clear responsibilities

•Political tasks and legal structures

•Regular resources

•Established networks, organisations

•Experts and practitioners

•Consensus and publicity

•Body of knowledge

•Evaluation of benefits

Low level of accessibility practice (T1)•Responsibility and roles unclear, ambivalent

•Low awareness of senior management

•Low level of accessibility practice

•Weak legal frameworks

Medium level of accessibility practice (T2)•Low awareness and responsibility of management, accessibility no priority

•Considerable activity for SWD by single persons

•Existing practice not institutionalised

•Ad hoc solutions to ad hoc problems

•Weak legal frameworks

Substantial level of accessibility practice (T3)•Responsibility of senior management clear, accessibility priority

•CoP existing with high level of institutionalised processes

•Strong legal requirements

Outstanding level of accessibility practice (T4)•Responsibility clear

•High priority of accessibility

•Institutional processes (CoP) and stakeholder involvement

•Development of policies

•Evaluation of implementation

•Legal framework strong driver

Intervention Institutionalisation Professionalisation

INSTIUTIONALISATION OF SOCIAL INNOVATION

Intervention Institutionalisation Professionalisation

Low Medium Substantial Outstanding

Awareness raising and basic trainingInitiation of systemic change process

Awareness raising and basic trainingSupport of basic change process

Conditions for the implementation of EU4ALL to a large extent fulfilled

Conditions for the implementation of EU4ALL fulfilled

Institutional benefits of implementation of EU4ALL

BENEFITS OF EU4ALL

How did you findout what HE

institutions needto support disabled

students?

Two strands of work:

(1) Elicitation of user requirements, leading to specification of use cases and ontologies of end user services

(2) Investigation of legal, political and socio-economic contexts of accessible lifelong learning

Don’t come back to my class until you have a learner’s permit

Elicitation of User RequirementsEU4ALL APPROACH

Students say they seek alternative format materials (textbooks, journal articles, handouts) themselves (not via staff)

Students are ambivalent about LMSs (tutor involvement must be increased on the LMS, LMSs do not provide alternative format materials, more training needed in the LMS)

Most problems are not caused by the LMS, but the infrastructure surrounding it

Key results from students surveyEU4ALL APPROACH – USER REQUIREMENTS

The majority of professionals believe their online materials are accessible

The majority of professionals do not know how materials become that way, or who creates accessible materials (online or offline)

Professionals expressed a need for many kinds of information (on assistive technologies, alternative formats, characteristics of disabilities, vocabulary etc) and a desire to better support disabled students

Key results from professional surveyEU4ALL APPROACH – USER REQUIREMENTS

Despite LMSs being introduced in many institutions, various problems and incompatibilities have led to a noticeable caution in placing complete dependence upon them

Even where the platform is compliant, consistent and satisfactory to its users, often the content is not

Potential of LMSs has not been achieved due to teaching staff being unaware of what is possible, and what features can be utilised to accommodate students with disabilities

Key results from interviews and focus groupsEU4ALL APPROACH – USER REQUIREMENTS

VLE

Must take accessibility into consideration during the very early planning stages of a course, as opposed to retro-fitting an existing course

Need for greater communication between members of staff and content producers instead of viewing the latter as “factories”

Too many guidelines already exist, one interviewee argued that what is actually needed is for the existing guidelines to be applied to real people using real examples and for these to be then translated into real instructions about what should be done

Key results from interviews and focus groupsEU4ALL APPROACH – USER REQUIREMENTS

Courses

Some institutions are unable to offer assessment support due to a limited number of staff or a lack of funding

Some institutions do not feel that any specific accommodation is necessary

Some institutions even feel that allowing accommodations provides disabled students with an unfair advantage

Key results from interviews and focus groupsEU4ALL APPROACH – USER REQUIREMENTS

Assessment

How will you evaluate the

results of EU4ALL?

Expert evaluations

VLE accessibility

dotLRN, Moodle, Blackboard (for comparison)

Audits + user-based accessibility testing

All 3 VLEs *failed* WCAG1 Level A

EU4ALL accessibility

Accessibility Audit: full conformance for WCAG 2.0 AA

EU4ALL usability

Individual and Collaborative Heuristic Evaluation

General usability principles

EU4ALL EVALUATION (i)EU4ALL FRAMEWORK

User evaluations VLE accessibility : content + functionality

Task-based laboratory trials EU4ALL framework

Task-based laboratory trials

Real-life situations Are there any usability/accessibility problems? Are they severe?

EU4ALL EVALUATION (ii)EU4ALL FRAMEWORK

Results of user evaluation of VLE platforms 7 tasks in each VLE

Accessibility of content?

Accessibility of VLE functionality? - calendar, forum, submitting an assignment etc Moodle and dotLRN were substantially better than Blackboard

Moodle: 30 problem instances

dotLRN: 31 problem instances

Blackboard: 54 problem instances

EU4ALL EVALUATION (iii)EU4ALL FRAMEWORK

Programme evaluation With small scale High Education Institutions EU4ALL approach valid in existing infrastructures?

EU4ALL EVALUATION (vi)EU4ALL FRAMEWORK

LARGE SCALEevaluation (>100): Open University (UK) UNED (Spain)

small scaleAustriaItalyGreece

LARGE SCALE

small SCALE

Programme EvaluationUniversidad Politécnica Valencia (Spain) Instituto Politécnico de Leiria (Portugal)

Programme Evaluation

TECHNICAL VALIDATION + USER EVALUATION +PROGRAMME EVALUATION

EVALUATION ACTIVITIES

Who is doing all this?

UNED [Spain] Soluziona [Spain] Atos Origin [Spain]

E-Isotis [Greece]

Giunti [Italy] CIRPS [Italy] DPItalia [Italy]

EADTU [Netherlands] Centre for Social Innovation [Austria]

Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information

Technology (FIT) [Germany] Tribal CTAD [UK]

Open University [UK] University of York [UK]

Consortium membersEU4ALL PROJECT

…and finally,to learn more about

EU4ALL

http://www.eu4all-project.eu

ALL ObservatoryLearning Support and GuidanceLearning Technology Systems and StandardsLegal, Political Framework and Socio-Economic ConsiderationsMarket InformationOpen and Accessible ArchitectureUniversal Access to e-LearningUser Requirements and Services

Special Interest Groups (SIG)Access to Lifelong Learning at Higher Education Institutions (HEI)

Accessible Virtual Learning Environments Legal and political frameworks Commercial opportunities in accessible lifelong learning Pedagogical approaches Standards relevant for Accessible Lifelong Learning User Modelling

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Alicia Fernández del VisoIndra Software Labs afernandezde@indra.es