Accessibility issues in MOOCs: potential servicesfor people with special needs

Francisco Iniesto

Advisors: Covadonga Rodrigo & Timothy Read

Second year part-time PhD student

Doctoral Consortium

1-2 June 2015

ROADMAP

1. Rationale. Study context

2. Objectives

3. Methodology

4. Tasks

5. Future work

6. References

Context: lll for people with special needs Integrates education, work and personal life in a continuous process. People with special needs choose distance education universities (eLearning)

for their studies. 7.500 enrolled students at UNED represents 50% of total Spanish univeristy

students with a disability

RATIONALE. STUDY CONTEXT

Evolution of enrolment of disabled students over period 2003 – 2015 at UNED (UNIDIS)

25542966

34623830

4283 4224

4808

6294 6104

74697670

7847

7469

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

8000

9000

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

(Fisseler & Bühler, 2007; Law et al, 2013; Universia, 2014)

RATIONALE. STUDY CONTEXT

Context: ICT + Disabilities:

• The possibilities that ICT offer people with disabilities to improve their wellbeing and the possibility of their insertion into the work market.

• The fact to make digital people with special needs increases the work rate in this collective.

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

(Díaz & Bonjoch, 2007; Vila et al, 2007; Kop & Bouchard, 2011; Lewis, 2014)

Context: Accessible MOOC Learning:

Benefits such as:

• Openness

• Low cost

• Ubiquity (Time, space and rhythm)

• Acquiring knowledge

• Social learning: Connectivism

• Achieving new competences

• Develop professionally

(Downes, 2013; Siemens, 2013, Morrison, 2013; Zapata-Ros, 2013, Haggard, 2013, Teixeira & Mota, 2013; Waard et al 2014; Gaebler, 2014)

OBJECTIVES

• The system will help to find MOOCs that best suit their professional needs and that are more accessible regarding his\her disability.

• Accessibility Analysis of both of eLearning platforms and educational resources.

• Personalization: adaptation to each assistive technology.

• Rated list of recommended MOOCs to best fit accessibility requirements and learning preferences.

DESIGN a personalized app for recommending MOOCs adapted to user needs: achieve new professional competences + learner’s preferences.

MOOC data definedby achievable competences

OBJECTIVES

Competence-based recommendation app for people with functional diversity

1. Enriched user profile.

• User’s device personalization: preferences / needed assistive technologies -> technical needs regarding user’s functional diversity.

2. Accessible MOOCs.

• Accessibility evaluation on MOOC platforms and their educational resources-> automated recommendation list adapted to user’s functional diversity (user’s profile).

Objective suported by (Rodriguez-Ascaso & Boticario, 2015): Functional Diversity Scenario.

METHODOLOGY

TASK 0 (transversal): Literature review/update

TASK 1: Accessibility evaluation of MOOC platforms and courses to achieve a map of accessible MOOCs versus functional diversities.

TASK 2: Development of a holistic approach assessing accessibility in MOOCs using different tools:

• automatic tools, disability simulators …

TASK 3: Analysis/Selection of accessible metadata for user profile definition:

• assistive technologies, device user preferences instead of functional disability

TASK 4: Enriched user profile definition:

• functional diversity (from Task 3)

TASK 5: Accessibility map: MOOC accessibility vector of characteristics vs user’s functional diversity

TASK 6: Literature enhancement and thesis paper development.

TASK 1: HOW SHOULD THE MODEL FOR AN ACCESSIBLE MOOC PLATFORM BE?

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.

Task 0: (Sanchez-Gordon & Luján-Mora, 2013; Najd et al, 2014; Bohnsack & Puh 2014; Sanchez-Gordon & Luján-Mora 2015; Rodríguez-Ascaso & Boticario, 2015)

(Sanchez-Gordon & Luján-Mora, 2013). Review of five Coursera courses. Authors found Web accessibility problems in Coursera platform and the contents of the five courses, limiting access to elderly students.

(Najd et al, 2014). Evaluation of 10 Coursera courses on different topics (technology, design, humanities, physics, etc. according to WCAG 2.0 is aimed to blind or partially sighted people, none of the courses reaches the level A. These affect important tasks as browse the contents, access to the video classes, or perform test and exercises.

(Bohnsack & Puh, 2014). Evaluation of the accessibility of the five MOOC platforms more popular in the United States (Udacity, Coursera, edX) and in Germany (OpenCourseWorld and Iversity) for blind users. The experiment was stopped at the point at which an accessibility problem prevented the user from continuing without help. All platforms (except edX) had fatal accessibility problemsin the initial stages of the interaction.

(Sanchez-Gordon & Luján-Mora, 2015). Proposal of a three-layer architecture to extend the platform Open edX to enhance course content accessibility for users with disabilities. The goal of the proposed extension is to enhance MOOCs’ accessibility by adapting course content to student needs, preferences, skills and situations.

TASK 0: LITERATURE REVIEW – RELATED TASK 1

TASK 1: CREATING ACCESSIBLE MOOCS. THE IMPORTANCE OF STANDARDS

eLearning platform standards:

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 (2008)

Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology

1.0 (2014)

TASK 0: (García et al 2012; Pagés & Aguado, 2014)(Iniesto & Rodrigo, 2013)

TASK 1: CREATING ACCESSIBLE MOOCS. THE IMPORTANCE OF STANDARDS

•Documents:

o PDF, Word. Follow Accessibility guidelines for documents

•Videos (pills)

o Include subtitles.

o Sign Language Interpreter.

o Include alternative text to the video content. Textual description

Task 0: (Sánchez Caballero, 2010; Sama & Sevillano, 2012, Chicaiza 2014)

Task0: (Moreno et Al, 2011; Bengochea & Budia, 2012)

TASK 1: METHODOLOGY AND GUIDELINES FOR EVALUATING ACCESSIBILITY IN MOOCS

A selection of a set of Web pages:

•The platform’s homepage.•A representative page of the course.•A course page including a form.•A course page including a forum.

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

Methodology that combines:

Conformance reviews.

Screening techniques.

TASK 0: (Brajnik ,2008; Brajnik ,2009; Markku et al, 2012; Hilera et al, 2013)

TASK 1: CASE STUDIES

"Emprendimiento y Desarrollo de Aplicaciones de Realidad Aumentada" (COLMENIA: Weprendo + UnX).

"España+Francia+Cerca I" (UNED COMA).

"Estrategias de Marketing Online. Community Manager" (Miriada X).

“As alterações climáticas - or contexto das experiências de vida” (UAb iMOOC).

(Iniesto et al, 2014; Iniesto & Rodrigo 2014)

UNED COMA Excelent, goodand very good

Regular Bad Very Bad Score Compliance

Homepage 7 1 4 1 6.6 54%Form 7 1 2 3 7.7 54%

Course 7 1 4 3 6.8 50%Forum 6 2 4 1 6.7 46%Average Value 6.1 51%

COLMENIA

Homepage 5 2 7 6 4.5 25%Form 5 3 8 4 4.7 25%

Course 7 2 7 1 5.4 41%Forum 6 1 5 5 6.2 32%Valor Medio 5.2 31%

Miriada XHomepage 4 1 4 7 4.2 25%Form 6 3 8 4 4.5 29%

Course 4 3 5 6 4.1 22%Forum 6 3 8 4 4.5 29%Average Value 4.3 26%

UAb iMOOCHomepage 7 6 4 5 4.8 32%Form 7 2 1 3 5.8 54%Course 9 2 1 4 6.1 56%Forum 9 4 2 4 5.9 47%Average Value 5.6 47%

UNED COMA totally blind difficulty in seeing

members Understanding age

Homepage 7.2 6.4 6.9 5.7 6.5

Form 6 6.4 5 5.4 6.2

Course 6.5 5.7 5.8 5.3 6

Forum 6 6.5 6.6 5.8 6.1

Average Value 6.4 6.2 6.1 5.5 6.2

COLMENIA

Homepage 4.5 4.7 4.2 5.2 5.2

Form 4.2 5 4.2 5.2 5.5

Course 4.5 5.7 4.9 6 6.2

Forum 5.3 6.7 5.7 7.1 7.1

Valor Medio 4.6 4.4 4.7 5.9 6

Miriada X

Homepage 4 4.3 3.6 4.3 4.6

Form 4.3 4.7 4.2 4.6 4.8

Course 3.6 4.5 3.5 4.3 4.8

Forum 4.3 4.7 4.2 4.6 4.8

Average Value 3.3 4.5 3.9 4.4 4.7

UAb iMOOC

Homepage 5 4.9 4.9 4.3 5

Form 5.9 6.3 5.5 5.3 6.1

Course 5.8 6.7 6.0 5.9 6.4

Forum 5.8 6.2 6.0 5.5 6.0

Average Value 5.6 6 5.6 5.25 5.8

UNED COMA:

PDFs of scanned documents. PDFs self-produced and externally produced. MP3 Audio format. Links to external pages and videos to the platform.

COLMENIA:

Supporting documents in compressed format. PDFs self-produced.

Miriada X :

PDFs self-produced.

UAb iMOOC:

PDFs externally produced.

UNED COMA COLMENIA Miriada X

Sans-serif style No, Times New Roman Yes, Calibri Yes, Calibri

Visual hierarchy Correct Correct Correct

Contrast Correct, black and white Correct Correct, colorsabuse

Underline Correct Correct Not applicable

Adjust the sound volume Correct Not applicable Not applicable

Text, symbols or pictures for auditory

materials

Not provided Not applicable Not applicable

Images must be high resolution Low resolution Low resolution Medium resolution

Graphs and tables with titles and

abstracts

Not provided Not provided Not provided

UNED COMA COLMENIA Miriada X UAb iMOOC

Include subtitled Yes No Yes No

Sign Language Interpreter No No No No

Textual transcription No No No No

TASK 1: CASE STUDY RESULTS

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

For the educational content -> no standards (either platforms or accessible educational content). -> SCORM and accessibility guidelines.

Lack of accessibility of audiovisual resources exist for all the platforms.

TASK 2: HOLISTIC APPROACH FOR EVALUATING ACCESSIBILITY IN MOOCS

Global or heuristic vision:

MOOC accessibility vector of characteristics.

Evaluation through automatic accessibility tools :

WCAG Accessibility Validation: eXaminator

Disability Simulators:aDesigner

User Experience (UX)

Testing Tools: Sortsite

User evaluation

Educational content evaluation

The MOOC platform

The educational content.

(Iniesto & Rodrigo, 2014) Task 0: (Pascual Espada et al, 2014)

TASK 3: ANALYSIS OF ACCESSIBLE METADATA FOR USER PROFILE DEFINITION

Task 0: (Takagi et al, 2008; Boticario & Santos, 2008, Otón et al 2014)

IMS Access for All (AfA) : Personal Needs and Preferences (PNP) and Digital Resource Description (DRD) -> Multiplicity (Collections)

( Rodrigo & Iniesto, 2015)

Learning Profiling:

•Display information: the user preferences to have information presented. define preferences related to text (fonts and colors), video (resolution), mouse (pointer, motion)

•Control information: user preferences to control the device keyboard (virtual), zoom preferences, voice recognition)

•Content information: user preferences for visualizing learning content.

•Privacy and data protection information.

TASK 3: ANALYSIS OF ACCESSIBLE METADATA FOR USER PROFILE DEFINITION

Learning Resources:

•Technological: the technology to develop and edit the resources. (authoring tools to facilitate the production of accessible materials)

•Adapted Devices: when a user accesses a resource available on the Internet, it can be accessed directly or a device would have to be used specifically (screen reader, specialized mouse, virtual keyboard, magnifying glass).

•Existing Inclusive Methodologies and Educational Standards: XML markup languages.

FUTURE WORKTASK 2: Refinement of holistic approach.

MOOC accessibility vector of characteristics : Collect positive/negative indicatorsDefine user cases to evaluate a correct accessibilityVirtual usersUsers with special needs

TASK 3: Analysis of accessible metadata for user profile definition.

IMS Access for All (AfA) : Personal Needs and Preferences (PNP) and Digital Resource Description (DRD) -> Multiplicity (Collections)

TASK 4: Enrichment of user profile definition

Web form: Design of the questionsPersonal dataUser’s device personalizationPreferences / needed assistive technologies. Users with special needs

TASK 5: Development of accessibility map. MOOC accessibility vector of characteristics vs user’s functional diversity

REFERENCES

•Fisseler, B., Bühler, C.: Accessible e-learning and educational technology – extending learning opportunities for people with disabilities. In: Proceedings of ICL, 2007, hal-00257138, pp. 26–28. Archives Ouvertes ,2007

•Law, P., Perryman, L. A., y Law, A.. Open educational resources for all? Comparing user motivations and characteristics across The Open University’s iTunes U channel and Open-Learn platform. En Open and Flexible Higher Education Conference 2013 (pp. 204–219), 2013. European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU).

•II Estudio sobre el grado de inclusión del sistema universitario español respecto de la realidad de la discapacidad. Universidad y Discapacidad. Fundación Universia, 2014.

•i Díaz, M. P., & Bonjoch, M. R. ¿ Y después del trabajo, qué?: más allá de la integración laboral de las personas con discapacidad. Revista de Educación, (342), 329-348 ,2007.

•Vila, M.; Pallisera, M. & Fullan J. Work integration of people with disabilities in the regular labour market: What can we do to improve these processes. Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disability, Volume 32, Issue 1:10-18, 2007.

•Kop R. , & Bouchard P., “The role of adult educators in the age of social media”. Digital education: Opportunities for social collaboration, 61-80, 2011.

•Lewis C. Accessibility for the Disabled in the Increasingly Mobile World ‘The Untapped Billion’ Lewis insight unravelling telecoms and the digital future. Accessibility in the Increasingly Mobile World, 2014.

•Downes S., “What the „x‟ in „xMOOC‟ stands for?” https://plus.google.com/109526159908242471749/posts/LEwaKxL2MaM, 2013.

•Siemens G., “MOOCs are really a platform”. http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/2012/07/25/moocs-are-really-aplatform, 2013.

•Morrison D., “The Ultimate Student Guide to xMOOCs and cMOOCs”. http://moocnewsandreviews.com/ultimate-guide-to-xmoocs-andcmoocso , 2013

•Zapata-Ros M., “MOOCs, una visión crítica y una alternativa complementaria: La individualización del aprendizaje y de la ayuda pedagógica”. http://eprints.rclis.org/18658/, 2013.

•Haggard D. “Massive open online courses and online distance learning: review”. GOV.UK Research and analysis. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/massive-open-online- coursesand-online-distance-learning-review, 2013

•Teixeira A. and Mota J., “Innovation and openess through MOOCS: Universidade Aberta's pedagogic model for non-formal online courses”. The Joy of Learning. Enhancing Learning Experience – Improving Learning Quality. Proceedings of the European Distance and E-Learning Network 2013 Annual Conference, 2013.

•De Waard I., Gallagher M.S., Zelezny-Green R., Czerniewicz L., Downes S., Kukulska-Hulme A., Willems J.: Challenges for conceptualising MOOC for vulnerable learner groups. eMOOC2014 MOOC stakeholder summit, pp. 33-41. Lausanne, Switzerland. P.A.U. Education, S.L. U. Cress, C. Delgado-Kloos (2014).

•Gaebler M., “MOOCs Massive open online courses. EUA paper” (2014). http://www.eua.be/Libraries/Publication/MOOCs_Update_January_2014.sflb.ashx

•Sanchez-Gordon, S., & Luján-Mora, S. Web accessibility of MOOCs for elderly students. In Information Technology Based Higher Education and Training (ITHET), 2013 International Conference on (pp. 1-6). IEEE, 2013.Najd A. Al-Mouh, Atheer S. Al-Khalifa, and Hend S. Al-Khalifa. A First Look into MOOCs Accessibility. The Case of Coursera K. Miesenberger et al. (Eds.): ICCHP 2014, Part I, LNCS 8547, pp. 145–152. Springer International Publishing Switzerland, 2014

•Bohnsack, M., & Puhl, S. (2014). Accessibility of MOOCs. In Computers Helping People with Special Needs (pp. 141-144). Springer International Publishing.

•Rodríguez-Ascaso, A. y Boticario, J. G. Accesibilidad y MOOC: Hacia una perspectiva integral. RIED. Revista Iberoamericana de Educación a Distancia, 18 (2), 61-85. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5944/ried.18.2.13670, 2015

•Sandra Sanchez-Gordon S., Sergio Luján-Mora Adaptive Content Presentation Extension for Open edX. Enhancing MOOCs Accessibility for Users with Disabilities. ACHI 2015 : The Eighth International Conference on Advances in Computer-Human Interactions. IARIA, 2015. ISBN: 978-1-61208-382-7, 2015.

•García E., García-Cabot A., Karhu M. Analysis of standards and specifications of quality and accessibility in e-learning. Actas del IV Congreso Internacional ATICA 2012 - Loja (Ecuador), 2012

REFERENCES

•Iniesto, F., Rodrigo, C Estándares y accesibilidad en el ciclo de creación de OERs mediante herramientas de autor. Libro de Actas del V Congreso Internacional ATICA 2013 ISBN edición impresa: 978-612-4196-16-4 ISBN Eds. M.A. Córdoba, L. Bengochea, p. 55 – 62, Huncayo, Perú, 2013

•Pagés C., Aguado J.. Experiencia de evaluación de accesibilidad web utilizando la metodología WCAG-EM. VI Congreso Internacional sobre Aplicación de Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicaciones Avanzadas, 2014

•Sánchez Caballero M., E-learning para todos. En: No Solo Usabilidad, nº 9. ISSN 1886-8592. 2010.

•Sama V., Sevillano E. Guía de accesibilidad de documentos electrónicos. Centro de atención a la discapacidad. Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia. ISBN: 978-84-362-5669-7. 2012.

•Chicaiza J, Piedra N, Valencia M.P. Consideraciones de accesibilidad en la producción y distribución de recursos educativos en formato PDF: Un caso de implementación para la formación Virtual Accesible en América Latina. Congreso Internacional sobre Calidad y Accesibilidad de la Formación Virtual, 2014

•Moreno, L., González-García, M., Martínez, P., Iglesias, A..A study of accessibility requirements for media pla yers on the Web, 14th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCII 2011), Florida, USA, July, 2011, Vol: LNCS 6765, Pages: 249-257, 2011

•Bengochea L., Budia F.. Subtitled video tutorials, an accessible teaching material (CC) JACCES, 2012 - 2(2):155-164. ISSN: 2013-7087, 2012

•Brajnik, G.: A Comparative Test of Web Accessibility Evaluation Methods. Proceedings of the 10th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, New York: ACM, 113-120, 2008.

•Brajnik, G.: Validity and reliability of web accessibility guidelines. Proceedings of the 11th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and Accessibility, New York: ACM, 131-138, 2009.

•Markku K., Hilera J.R., Fernández L., y Ríos R.. "Accessibility and readability of university websites in Finland". Calidad y accesibilidad de la formación virtual. Libro de actas Cafvir, 2012, 152-159, 2012.

•Hilera J.R, Fernández L. , Suárez E. , Vilar E.T.. "Evaluación de la accesibilidad de páginas web de universidades españolas y extranjeras incluidas en rankings universitarios internacionales". Revista Española de Documentación Científica, 36(1):e004., 2013 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.3989/redc.2013.1.913.M, 2013

•Iniesto, F., Rodrigo, C., Moreira Teixeira, A. Accessibility analysis in MOOC platforms. A case study: UNED COMA and UAb iMOOC. Libro de Actas del V Congreso Internacional sobre Calidad y Accesibilidad de la Formación Virtual CAFVIR, Antigua, Guatemala, 2014

•Iniesto, F.; Rodrigo, C., "Accessibility assessment of MOOC platforms in Spanish: UNED COMA, COLMENIA and Miriada X," Computers in Education (SIIE), 2014 International Symposium on, vol., no., pp.169,172, 12-14 doi: 10.1109/SIIE.2014.7017724, 2014

•Iniesto, F., Rodrigo, C. Pautas para la evaluación de la accesibilidad en las plataformas MOOC. Libro de Actas del VI Congreso Internacional ATICA 2014 ISBN edición impresa: 978-84-16133-42-0 Eds. L. Bengochea Martínez, J. M. Gutiérrez Martínez, A. García Cabot, E.García López. p. 57 – 64, Universidad de Alcalá, España, 2014.

•Pascual Espada J; Castillo Rodríguez C.; García Díaz V.; González Crespo R. Method for analysing the user experience in MOOC Platforms XVI Simposio Internacional de Informática Educativa (SIIE’14), 2014.

•Takagi H., Kawanaka S., Kobayashi M., Itoh T. y Asakawa C.. "Social accessibility: achieving accessibility through collaborative metadata authoring". In Proceedings of the 10th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility (pp. 193-200). ACM, 2008

• Boticario, J.G., Santos, O.: “A standards-based modelling approach for dynamic generation of adaptive learning scenarios”; Journal of Universal Computer Science, 14, 17, 2859-2876. 2008.

•Otón S., Batanero c., Jiménez D. Repositorio de objetos de aprendizaje accesibles mediante la especificación IMS Access for All 3.0. V Congreso Internacional sobre Calidad y Accesibilidad de la Formación Virtual, 2014

•Rodrigo C., Iniesto F. Holistic vision for creating accessible services based on MOOCs. Open Education Global Conference. 22-24 April 2015. Banff, Alberta, Canada, 2015

Accessibility issues in MOOCs: potential services for peoplewith special needs

Francisco Iniesto

Advisors: Covadonga Rodrigo & Timothy Read

Department of Computer Languages and Systems

E-mail: finiesto2@alumno.uned.es, finiesto@gmail.com