Access to Distance Learning For Students & Faculty with Disabilities

Accessible design is good design.

While the focus here is on the 6% to 10% of the students and faculty with disabilities, keep in mind that your audience is diverse across many dimensions age, technology platforms, learning styles, and experience. Designing for accessibility will address all of these dimensions. For example, the techniques that make information accessible to the faculty member who is blind will assist students and instructors who want to access content from a handheld computer, a low resolution monitor, or who have a slow modem connection. Or captioning multimedia content for participants who are deaf will allow everyone to search multimedia for specific information or review it in a noisy environment. Designing a distance learning course to be accessible to students and instructors with disabilities will make it more accessible to everyone

What considerations should be made in order to develop accessible web-based distance learning courses?

Today, distance learning courses employ a wide array of electronic and information technologies. These include print, web pages, chat software, multimedia, and audio and video conferencing. To assure that the electronic and information resources used are accessible to all students and instructors it is critical to consider at each step in the development of distance learning programs. Deans and Chairs are in the best position to influence the entire process from the purchase of delivery systems to the formatting weekly content to ensure compliance with accessibility standards (http://ada.osu.edu/resources/WebPolicies.htm).

Consider the characteristics of potential instructors and students.

Here are some sample interactions to consider when designing course management and navigation systems.

Students and instructors may have mobility impairments that require them to use alternative keyboards and mice, speech recognition, or other specialized input devices to access Internet-based course materials. If their input method is slow, they cannot effectively participate in real-time "chat" communications.

Participants who are blind may use screen reader software and speech synthesizers to access a course. With this technology, a synthesized voice reads aloud the text content on the screen. The content of graphics can be understood only if text descriptions are provided. Other visual materials, such as video presentations, also create access challenges for participants who are blind if the content is not also provided in text form.

Students and instructors who have low vision may use magnification software to enlarge the content of the screen. By doing so, they may view only a small portion of a standard screen page at a time. Web pages that are cluttered and use inconsistent formats can make navigation and comprehension of the content difficult for these individuals.

Most Internet resources do not require the ability to hear. However, when multimedia materials include audio output without providing text captioning or transcription, individuals with hearing impairments cannot access the content.

Some web pages include flashing content to grab the viewer's attention. Flashes at certain rates (often between 2 and 55 hertz) can induce seizures for people who are susceptible to them.

Consider the accessibility of distance learning course authoring tools.

The authoring tools used to develop a distance learning course should be accessible to all potential students, instructors, and course designers, including those with disabilities. Many systems include some accessibility features. Keep in mind, however, that in order to create an accessible course the designer or instructor must employ the accessibility features provided

Consider the accessibility of web pages.

The web pages for promoting and delivering distance learning courses should be accessible to everyone. This requires that developers either avoid certain types of inaccessible features or formats or create alternative methods for performing the functions or accessing the content provided through inaccessible features. Lists of standards and guidelines exist for designing accessible web pages. The two most commonly used lists are those developed by the World Wide Web Consortium and the Section 508 standards developed for United States federal agencies. The Ohio State University's standards (http://ada.osu.edu/resources/WebPolicies.htm) are based on these and are accompanied by supporting resources and tutorials from the Web Accessibility Center (http://www.wac.ohio-state.edu/).

Consider how teachers and students will interact.

Text-based resources such as Usenet discussion groups, bulletin boards, electronic mail, and distribution lists are generally accessible to students and instructors with disabilities. On the other hand, not all "chat" systems, where participants communicate in real time, are accessible to everyone. For example, a student with a mobility impairment that makes it difficult to input text quickly may have difficulty keeping up with the pace of the conversation and the compatibility with screen reader technologies used by blind individuals depends on how the chat room was developed.

Consider the accessibility of video and audio clips.

To make video clips accessible to students or instructors who are deaf, captioning can be provided. Similarly, transcripts should be provided for audio clips. Audio description (a technique for verbally describing visual content) should be provided for those who are blind. Captioning software is available through the Digital Union (http://telr.osu.edu/digitalunion/index.html).

This material was adapted with permission from Factsheet #173 of the University of Washington's AccessIT program.