Appears in: Journal of Universal Computer Science J.UCS
Pages: 55-81
Publication year: 2016
ISBN: 0948-695X.
ISSN online: 0948-6968
Special Issue: Future Trends in Computing Technology in Education
Date: January 2016
Cite
Sandra Sanchez-Gordon, Sergio Luján-Mora . How Could MOOCs Become Accessible? The Case of edX and the Future of Inclusive Online Learning. In Journal of Universal Computer Science (J.UCS), 22(1), p. 55-81. January 2016. ISSN 0948-695X. ISSN online: 0948-6968.
Abstract
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have great potential to provide learning opportunities for people around the world. However, to reach their full potential, MOOCs need to meet the accessibility needs of diverse learners, with and without disabilities. In the literature review, we have found some published research on accessibility evaluations of MOOCs content and platforms, but we have not found published research on how to design existing and future MOOC platforms to assist authors in producing accessible content. The main purpose of this research is to contribute to the discussion about the future of inclusive online learning, by proposing a software design to incorporate features in MOOC platforms to enable, support and guide authors toward conceptualizing, designing, building and testing accessible MOOCs. We also present the results of an evaluation of the accessibility issues of Studio, the edX course-authoring software, based on ATAG 2.0.
Keywords
ATAG, MOOC, Massive Open Online Courses, UAAG, WCAG, WCAG-EM, WGAC2ICT, accessibility, accessibility conformance evaluation, disabilities, edX, mobile learning, online learning
Acknowledgements
This work is partially funded by the Prometheus project of the National Secretary of Higher Education, Science and Technology (SENESCYT), Government of Ecuador.
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