Distance Education: Accessibility for Students With Disabilities Free

Distance education is defined as “institution-based formal education where the learning group is separated, and where interactive telecommunication systems are used to connect learners, resources, and instructors” (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009). Along with advances in technology, distance education is providing greater opportunities and access to “diverse learners and larger populations” (Ortiz, Mccann, Rayphand, & Leong, 2009). However, the unique environment of distance education can provide a number of challenges and barriers to accessibility for one group of learners: students with disabilities. Allen and Seaman (2010) report that 4.6 million students were enrolled in an online course in fall 2008, representing a 17% increase over the previous fall. Many students enrolling in these courses have disabilities and take online courses for the flexibility and convenience. Depending on the type of disability a student may have, many aspects of an online course can present a challenge. Assistive technologies are available but may not accomplish their goal unless the underlying design of the course or platform of delivery can provide the necessary information for the assistive technology to function successfully.

According to Keeler and Horney (2007), there is a lack of awareness and accommodation for students with disabilities, who make up 13.8% of the student population (National Center for Education Statistics, 2004). While the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) prohibits the exclusion of otherwise qualified students to equal education and access, many websites, online courses, documents, and electronic software/tools are not designed to be accessible (Fichten et al., 2009). In order to improve accessibility, instructors and educators should be aware of the laws relating to accessibility, the barriers to accessibility and the various actions that can be taken to ensure that online education can be accessible to all students.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) allows for all qualified individuals to obtain equal education and access to all programs. Any educational institution receiving federal funds is expected to make its programs accessible to students with disabilities. In addition, further solidifying equal access is Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which calls for inclusion of students with disabilities and for reasonable accommodations, such as assistive technologies for these students to participate in the institution’s programs (Searle, 2006). While the above Acts apply directly to academic institutions, there is some disagreement as to the application of requirements of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, which requires accessible technologies to be made available by the federal and state agencies to all its employees and the public (Edmonds, 2004). Section 508 defines specific guidelines that must be taken into account to ensure that “when Federal agencies develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology, Federal employees with disabilities have access to and use of information and data that is comparable to the access and use by Federal employees who are not individuals with disabilities, unless an undue burden would be imposed on the agency” (“Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Standards (Section 508)”, 2000). These standards cover the following technologies:

• Software applications and operating systems;

• Web-based intranet and internet information and applications;

• Telecommunications products ;

• Video or multimedia products;

• Self-contained closed products such as copiers; and

• Desktop and portable computers.

If academic institutions are not required to comply with Section 508, are they still expected to provide accessible services and programs to students with disabilities? They are required to do so under the ADA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which do not address technology per se but do address equal access to educational programs offered. Since most distance education courses within post-secondary institutions are web-based, the guidelines established by Section 508 and those of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) should be taken into consideration by academic institutions when designing their own websites/information portals and offering courses online (Burgstahler, 2010). The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are a set of standards that were developed by the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C), which is the international governing body of the World Wide Web. These guidelines provide web developers with four principles that should be addressed when designing web pages with a view to accommodating students with disabilities. According to these WCAG 2.0 Guidelines, websites should contain material that is perceivable (accessible to all senses or assistive technologies), operable (easily navigable using a mouse, keyboard or assistive device), understandable (information is presented clearly and logically) and robust (allowing the access of assistive technologies to the content).

If one examines the different categories of disabilities and the barriers encountered by students with these disabilities, one can understand why these guidelines should be addressed in designing all online material to enable these students to access the educational programs offered by an academic institution. In general, the types of disabilities that will be discussed in relation to accessible design of online courses are visual, hearing, cognitive and physical disabilities. Assuming that a student has been able to apply to, gain acceptance to, and register for an online course that is delivered via a learning management system that is accessible, can that student be successful in this learning environment? If instructors or course designers are aware of the guidelines for accessible design and are trained to implement these guidelines, the experience of students with various disabilities can be greatly enhanced. Since an exhaustive discussion on accessibility issues is beyond the scope of this article, a brief overview of the general issues and possible solutions will be presented.

Institution or instructor websites and/or learning management systems are used to organize and deliver course content to students. When developing these interfaces, web developers and programmers need to adhere to the WCAG 2.0 guidelines to allow for accessibility. Blackboard, which has acquired WebCT and ANGEL, has made an effort to increase its accessibility. The National Federation of the Blind recognized Blackboard Learn, Release 9.1 for its efforts in ensuring accessibility for students with visual impairments. While Blackboard has improved the accessibility in the areas of dynamic content awareness, keyboard navigation, test structures, ability to upload multiple file types for flexibility, accessible multimedia controls, and improved form interaction, it has yet to address the difficulty with such access to discussion boards, the text editor, and the virtual classroom. Blackboard, however, continues to work with its clients on accessibility issues through its Accessibility Interest Group (“Accessibility in Blackboard 9.1,” 2010).

In general, the following should be taken into consideration when designing learning/course management systems or web interfaces. A visually impaired student attempting to access an online course will not be able to see graphics or read text. For students with low vision, screen magnifiers are available and for those who are blind, screen readers can be used. JAWS, a Freedom Scientific product, is an example of a screen reader that can be used with many software programs and internet browsers. However, screen readers can only read text so an image rich web/course page hinders accessibility for the visually impaired student. The guidelines suggest that alternate text be associated with images so that screen readers will be able to read any information related to an image. In addition to graphics, tables may be used to present and organize data; however, tables could also present a problem for screen readers. All tables should use appropriate headers (<th> within the HTML code) ensuring that the data are associated with the appropriate headers, thus allowing the student to understand the information relayed by the screen reader. In addition, it is important to note that visually impaired students using a screen reader will need to navigate using a keyboard, so it is essential to design the navigation and the links on a website/course page in a logical and simple fashion. When designing a website associated with a course, a designer or instructor should ensure that the use of frames is minimized, but if used, the frames should be clearly titled according to their purpose. If an illustration or graph is used in a course and would be inaccessible by a screen reader, it is advisable to provide a text summary for the illustration. It is obvious that the visual impaired face the greatest barriers to accessibility. Considering and applying the above recommendations and others according to the Section 508 and WCAG guidelines, will remove some of the obstacles encountered by visually impaired students when accessing the web interface or learning platform interface of an online course (“Introduction to Web Accessibility,” 2010).

Hearing-impaired students will not experience any issues accessing a website or interface unless there is audio or another medium embedded in the design. If text transcripts of all audio is provided, the hearing impaired student can experience the course in the same manner as other students. The obstacles encountered by physically impaired students in this regard are quite different. These students, like the visually impaired, may not be able to utilize a mouse and may rely on a keyboard or assistive device like a mouth stick, single switch device, sip and puff switch or head wand. When designing an online course, instructors and designers should try to ensure that all navigation can be accomplished through these devices and that these students can control the pace of navigation through any of the online components (Roberts & Crittenden, 2009). Issues faced by students with cognitive disabilities (such as learning disabilities) when accessing online interfaces and platforms can stem from the inability to process large amounts of information presented in a disorganized and haphazard manner. The cognitive category of disabilities covers memory deficits, problem solving deficits and attention deficits, to name a few. One could argue that when considering this category in designing instruction online, it is helpful to consider multiple learning styles and present material in multiple formats, clear organizational structure, and simple writing (“Introduction to Web Accessibility,” 2010).

Once a student is able to access the website or interface of the distance-delivered course, it becomes necessary to access the content of the course. The next issue that needs to be addressed is the format of the materials used to deliver the content, an issue that can be resolved and controlled by the individual instructor. If the content is delivered through web pages, these, along with Microsoft Word documents, can be accessed by screen readers for the visually impaired student. When creating Word documents, it is advisable to use the same guidelines for accessibility relating to screen readers mentioned above, especially when using images and tables. Microsoft Word 2010 now includes an accessibility checker that allows for easy identification and repair of accessibility issues. In addition to Microsoft, Adobe Acrobat and Dreamweaver (a web authoring tool) have accessibility checks available in the latest versions of their programs. Contrary to popular opinion, not all PDF documents are accessible to screen readers. Microsoft Word documents can be saved as accessible PDFs and documents can also be saved in an accessible PDF format through Adobe Acrobat. When saving as a PDF document in Microsoft Word, there is an option for creating tags for accessibility, which needs to be checked to ensure that screen readers can access the content (“Is PDF Accessible,” 2010).

Many instructors provide PowerPoint presentations that accompany or replace lectures. An instructor should be aware when designing PowerPoint presentations that the information should be accessible to screen readers and should incorporate the same design considerations as web pages, including alternate text for images, explanatory hyperlinks, et cetera. Because tables in PowerPoint can present a problem, presentations could be saved as PDF files to enhance accessibility. As part of the Microsoft Office Suite, PowerPoint also includes an accessibility checker. In order to convert PowerPoint presentations into an accessible web format, an instructor can utilize a tool like The Virtual 508 Accessible Wizard, which creates an HTML version of a PowerPoint presentation created in versions up to and including version 2007 (“PowerPoint Accessibility,” 2010).

Any of the above mentioned formats should pose no problem to the cognitively impaired student, physically impaired student or hearing impaired students; however, hearing-impaired students may encounter an obstacle if any embedded audio or media are included in a PowerPoint presentation. This should be addressed by providing text transcripts of audio or other media components.

Video components of an online course present an obvious problem to students with visual disabilities. When utilizing video in a course, it is advisable to include a text transcript and/or audio equivalent of the video, which could also include descriptions of the video. The text transcript will allow the visually impaired student to access the material through a screen reader and will also assist students with hearing impairments to access the material in a different manner. In addition, the multiple modes of presentation could benefit students with cognitive disabilities. For the hearing impaired, videos or other multimedia should be captioned utilizing software available that can create captions within Windows Media, Real Player and QuickTime movies. Two examples of such software are Magpie, developed by the National center for Accessible Media (NCAM) and Hi-Caption developed by HiSoftware. (“Web Captioning Overview,” 2010).

Macromedia Flash has become a very popular means of presentation of material, as it is dynamic and incorporates graphics, text, and animation. However, it can present a number of accessibility barriers. The improvements made in Flash MX allow for the creation of accessible content, however, the material must be developed with the intent to be accessible to screen readers that support Flash. Alternatively, content can be developed to be self-voicing, where every visual component of the movie will be presented in audio form. Captioning should also be provided for hearing impaired students and all navigation within the movie should be keyboard accessible (“Creating Accessible Flash content,” 2010).

Interaction and collaboration are important components of online courses. Synchronous chat sessions using a text chat could pose a problem for the visually impaired student since they rely on screen readers. In addition, students with cognitive disabilities, such as dyslexia may not be comfortable participating in such an activity where their disability could be exposed. An alternate method of synchronous communication might be an Elluminate Live session, where the session can be captioned for the hearing impaired while the visually impaired student can benefit from the audio component. Elluminate Live is compliant with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and provides for keyboard access to menus and dialog, closed captioning and screen reader compatibility (“Elluminate Accessibility,” 2010).

Wimba Classroom provides features such as closed captioning, keyboard-only navigation, and voice-activated video switching, among others, in compliance with Section 508 and other accessibility guidelines, like W3C (“Accessibility Mission,” 2010). It is important to keep in mind that students with physical disabilities may have difficulty with the pace in a synchronous session, as their reaction and response time may be slower. Instructors may, therefore, need to provide an alternate mode of communication or provide an accommodation.

The complex navigation required in discussion boards can pose a problem for the visually impaired student. A design of the discussion board should allow for keyboard navigation, be devoid of JavaScript and excessive popup windows that would necessitate mouse utilization, and be organized in a logical fashion that would facilitate accessibility to a screen reader (Watters et al., 2005). As mentioned above, Blackboard indicates that the discussion board is an area of focus for them in their efforts to increase the accessibility of their product.

Web developers and instructional designers face an often-daunting task in trying to ensure that all material is accessible by all students. However, there are tools available to verify whether websites or other online material are truly accessible. As mentioned above, many software programs include accessibility checkers (e.g. Microsoft and Adobe products). WebAIM offers a free product called WAVE, which can check web pages for compliance with the guidelines of Section 508 and WCAG. In addition, Web AIM provides a page of links to various tools to assist in compliance but cautions that human judgment is of primary importance in this regard. (“Accessibility Evaluation Tools”, 2010)

Armed with this information, it is much easier to design a course that would be accessible to all students. As the definition of distance education offered by Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, and Zvacek (2009) indicates, learners must be able to connect with resources, other learners and instructors. Administrators, developers and instructors need to take on the challenge of providing these connections to allow the inclusion of diverse learners, including those with disabilities

An approach advocated by the Center for Applied Special Technology to increase the ability for all students to establish these connections, is that of Universal Design for Learning. The principles outlined in this approach that should be applied to course and curriculum design are: allowing for “multiple forms of representation” of material, “multiple means of expression,” and “multiple means of engagement” (Center for Applied Special Technology, 2010). Within an online course, these principles can be applied easily with careful planning and consideration for students with different abilities and learning styles. Poore-Pariseau (2010) recommends that “recognition must be given to the fact that retrofitting accommodations in online environments is not only an arduous task, it is often impractical, necessitating training in concepts such as Universal Design for Learning to be placed at the forefront” (p. 155). If a proactive approach is taken toward designing courses for accessibility using Universal Design for Learning principles, more doors can open for students looking to take advantage of the growth in distance learning. However, if courses are not designed in this fashion, they create “new barriers to equal participation in academics and careers” (Burgstahler, 2010, p. 7).