The missing link? Design for all elements in ICT education fostering e-inclusion.

Accessible Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems and applications are able to offer an important opportunity for social, political and economic engagement. Additionally, the established principles and practices of Design for All could help to minimise the risk of exclusion of citizens from the information society such as older adults, disabled people, people with low literacy or those not using their first language But what if the future providers of ICT solutions and applications lack the knowledge of Design for All principles and practices, and the skills to apply that knowledge to support innovation and advancement

Design for all as focus in European ICT teaching and training activities.

Both in the EU and UK the goal of digital inclusion demands a broad understanding of the factors that contribute to the risk of exclusion, such as a result of age, disability, low literacy, geography and ethnicity. The overall methodologies and principles of Design for All are well established and address many of the challenges of design for user diversity including older and disabled people. However, these are not yet an established part of the curriculum in mainstream Computing and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in higher level education. The Design for All @eInclusion project investigated the current provision of education and training of future developers and associated disciplines and identified progress and gaps. Best practice included examples of specialist modules and ‘hidden gems’ – instances of small elements such as single lectures that are optional, integrated or embedded within a larger module. These findings contributed to the development of curriculum guidelines which take account of the latest agreements for European harmonisation through the European Qualifications Framework. These guidelines are intended to stimulate the creation of new courses throughout Europe

Towards Universally Designed Assistive Technology E-Learning

The aim of this dissertation is to provide Assistive Technology (AT) professionals involved in the area of education and training with a set of reusable technological tools and techniques that will enable them to increase the reach, efficiency, effectiveness and accessibility of their training through online delivery. There are a number of broadly accepted reasons why an organisation in any field might choose to make training available online or partially online (blended) rather than relying on traditional face to face methods. Of the four considered here and mentioned above, accessibility is the biggest concern in the context of AT. It is essential that an AT course follows accessibility best practice and in terms of education this means adhering closely to the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Through an extensive literature review the intrinsic properties of AT that might influence its delivery as e-Learning will be examined, followed by a review of previous AT education initiatives. A suitable Learning Management System (LMS) will then be selected and the ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation) model will be used to develop initial pilot modules. The evaluation of these pilot modules will take the form of a detailed questionnaire issued to course participants and will be supplemented by an examination of the user data captured by the LMS. There will also be a further examination of the pilot modules against the UDL checkpoints. From these findings the design process will be modified and an improved design methodology will be proposed. This improved design methodology and supporting documentation will help AT educators to identify and utilise a range of reusable tools to create Universally Designed Learning Objects that will enable them, as the experts in the field, to successfully transfer their expertise from the classroom to an online medium. On completion, the improved design methodology will be offered back to AT professionals for expert evaluation. This evaluation will be documented and will inform further work including the building of UDL AT Learning Objects and the creation of an AT Learning Object Repository where the resulting learning objects can be easily accessed for reuse. Key words: Assistive technology, e

Web accessibility

In dieser Arbeit wird erstmalig ein holistischer Ansatz zur Ermittlung der betriebswirtschaftlichen Implikationen von barrierefreien Webpräsenzen vorgestellt, welcher die Barrierefreiheit aus zwei Perspektiven (Organisation, Behörde) analysiert. Die organisationale Dimension umfasst die Entwicklung eines fallstudienbasierten Rahmenwerks für eine explorative Analyse der betriebswirtschaftlichen Implikationen von Barrierefreiheit sowie dessen Anwendung auf Organisationen in drei verschiedenen Unternehmenssektoren: Tourismus, Finanzdienstleistungen und Information. Die Ergebnisse dieser Fallstudie stellen einen ersten betriebswirtschaftlichen Ansatz dar, um die wirtschaftlichen Implikationen von barrierefreiem Web zu identifizieren und dienen somit als wichtige Entscheidungsunterstützung für das Management. Die wiederholte Anwendung dieser Methode führt zu einer beliebig erweiterbaren Fallstudiensammlung, welche eine wichtige Basis für weitere quantitative und qualitative Forschung bildet. Die behördliche Dimension dieser Arbeit untersucht ausgewählte Strategiealternativen zur Etablierung eines einheitlichen Web Accessibility Gütesiegels in Österreich. Dafür wird ein antizipativer Ansatz verwendet, welcher das Bestehen eines normativen Dokuments und einer Evaluationsmethodik voraussetzt. In einer Szenarienanalyse werden vier Strategiealternativen entwickelt und evaluiert. Ferner wird ein flexibles Geschäftsmodell für ein österreichisches Gütesiegel entwickelt, um in weiterer Folge Entscheidungsträger bei der Auswahl einer geeigneten Herangehensweise auf nationaler Ebene zu unterstützen und somit eine europakonforme Realisierung eines Gütesiegels unabhängig vom Fortschritt internationaler Standardisierungsbemühungen zu erleichtern.This thesis develops a holistic approach for the analysis of business implications of accessible web presences which encompasses two strongly interrelated perspectives (organization and authority). The organizational part introduces a case study research based framework for an exploratory analysis of web accessibility implications which is applied to organizations in three business sectors. The case study draws on a triangulation approach and considers the opposing insights of organizations with and without successful web accessibility implementation in the tourism, financial services and information sector. The findings of this case study research constitute a first managerial approach to identify the business impacts of web accessibility and generate a sound basis for management decision recommendations. The reapplication of this methodology to any real world case results in a case study collection that can be extended continuously. This collection represents an important basis for further quantitative and qualitative research. The authority perspective of this thesis explores viable alternatives for implementing the European web accessibility quality mark in Austria. A look-ahead approach is applied that assumes the release of a normative document and an evaluation methodology in the near future. A scenario analysis includes the development of four scenarios and their evaluation in terms of six criteria. Moreover, a flexible business model for an Austrian web accessibility quality mark that fits into a possible European framework and at the same time facilitates and accelerates national implementation is introduced