120 research outputs found

    Um Estudo de Caso de Avaliação de Acessibilidade de Documentos PDF de um Ambiente Virtual de Aprendizagem

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    Virtual learning environments are commonly adopted by universitiesas classroom teaching support. One of the resources they offerare class presentations, usually in PDF files. Considering that webaccessibility is essential to allow users with some limitations tounderstand, interact, operate and navigate web content, this articlepresents an assessment of the accessibility of PDF documents madeavailable on Moodle. The methodology used a hybrid approachcomprised techniques and practices for assessing human-computerinteraction and assessing accessibility with users simulating blindness.A quantitative analysis of the data was carried out consideringthe accessibility problems faced by users in elements such as tables,graphs, mathematical formulas, expressions in foreign languagesand presentation topics. The results indicated accessibility problemsin all documents in the sample, even causing users to drop outduring the evaluations

    SLIS Connecting, Volume 10, Issue 2 Fall/Winter

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    SLIS Connecting -- the whole issue with all three Columns, one editorial, one professional article, and seven research articles

    Digi-HTA: Health technology assessment framework for digital healthcare services

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    Health technology assessment (HTA) refers to the systematic evaluation of the properties, effects, and/or impacts of health technology. The main purpose of the assessment is to inform decisionmakers in order to better support the introduction of new health technologies. New digital healthcare solutions like mHealth, artificial intelligence (AI), and robotics have brought with them a great potential to further develop healthcare services, but their introduction should follow the same criteria as that of other healthcare methods. They must provide evidence-based benefits and be safe to use, and their impacts on patients and organizations need to be clarified. The first objective of this study was to describe the state-of-the-art HTA methods for mHealth, AI, and robotics. The second objective of this study was to evaluate the domains needed in the assessment. The final aim was to develop an HTA framework for digital healthcare services to support the introduction of novel technologies into Finnish healthcare. In this study, the state-of-the-art HTA methods were evaluated using a literature review and interviews. It was noted that some good practices already existed, but the overall picture showed that further development is still needed, especially in the AI and robotics fields. With the cooperation of professionals, key aspects and domains that should be taken into account to make fast but comprehensive assessments were identified. Based on this information, we created a new framework which supports the HTA process for digital healthcare services. The framework was named Digi-HTA.Health technology assessment (HTA) refers to the systematic evaluation of the properties, effects, and/or impacts of health technology. The main purpose of the assessment is to inform decisionmakers in order to better support the introduction of new health technologies. New digital healthcare solutions like mHealth, artificial intelligence (AI), and robotics have brought with them a great potential to further develop healthcare services, but their introduction should follow the same criteria as that of other healthcare methods. They must provide evidence-based benefits and be safe to use, and their impacts on patients and organizations need to be clarified. The first objective of this study was to describe the state-of-the-art HTA methods for mHealth, AI, and robotics. The second objective of this study was to evaluate the domains needed in the assessment. The final aim was to develop an HTA framework for digital healthcare services to support the introduction of novel technologies into Finnish healthcare. In this study, the state-of-the-art HTA methods were evaluated using a literature review and interviews. It was noted that some good practices already existed, but the overall picture showed that further development is still needed, especially in the AI and robotics fields. With the cooperation of professionals, key aspects and domains that should be taken into account to make fast but comprehensive assessments were identified. Based on this information, we created a new framework which supports the HTA process for digital healthcare services. The framework was named Digi-HTA

    Web Content Management System and accessibility awareness: A comparative study of novice users and accessibility outcomes

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    Since its creation, the Web has progressively developed and become a vital source of information in every domain and for almost all people. It is crucial to guarantee that the information contained on the Web is available for everyone, especially for people with special needs. Removing accessibility barriers is fundamentally based on tools, skills and support of all contributors, particularly the content creators, to ensure information is navigable and usable in the context of the end users experience. Web Content Management Systems play a significant role in structuring, storing and provision content to the Web and have evolved to address the difficulties of manually coding web pages versus the convenience of manipulating their content without any programing skills. Web Content Management Systems have gradually evolved to contain features and functions that allow content authors to shape their content in ways that address web content accessibility expectations, though only if the content author knows how to use these features to maximum effect. This thesis explores such usage by participants deemed to be novices, in that they have limited technical skills in the context of web coding and have limited expose to Web Content Management Systems or the application/awareness of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). This research places an emphasis on the outcome of these novice users when provided with some basic training and awareness raising of WCAG principles and the use of a modern Web Content Management System. This is explored in the literature as an area of some importance as organisations with significant web presence cannot simply tell their content authors to ‘oh, and make sure it is accessible’ and hope that the end product will somehow achieve that goal without an investment in some form of accessibility education. For web managers and developers in all public sector organisations. “Make sure that all content commissioners and authors are fully trained in the importance of accessible content, and in the means that are made available for them to achieve this . (p. 58) The purpose of this research was to explore to what level the use of accessible Web Content Management System and novice users’ training impacted accessibility outcomes. This study emerged from the widespread role that Web Content Management Systems play in terms of storing and managing web content and the growing usage of these systems by experts or novices at an organisational or personal level. Through a selection process, this study identified a Web Content Management System that had a number of accessibility features, developed some training and ‘awareness raising’ materials and then asked novice users across two groups to apply what they had learned in order to develop an accessible website. The goal of the study was to ascertain if the two groups performed differently according to the training and awareness raising materials they received, and if even basic accessibility outcomes were achievable with just a few hours of training and from what was essentially an accessibility ‘cold start’. The study used a mixed methods approach encompassing three research methods; experimental method, survey method and observational method, to compare qualitative and quantitative data obtained from ‘accessibility awareness’ and ‘accessibility unaware’ participant groups. Thirty university students participated in this research and received accessibility awareness raising sessions, with additional accessibility-related examples for the accessibility awareness group. All participants undertook pre and post-tests that were designed to collect data allowing the researcher to compare the learning performance before and after the participants’ awareness session. At the end of the awareness session, the participants of both groups completed a survey which was designed to provide further data on the participant’s perception of web use and experience, the concept of web accessibility, web content accessibility guidelines, the system used, and their opinion of the accessibility awareness session. Data collected from the survey, pre and post-tests and the recording provided a holistic set of data from which the primary and supporting research questions were addressed. The results of the research indicated that the accessibility awareness group demonstrated measurably better accessibility outcomes than the unawareness group; these results being attributed to the awareness training session, participants’ searching behaviour, time spent on tasks, and effort made to implement accessible features and complete the required tasks. The participants in both groups had some prior knowledge in the use of the Web but limited or no skills in HyperText Markup Language (HTML) or the use of a Web Content Management System. While performing tasks, the participants in the awareness group attempted to apply the accessibility concepts learnt during the training session and spent more time in searching those concepts on the Web in order to provide accessible web page content. Conversely, most of the participants in the unawareness group were concerned by the “look” of the web page, rather than focusing on actual accessible content; they only mimicked the exemplar website they have been provided as an ‘end product’, but did not explore the how and why of accessible content. All the participants at the end of this study were aware of the significance of web accessibility and were favourable to consider it in any future website development they may be involved in. The outcome of the study shows that the use of accessible Web Content Management System with example-based accessibility awareness sessions can lead to improved accessibility outcomes for novice web content authors. This research strongly suggests that even small, focussed and example-based training/awareness raising session can drive an accessibility mindset in web content authors, even those with limited or no technical, accessibility or web authoring experience

    O papel da quarta revolução industrial no turismo acessível: estudo e conceptualização de uma aplicação web

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    The world is experiencing the beginning of the fourth Industrial Revolution, responsible for implementing a new digitalization era. This revolution originated in manufacturing, with industry 4.0 bringing a new reality to organizations. However, the scope of this new technological revolution is vast, and other sectors can benefit from the new digital era. In the Services Industry, tourism is an example of that, as Tourism 4.0 is the result of the impact of the fourth industrial revolution in this sector. Tourism 4.0 is the result of the impact of the fourth industrial revolution in tourism. An interesting challenge that this technological era brings to tourism is the social inclusion of people with disabilities. The accessible tourism market reveals huge potential, but despite this, this market is still largely ignored. Several technologies that promoted the fourth industrial revolution present capabilities to promote accessible tourism by improving tourism’s access conditions to people with disabilities. The present work developed a study in accessible tourism, understanding the main requirements for this market, and conceptualizing a Web application, for promoting accessibility in tourism. This Web application work as a mediator between the principal stakeholders. To gather requirements for the system, a triangulation matrix was elaborated using three methodological approaches: i) Literature Review; ii) website accessibility analysis of hotels located in the central region of Portugal; and iii) content analysis of some concurrent platforms. The requirements triangulation matrix allowed the identification of what requirements are crucial for the system success, which were used to conceptualize the solution with UML notation. This work intends to demonstrate the technological impacts of the fourth industrial revolution on society, especially on the promotion of a more accessible tourismO mundo encontra-se hoje no início da quarta revolução industrial, responsável pela promoção de uma nova era caracterizada pela digitalização. Apesar desta revolução ter surgido no setor industrial, com o conceito de Indústria 4.0, a sua aplicação é muito mais vasta, existindo outros sectores que podem igualmente beneficiar desta nova era tecnológica. O setor dos serviços, nomeadamente o Turismo, é um exemplo disso, e o conceito de Turismo 4.0 é o resultado do impacto da quarta revolução industrial nesse setor. Um desafio interessante que esta nova era tecnológica traz para o turismo é o da inclusão social, promovendo o turismo para todos. De facto, o mercado do turismo acessível, apesar de ter imenso potencial, tem sido relegado no contexto dos negócios. Por outro lado, o potencial tecnológico associado a esta nova revolução industrial sugere uma grande capacidade na promoção do turismo acessível, na medida em que podem facilitar as condições de acesso ao turismo, por parte de pessoas com algum tipo de incapacidade e ou necessidade especial. O presente trabalho visa conduzir um estudo na área do turismo acessível, por forma compreender os principais requisitos deste tipo de mercado e, consequentemente, conceptualizar uma aplicação Web, com o propósito de promover a acessibilidade no turismo, funcionando como um mediador de informação entre os principais stakeholders. Para a obtenção dos requisitos do sistema foi feita: i) uma revisão da literatura; ii) um estudo que avalia a acessibilidade dos websites dos hotéis da zona centro de Portugal, e, ainda iii) um estudo com base em análise de conteúdo de algumas plataformas potencialmente concorrentes. Os resultados são apresentados na forma de uma matriz de triangulação, onde é possível identificar a fonte dos requisitos identificados, sendo posteriormente utilizados para conceptualizar a solução proposta com recurso à notação UML. Pretende-se com este trabalho demonstrar o potencial e o efeito que as tecnologias existentes na era designada por quarta revolução industrial podem ter na sociedade, nomeadamente na promoção de um turismo para todosMestrado em Engenharia e Gestão Industria

    Tracing the creation and evaluation of accessible Open Educational Resources through learning analytics

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    The adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) has been continuously growing and with it the need to addressing the diversity of students’ learning needs. Because of that, OER should meet with characteristics such as the web accessibility and quality. Thus, teachers as the creators of OER need supporting tools and specialized competences. The main contribution of this thesis is a Learning Analytics Model to Trace the Creation and Evaluation of OER (LAMTCE) considering web accessibility and quality. LAMTCE also includes a user model of the teacher’s competences in the creation and evaluation of OER. Besides that, we developed ATCE, a learning analytics tool based on the LAMTCE model. Finally, it was carried out an evaluation conducted with teachers involving the use of the tool and we found that the tool really benefited teachers in the acquisition of their competences in creation and evaluation of accessible and quality OER.La adopción de Recursos Educativos Abiertos (REA) ha ido en aumento y con ello la necesidad de abordar la diversidad de necesidades de aprendizaje de los estudiantes. Por ello, los REA deben cumplir con características tales como la accesibilidad web y la calidad. Así, los profesores como los creadores de REA necesitan de herramientas de soporte y competencias especializadas. La principal contribución de la tesis es el modelo LAMTCE, un modelo de analíticas de aprendizaje para hacer seguimiento a la creación y evaluación de REA considerando la accesibilidad web y la calidad. LAMTCE también incluye un modelo de usuario de las competencias del profesor en creación y evaluación de REA. Además, se desarrolló ATCE, una herramienta de analíticas de aprendizaje que está basada en el modelo LAMTCE. Finalmente, se llevó a cabo un estudio con profesores involucrando el uso de la herramienta encontrando que ésta realmente benefició a los profesores en la adquisición de sus competencias en creación y evaluación de REA accesibles y de calidad

    Accessibility requirements for human-robot interaction for socially assistive robots

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    Mención Internacional en el título de doctorPrograma de Doctorado en Ciencia y Tecnología Informática por la Universidad Carlos III de MadridPresidente: María Ángeles Malfaz Vázquez.- Secretario: Diego Martín de Andrés.- Vocal: Mike Wal

    Leveraging human-computer interaction and crowdsourcing for scholarly knowledge graph creation

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    The number of scholarly publications continues to grow each year, as well as the number of journals and active researchers. Therefore, methods and tools to organize scholarly knowledge are becoming increasingly important. Without such tools, it becomes increasingly difficult to conduct research in an efficient and effective manner. One of the fundamental issues scholarly communication is facing relates to the format in which the knowledge is shared. Scholarly communication relies primarily on narrative document-based formats that are specifically designed for human consumption. Machines cannot easily access and interpret such knowledge, leaving machines unable to provide powerful tools to organize scholarly knowledge effectively. In this thesis, we propose to leverage knowledge graphs to represent, curate, and use scholarly knowledge. The systematic knowledge representation leads to machine-actionable knowledge, which enables machines to process scholarly knowledge with minimal human intervention. To generate and curate the knowledge graph, we propose a machine learning assisted crowdsourcing approach, in particular Natural Language Processing (NLP). Currently, NLP techniques are not able to satisfactorily extract high-quality scholarly knowledge in an autonomous manner. With our proposed approach, we intertwine human and machine intelligence, thus exploiting the strengths of both approaches. First, we discuss structured scholarly knowledge, where we present the Open Research Knowledge Graph (ORKG). Specifically, we focus on the design and development of the ORKG user interface (i.e., the frontend). One of the key challenges is to provide an interface that is powerful enough to create rich knowledge descriptions yet intuitive enough for researchers without a technical background to create such descriptions. The ORKG serves as the technical foundation for the rest of the work. Second, we focus on comparable scholarly knowledge, where we introduce the concept of ORKG comparisons. ORKG comparisons provide machine-actionable overviews of related literature in a tabular form. Also, we present a methodology to leverage existing literature reviews to populate ORKG comparisons via a human-in-the-loop approach. Additionally, we show how ORKG comparisons can be used to form ORKG SmartReviews. The SmartReviews provide dynamic literature reviews in the form of living documents. They are an attempt address the main weaknesses of the current literature review practice and outline how the future of review publishing can look like. Third, we focus designing suitable tasks to generate scholarly knowledge in a crowdsourced setting. We present an intelligent user interface that enables researchers to annotate key sentences in scholarly publications with a set of discourse classes. During this process, researchers are assisted by suggestions coming from NLP tools. In addition, we present an approach to validate NLP-generated statements using microtasks in a crowdsourced setting. With this approach, we lower the barrier to entering data in the ORKG and transform content consumers into content creators. With the work presented, we strive to transform scholarly communication to improve machine-actionability of scholarly knowledge. The approaches and tools are deployed in a production environment. As a result, the majority of the presented approaches and tools are currently in active use by various research communities and already have an impact on scholarly communication.Die Zahl der wissenschaftlichen Veröffentlichungen nimmt jedes Jahr weiter zu, ebenso wie die Zahl der Zeitschriften und der aktiven Forscher. Daher werden Methoden und Werkzeuge zur Organisation von wissenschaftlichem Wissen immer wichtiger. Ohne solche Werkzeuge wird es immer schwieriger, Forschung effizient und effektiv zu betreiben. Eines der grundlegenden Probleme, mit denen die wissenschaftliche Kommunikation konfrontiert ist, betrifft das Format, in dem das Wissen publiziert wird. Die wissenschaftliche Kommunikation beruht in erster Linie auf narrativen, dokumentenbasierten Formaten, die speziell für Experten konzipiert sind. Maschinen können auf dieses Wissen nicht ohne weiteres zugreifen und es interpretieren, so dass Maschinen nicht in der Lage sind, leistungsfähige Werkzeuge zur effektiven Organisation von wissenschaftlichem Wissen bereitzustellen. In dieser Arbeit schlagen wir vor, Wissensgraphen zu nutzen, um wissenschaftliches Wissen darzustellen, zu kuratieren und zu nutzen. Die systematische Wissensrepräsentation führt zu maschinenverarbeitbarem Wissen. Dieses ermöglicht es Maschinen wissenschaftliches Wissen mit minimalem menschlichen Eingriff zu verarbeiten. Um den Wissensgraphen zu generieren und zu kuratieren, schlagen wir einen Crowdsourcing-Ansatz vor, der durch maschinelles Lernen unterstützt wird, insbesondere durch natürliche Sprachverarbeitung (NLP). Derzeit sind NLP-Techniken nicht in der Lage, qualitativ hochwertiges wissenschaftliches Wissen auf autonome Weise zu extrahieren. Mit unserem vorgeschlagenen Ansatz verknüpfen wir menschliche und maschinelle Intelligenz und nutzen so die Stärken beider Ansätze. Zunächst erörtern wir strukturiertes wissenschaftliches Wissen, wobei wir den Open Research Knowledge Graph (ORKG) vorstellen.Insbesondere konzentrieren wir uns auf das Design und die Entwicklung der ORKG-Benutzeroberfläche (das Frontend). Eine der größten Herausforderungen besteht darin, eine Schnittstelle bereitzustellen, die leistungsfähig genug ist, um umfangreiche Wissensbeschreibungen zu erstellen und gleichzeitig intuitiv genug ist für Forscher ohne technischen Hintergrund, um solche Beschreibungen zu erstellen. Der ORKG dient als technische Grundlage für die Arbeit. Zweitens konzentrieren wir uns auf vergleichbares wissenschaftliches Wissen, wofür wir das Konzept der ORKG-Vergleiche einführen. ORKG-Vergleiche bieten maschinell verwertbare Übersichten über verwandtes wissenschaftliches Wissen in tabellarischer Form. Außerdem stellen wir eine Methode vor, mit der vorhandene Literaturübersichten genutzt werden können, um ORKG-Vergleiche mit Hilfe eines Human-in-the-Loop-Ansatzes zu erstellen. Darüber hinaus zeigen wir, wie ORKG-Vergleiche verwendet werden können, um ORKG SmartReviews zu erstellen. Die SmartReviews bieten dynamische Literaturübersichten in Form von lebenden Dokumenten. Sie stellen einen Versuch dar, die Hauptschwächen der gegenwärtigen Praxis des Literaturreviews zu beheben und zu skizzieren, wie die Zukunft der Veröffentlichung von Reviews aussehen kann. Drittens konzentrieren wir uns auf die Gestaltung geeigneter Aufgaben zur Generierung von wissenschaftlichem Wissen in einer Crowdsourced-Umgebung. Wir stellen eine intelligente Benutzeroberfläche vor, die es Forschern ermöglicht, Schlüsselsätze in wissenschaftlichen Publikationen mittles Diskursklassen zu annotieren. In diesem Prozess werden Forschende mit Vorschlägen von NLP-Tools unterstützt. Darüber hinaus stellen wir einen Ansatz zur Validierung von NLP-generierten Aussagen mit Hilfe von Mikroaufgaben in einer Crowdsourced-Umgebung vor. Mit diesem Ansatz senken wir die Hürde für die Eingabe von Daten in den ORKG und setzen Inhaltskonsumenten als Inhaltsersteller ein. Mit der Arbeit streben wir eine Transformation der wissenschaftlichen Kommunikation an, um die maschinelle Verwertbarkeit von wissenschaftlichem Wissen zu verbessern. Die Ansätze und Werkzeuge werden in einer Produktionsumgebung eingesetzt. Daher werden die meisten der vorgestellten Ansätze und Werkzeuge derzeit von verschiedenen Forschungsgemeinschaften aktiv genutzt und haben bereits einen Einfluss auf die wissenschaftliche Kommunikation.EC/ERC/819536/E

    Website Accessibility Strategies

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    Most websites cannot be readily used by people with disabilities, despite the internet being an essential component for people to be part of a community. Applying web accessibility strategies means that people with disabilities can better interact with the web. Grounded in Davis’s technology acceptance model, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to examine strategies used by web designers to make websites accessible for people with disabilities. The participants were experienced web developers from organizations in Florida with websites that have a Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Level 2 of three levels, i.e., AA- rating. The data collection process included semistructured interviews with experienced web developers (N = 8) and examination of company documents (N = 9). Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Three major themes emerged: the importance of awareness and experience of accessibility strategies, the importance of testing websites for accessibility, and the importance of training developers in web accessibility. A recommendation is for leaders and developers to advocate the organization about the need for web accessibility. Once the organization is committed to accessibility, the leaders must agree on evaluating developed websites. Additionally, there should be a financial commitment to train developers and accessibility evaluators in web accessibility. The implications for positive social change include the potential to increase software accessibility for people with disabilities
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