Dataset for evaluating the accessibility of the websites of selected Latin American universities

This article presents the process of building a dataset for evaluation of the accessibility of 368 web pages, beginning with Webometrics rankings, the WAVE tool was used in the evaluation of the web pages. The dataset documents data on repeated errors with higher frequency, in such a way that they alert the web developers, supporting them in creating more inclusive and accessible websites for all types of people, including users with disabilities. The data show that university websites have frequent problems related to the lack of alternative text linked to images. Some of the university websites included in this dataset were found to violate web accessibility requirements based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 and 2.1. Therefore, this data has been shared to allow replication of the experiment, and serve as an input to future studies related to web accessibility. The dataset is hosted, with public access, in the Mendeley Dataset Repository.The authors thank Universidad de Las Américas, Ecuador, for funding this research through the project FGE.PAV.19.11

A Systematic Review of Usability and Accessibility in Tele-Rehabilitation Systems

The appropriate development of tele-rehabilitation platforms requires the involvement and iterative assessments of potential users and experts in usability. Usability consists of measuring the degree to which an interactive system can be used by specified final users to achieve quantified objectives with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a quantified context of use. Usability studies need to be complemented by an accessibility assessment. Accessibility indicates how easy it is for a person to access any content, regardless of their physical, educational, social, psychological, or cultural conditions. This chapter intends to conduct a systematic review of the literature on usability and accessibility in tele-rehabilitation platforms carried out through the PRISMA method. To do so, we searched in ACM, IEEE Xplore, Google Scholar, and Scopus databases for the most relevant papers of the last decade. The main result of the usability shows that the user experience predominates over the heuristic studies, and the usability questionnaire most used in user experience is the SUS. The main result of the accessibility reveals that the topic is only marginally studied. In addition, it is observed that Web applications do not apply the physical and cognitive accessibility standards defined by the WCAG 2.1

Challenges to Assess Accessibility in Higher Education Websites: A Comparative Study of Latin America Universities

The Web has revolutionized our daily lives, becoming a prime source of information, knowledge, inquiry, and provision of services in various areas. It is possible to obtain information easily from any institution through the Internet; in fact, the first impression of an organization an individual perceives is almost always based on its official website. Services related to education are increasing worldwide; therefore, it is important that users, regardless of their disabilities, be able to access these websites in an effective manner. However, the homepages of universities in Latin America still do not meet web accessibility criteria. This paper describes the problems of web accessibility identified in 348 main university websites in Latin America according to their rankings on Webometrics. The results show that the universities’ websites have frequent problems related to the lack of alternative image text. It was found that the university websites included in the present study violate Web accessibility requirements based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0. The many problems identified concerning Website accessibility indicate that it is necessary to strengthen Web accessibility policies in each country and apply better directives in this area to make Websites more inclusive

Combined Method for Evaluating Accessibility in Serious Games

Nowadays, one of the learning resources in the educational area are serious games, also called training games; they are games designed with a different purpose than fun, whose main objective is to reinforce the new concepts more creatively. However, not all existing serious games are accessible in a way that allows access to a more significant number of users. Therefore, this research proposes to apply a combined method to evaluate accessibility in serious games, considering the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. As a case study, we evaluated the accessibility of 82 serious games developed by Physical Education Technology Interactive Simulations at the University of Colorado. We propose to replicate this combined method for users with various types of disabilities, considering the various accessibility barriers. As future work, we suggest generating an accessibility heuristic evaluation focused on serious games, based on the accessibility issues identified. Finally, we believe it is essential to strengthen accessibility policies in each country, as well as implement best practices that generate innovation by incorporating diversity in building and designing more inclusive serious games.This research was funded by Universidad de Las Américas-Ecuador, as part of an internal research project FGE.PAV.19.11

A Heuristic Method for Evaluating Accessibility in Web-Based Serious Games for Users with Low Vision

Nowadays, serious games have become a beneficial resource in the learning process; they are part of our culture and promote social inclusion. Designing accessible serious games is a complete challenge, even more for non-experts. Most existing serious games do not meet accessibility standards because of a lack of methods that include standards and help create more accessible serious games. For this reason, our research presents a heuristic method with three modifications to Giorgio Brajnik’s barrier walkthrough method and based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1). We defined 28 barriers for the users with low vision and the related impact and persistence variables by defining severity ranges to evaluate accessibility. This method allows measuring the accessibility of web-based serious games; the method proposed in this article can be a good help for non-experts. As a case study, this heuristic method was applied to 40 web-based serious games. The evaluators concluded that serious games should apply WCAG 2.1 to achieve an adequate and inclusive accessibility level. However, this study has limitations; the heuristic method depends on the evaluators’ experience. This work can contribute to studies related to accessibility heuristics in serious games; it can also help construct a software tool that applies WCAG 2.1 and helps experts and non-experts evaluate accessibility in serious games.This research was funded by Universidad de Las Américas-Ecuador, as part of an internal research project FGE.PAV.19.11

Guía metodológica para aulas virtuales bajo Moodle

El uso de espacios virtuales de aprendizaje (VLE), aulas virtuales, etc. como herramientas de inclusión de las Tecnologías de Información y Comunicación (TICs)en el aula es una práctica que cada vez está más difundida en las instituciones de Educación Superior, debido a beneficios como eliminar barreras de tiempo y espacio, facilidad de utilizar herramientas de enseñanza aprendizaje acordes al desarrollo tecnológico, y por tanto que incentiven su participación y uso. Este manual es un conjunto de buenas prácticas asociadas al diseño de espacios virtuales enmarcadas en un marco de trabajo identificado como Modelo PESE derivado del acrónimo Planificación, Elaboración, Seguimiento y Evaluación. Este modelo debe alinearse a las nuevas necesidades de la era digital, lo cual involucra un cambio pedagógico, para desarrollar habilidades, destrezas y competencias acordes al nuevo milenio, una de estas destrezas a mencionarse es la búsqueda e interpretación apropiada de la información que ahora tiene disponible a través de internet

Technical Contributions to the Quality of Telerehabilitation Platforms: Case Study—ePHoRt Project

This chapter proposes three main technical contributions for the development of a telerehabilitation platform, named ePHoRT, for patients recovering from hip surgery. The first contribution is the application of a diffuse 3D model for the detection of rehabilitation exercises after hip surgery. The model applies fuzzy logic, which allows identifying in real time if a patient is performing a right or wrong movement, assisted by an avatar in 3D. The avatar copies the movements of the patient through a Kinect camera. The second contribution involves the proposal of an iterative method to improve the usability of telerehabilitation platforms along the development life cycle. The proposed method involves the use of an inspection method and includes protocols and instruments. This method has been validated in the ePHoRT project. Finally, the chapter describes accessibility guidelines for educational resources. It proposes accessibility standards for the content of educational resources in video and PDF formats in the telerehabilitation platform according to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

A Heuristic Method to Evaluate Web Accessibility for Users With Low Vision

Checking the accessibility of a website is a significant challenge for accessibility experts. Users who suffer from age-related changes, such as low vision, poor hearing, and diminishing motor skills, among others, have problems accessing the services offered by the web. Currently, there are qualitative and quantitative methods to check if a website is accessible. Most methods apply automatic tools because they are low cost, but they do not present an ideal solution. Instead, heuristic methods require manual support that will help the expert to assess accessibility by establishing severity ranges. This research used a modification of the Barrier Walkthrough method proposed by Giorgio Brajnik considering the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1. The modification consisted of including persistence to determine the severity of an accessibility barrier. This method enabled the measurement of the accessibility of websites to test a new heuristic process and to obtain sample data for analysis. The method was applied to 40 websites, including those of 30 universities in Latin America, according to the Webometrics ranking, and 10 websites among the most visited, according to Alexa ranking. With this heuristic method, the evaluators concluded that although a website is in a high-ranking position, this does not imply that it is accessible and inclusive. However, the manual method takes too long, and it is therefore too costly to solve accessibility problems. This research can serve as a starting point for future studies related to web accessibility heuristics.This work was supported by the Universidad de Las Américas, Ecuador, under Project FGE.PAV.18.10

Towards Accessibility and Inclusion of Native Mobile Applications Available for Ecuador in Google Play Store

This article aims to evaluate the level of compliance with the accessibility requirements of the most popular native Android mobile applications, for which a sample of 50 Google Play Store applications available in Ecuador was taken. A five-phase method using the Accessibility Scanner tool was used to evaluate the apps. The results revealed that 47.5% are related to problems with tactile orientation, followed by the labeling of elements with 28.2%, and text contrast with 9.2%. The highest number of barriers found in the evaluation of mobile applications corresponds to the principle of operability with 53.9%. This study reveals that, although social networks are widely used, they have 28.7% of accessibility problems. Basing accessibility analysis exclusively on an automatic tool is very limited since it neither detects all errors nor are the errors they detect accurate. However, we suggest complementing the automatic review evaluations with a manual method based on heuristics to ensure an adequate level of accessibility in mobile apps. In addition, we recommend using this study as a starting point to create a software tool using WCAG 2.1 based on artificial intelligence algorithms to help developers evaluate accessibility in mobile apps.This research was funded by Universidad de Las Américas-Ecuador, an internal research project INI.PAV.20.01

Tabaquismo entre las internas de un centro penitenciario para mujeres

Introducción: El tabaquismo es una de las principales causas de enfermedad y muerte en el mundo,y su consumo puede aumentar ante situaciones de estrés. Objetivos: Caracterizar el tabaquismodentro de la cárcel de mujeres Casa del Buen Pastor. Materiales y métodos: Estudio observacional,descriptivo, de corte transversal con una encuesta anónima utilizando el método de múltiple opciónde respuestas. Resultados: Declararon ser fumadoras 73 de las 101 internas encuestadas, y lagran mayoría de ellas quiere dejar de fumar. Conclusión: Hay una alta prevalencia de tabaquismoentre las mujeres en prisión, y su mayoritario deseo de cesación es una oportunidad que debeaprovecharse para apoyarlas con medidas adecuadas para lograrlo