The accessibility of administrative processes: Assessing the impacts on students in higher education

Administrative processes that need to be completed to maintain a basic standard of living, to study, or to attain employment, are perceived to create burdens for disabled people. The navigation of information, forms, communications, and assessments to achieve a particular goal raises diverse accessibility issues. In this paper we explore the different types of impacts these processes have on disabled university students. We begin by surveying literature that highlights the systemic characteristics of administrative burdens and barriers for disabled people. We then describe how a participatory research exercise with students led to the development of a survey on these issues. This was completed by 104 respondents with a diverse range of declared disabilities. This provides evidence for a range of impacts, and understanding of the perceived level of challenge of commonly experienced processes. The most common negative impact reported was on stress levels. Other commonly reported impacts include exacerbation of existing conditions, time lost from study, and instances where support was not available in a timely fashion. Processes to apply for disability-related support were more commonly challenging than other types of processes. We use this research to suggest directions for improving accessibility and empowerment in this space

Qualitative Data Analysis Challenges in Co-Designing Educational Technology Systems for Refugee Children

There is a growing interest in the potential for technology to facilitate emergency education of refugee children. But designing in this space requires knowledge of the displaced population and the contextual dynamics surrounding it. Design should therefore be informed by both existing research across relevant disciplines, and from those who are on the ground facing the problem in real life. This paper describes a process that is based on literature from emergency education, student engagement and motivation, educational technology, and participatory design. We describe how this process was implemented leading to the design of a digital learning space for children living in a refugee camp in Greece. The challenge of data analysis is critical, as the qualitative data in the process is elicited from activities of various natures and thus moving from qualitative data to designs is a critical challenge that we are looking to cover for our process to be complete and applicable. We discuss some of the challenges that can be expected in such context

What do MOOC providers think about accessibility?

Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) have become an accepted way to make learning opportunities available at large scale and low cost to the learner. However, only if these are made accessible will they be able to offer the flexibility of learning and benefits to all, irrespective of disability. Experience in providing accessible online learning at distance universities suggests that this can be best achieved through understanding different roles and the options in planning for adjustments to be made. To effectively apply similar approaches to MOOCs, it is necessary to understand the various viewpoints and roles of stakeholders and how these impact on accessibility. This includes educators who create materials and facilitate learning and technologists who develop and maintain platforms. We report the results from a study involving semi-structured interviews to investigate the perceptions and accessibility-related processes of MOOC platform accessibility managers, platform software developers/designers and MOOC accessibility researchers. Our results show awareness that MOOCs can be valuable for disabled learners, and indicate that legislation acts as a driver for accessibility. However, our investigations suggest limited progress to date in either producing universally accessible MOOCs or tailoring MOOCs to meet the needs of individual disabled learners

The current state of accessibility of MOOCs: What are the next steps?

Accessibility focuses on supporting people with disabilities – such as those related to auditory, cognitive, neurological, physical, speech, and vision requirements. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are no longer a novelty and the technologies associated with them should cater to all users irrespective of their accessibility requirements. In this paper, we will discuss the current state of research related to accessibility of MOOCs. We will then outline a research plan towards developing recommendations for the effective design of accessible MOOCs. The plan includes stages such as developing an evaluation instrument, evaluation of existing MOOCs and conducting empirical research with design teams of MOOCs and learners (MOOC-users)

Auditing the accessibility of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

The outcome from the research being reported in this paper is the design of an accessibility audit to evaluate Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for accessibility and to arrive at solutions and adaptations that can meet user needs. This accessibility audit includes expert-based heuristic evaluations and user-based evaluations of the MOOC platforms and individual courses

Widening disabled learners’ participation to HE through the use of MOOCs

Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) are making low-cost learning opportunities available at a large scale to diverse groups of learners. Therefore, MOOCs need to be accessible so that they can offer the flexibility of learning and benefits to all. To direct efforts towards developing accessible MOOCs, it is important to understand the current motivations of disabled learners. Analysis of data from existing MOOC surveys that request disclosure of disability provides quantitative information such as the proportions of disabled learners participating in MOOCs; their reasons for participating, and the types of MOOCs they prefer. Interviews from selected participants for this research, capture in-depth the experiences and motivations of disabled learners while participating in them. This paper outlines the interests that disabled learners who have experience participating in MOOCs have in studying Higher Education (HE) programmes, and the possibilities MOOCs offer them as vehicles to complement or offer alternative paths to their HE studies

Assessing OER impact across varied organisations and learners: experiences from the "Bridge to Success" initiative

and detailed analysis of how resources impact learning. Simultaneously, it is inherent in the concept of OER that resources are to be used in different contexts and in varied ways. Encouraging institutions to appropriate resources to their needs is important to the effective application of OER. A major challenge is to develop research practices that can effectively evaluate this heterogeneous usage and impact. In this paper we consider experiences of assessing impact from Bridge to Success: an initiative in which online courses in mathematics and study skills, originally developed at the Open University UK, were remixed for a US audience and made available as OER. The released materials were subsequently used in more than 16 US-based institutions including colleges, universities, high schools, and projects to help the long-term unemployed. The materials were used in a variety of ways. In some cases, units of these open online courses were used as supplementary materials, whilst elsewhere the courses were used in drop-in labs and face-to-face sessions. In several contexts, the materials were provided to a cohort of students to help them prepare for formal assessments. In others, underachieving students were specifically targeted and advised to use the resources. This variety of pilot contexts provided a challenging dimension to understanding the value of the OER intervention to the learner. Understanding use is seen as a key component in the further development of OER (Atkins, Seely Brown & Hammond, 2007). However approaches to this where institutions have been encouraged to contextualise materials to their own needs are currently limited. We explore different approaches to evaluating this type of impact across contexts. Analysing data on frequency and type of access, learning gains, institutional enrolment and persistence of students are critical areas for this type of research, and require an understanding of institutional and learner characteristics, in addition to the varied ways in which the materials are facilitated. Openness creates challenges for researchers to collect and link data about all kinds of use. For example, institutions collect information on enrolment, assessment and retention in different formats: this data can be sensitive or difficult to share. In addition, to truly understand impact, researchers need to be able to distinguish different forms of resource use and connect this to specific user groups. The paper evaluates our experiences by defining the types of impact data required by a range of stakeholders, and the achievements and challenges in delivering this information as part of the Bridge to Success initiative. A wide range of quantitative and qualitative methods were used in researching the impact of the initiative, but limitations exist in our current ability to understand use and to link this to the requirements of the different contexts of use. Based on both the successes and failures we had in monitoring impact we outline suggested approaches towards an effective general model for assessing OER impact

Interaction in creative tasks: ideation, representation and evaluation in composition

The design of tools for creative activities affects the creative processes and output of users. In this paper we consider how an understanding of creative interaction can inform the design of support tools in a creative domain, and where creative needs cross domain boundaries. Using observations of musical composers we analyse the theoretical approaches to understanding creativity and their use to HCI. Cycles of ideation and evaluation are suggested as atomic elements of creative interactions, with the representation of ideas a central activity for individual and collaborating composers. A model of collaborative composition was developed, along with an analysis of the representational types used in the domain. This led to the design and evaluation of a prototype Sonic Sketchpad for musical idea representation

Creating Open Online Courses with Learner Representative Partners to Widen Participation in Higher Education

Open online courses could provide stepping stones for audiences that are under-represented in higher education (HE). However, there are concerns that these instead proliferate forms of exclusion and do not address known difficulties for widening participation. We explore how organisations that represent the perspectives of particular underserved audiences for HE can act as ‘Learner Representative Partners’ to support the creation of appropriate courses and to highlight practices that exclude. Six course development processes where a university worked with different partners are analysed using interviews, documentation of resource use, and data on learner behaviour. The analysis utilises previously identified challenges to widening participation and collaborative course creation. Getting partners to directly engage in authoring the course was particularly beneficial but all partners prompted critical thought and greater understanding of the intended audiences. We suggest principles to support such partnerships effectively. These include adapting to a variable capacity of partners to contribute, to encourage reuse or creation of resources by partners, and to facilitate partners to feel confident in expressing their views