Can user recommendations be useful for improving MOOCs accessibility? A project for inclusive design and profitable feedback

At present there are no applications which include accessibility revisions for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), neither in the context of MOOCs provider institutions nor from the point of view of any Open Educational Resource (OER) initiative. In this paper an approximation to this problem is presented, in the form of a specific web portal which will offer the possibility for any user to freely judge the accessibility of a certain course and advice about the missing means of meeting user needs or required adaptations. This kind of user feedback can be of great value for the future development of MOOC platforms, courses and the educational resources. The development of this web tool will gather valuable information directly from the users themselves to improve the educational quality and accessibility of these learning environments

Accessibility assessment of MOOC platforms in Spanish: UNED COMA, COLMENIA and Miriada X

This article develops a methodology for the assessment of MOOC courses, focusing on the degree of accessibility of three Spanish MOOC platforms: UNED COMA, COLMENIA and Miriada X. Four different criteria have been used in this context: automatic tools, disability simulators, testing tools and educational conten

Accessible user profile modeling for academic services based on MOOCs

MOOCs are examples of the evolution of eLearning environments, it is a fact that the flexibility of the learning services allows students to learn at their own time, place and pace, enhances continuous communication and interaction between all participants in knowledge and community building, benefits people with disabilities and therefore can improve their level of employability and social inclusion. MOOCs are leading a revolutionary computer and mobile-based scenario along with social technologies that will emergence new kinds of learning applications that enhance communication and collaboration processes, for that reason a strategy of the use of metadata regarding the achievement of accessibility from content to user preferences is presented in this paper, in order to achieve a better accessibility level while designing new learning services for people with functional diversity based upon MOOCs

YourMOOC4all: a MOOCs inclusive design and useful feedback research project

User feedback can be of great value for the development of guidelines to design MOOC platforms, courses, and open educational resources. Considering other learners’ experiences may benefit the development of course recommender systems that consider not only the quality of the content but also the level of accessibility to address disabled learners needs. In this paper a novel design for a recommender website is introduced which collects user feedback requests for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), offering the possibility to freely rate the taken courses following Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles. The development of this website, which is currently in a pilot process by UNED, will gather valuable information directly from the learners themselves to improve aspects such as the educational quality, accessibility, and usability of this open learning environment advising about the missing means regarding inclusive design

La cultura de los MOOCS

La cultura de los MOOCs para la innovación en Educación Superior desde contextos iberoamericanos es un proyecto editorial de tecnología educativa que ha apostado por reunir a un grupo de académicos de toda Iberoamérica, incluyendo autores de España, México, Brasil y Ecuador. Los Cursos Online Masivos en Abierto (COMA), o su acrónimo en inglés Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), han supuesto una renovación en la educación en línea en los pasados años. Los editores han agrupado las colaboraciones en tres grupos que componen un total de quince capítulos: la aproximación a los MOOC, los retos actuales de los MOOC y las propuestas para la innovación desde los MOOC, todo ello dentro del contexto iberoamericano

[Book review] Innovando la docencia desde la formación del profesorado. Propuestas y realidades. Ed. by Carlos Monge López and Patricia Gómez Hernández

Innovando la docencia desde la formación del profesorado. Propuestas y realidades es un proyecto editorial que tiene en cuenta las diferentes metas y retos de la educación, considerando las demandas sociales en un mundo de educación tecnológica como el actual. Para que este sistema sea dinámico y funcione, debe tener en cuenta las necesidades de los estudiantes, aquellos que luego serán profesores, y de los profesionales de la educación en activo, ya que son figuras clave en el proceso educativo. Este libro, por lo tanto, se centra en la necesidad de una formación docente de calidad y en la investigación que se ha producido recientemente alrededor de ella

Toward Emotionally Accessible Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

This paper outlines an approach to evaluating the emotional content of three Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) using the affective computing approach of prosody detection on two different text-to-speech voices in conjunction with human raters judging the emotional content of course text. The intent of this work is to establish the potential variation on the emotional delivery of MOOC material through synthetic voice

Understanding the design of MOOCs for ESL learners: language as an enabler or barrier to learning

The MOOC movement is global, but even in 2018, it was reported that in the production of MOOCs, English is the most commonly used language. This means that many learners, who use English as a second language (ESL), have to adapt their learning needs and seek out available technology: multilingual platforms, subtitles, transcripts or online dictionaries. Furthermore, while MOOCs allow interaction in the forums with other peers, obtaining help from facilitators can be problematic when learners cannot communicate in English. During the author’s doctoral research, he was able to access demographic data of participants of Open University MOOCs in FutureLearn, as well as to interview learners. Language is undoubtedly an enhancer for online learning, however, MOOCs add visual and auditory components that make comprehension more difficult for learners who use ESL, also learners must communicate in a second language causing situations of loss of motivation and engagement, leading to abandonment. This view is compatible with the social model of disability where language acts as an accessibility barrier, since these situations may be producing an access limitation for those learners who do not have enough knowledge of English to take full advantage of MOOCs. This presentation will uncover the language accessibility barriers found by the author in his doctoral research and discuss with the audience possible improvements in MOOCs design

An Investigation Into The Accessibility Of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are an evolution of open online learning that enables people to study online and for little or no cost. MOOCs can provide learners with the flexibility to learn, opportunities for social learning, and the chance to gain new skills and knowledge. While MOOCs have the potential to also bring these benefits to disabled learners, there is little understanding of how accessibility is embedded in the creation of MOOCs. The goal of this research has been to understand the accessibility barriers in MOOCs and to develop processes to identify and address those barriers. In the extant literature, the expectations of disabled learners when they take up MOOCs are not discussed and studies on MOOCs that report demographic data of learners do not consider disabled learners. However, disabled learners can face difficulties in accessing MOOCs, and certain learning designs of MOOCs may affect their engagement, causing them to miss out on opportunities offered by MOOCs. Technologies and the learning design approaches for MOOCs need to be as accessible as possible, so that learners can use MOOCs in a range of contexts, including via assistive technologies. This research has investigated the current state of accessibility in MOOCs. It has involved the following: Interviews with 26 MOOC providers; including software developers, accessibility managers, inclusion designers, instructional designers, course editors and learning media developers; Comparative quantitative survey data involving disabled and non-disabled learners participating in 14 MOOCs; Interviews with 15 disabled learners which have captured their experiences; and An accessibility audit was devised and then used to evaluate MOOCs from 4 major platforms: FutureLearn, edX, Coursera and Canvas. This audit comprises 4 components: technical accessibility, user experience (UX), quality and learning design; 10 experts were involved in its design and validation. This research programme has yielded an understanding of how MOOC providers cater for disabled learners, the motivations of disabled learners when taking part in MOOCs, and how MOOCs should be designed to be accessible for disabled learners. A range of barriers to accessibility in MOOCs have been identified, and an accessibility audit for MOOCs has been proposed. An open online learning environment should take into account learners’ abilities, learning goals, where learning takes place, and the different devices learners use. The research outcomes will be beneficial to MOOC providers to support the accessible design of MOOCs, including the educational resources and the platforms where the MOOCs are hosted. The ultimate beneficiaries of this research project are MOOC learners because accessible MOOCs will help support their lifelong learning and provide re-skilling opportunities

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