Accessibility of Cypriot University websites in Cyprus

Abstract: Access and equity in higher education is a complicated discipline related to social, economical, technological and political developments in a country. This paper is a work in progress and it aims to discuss issues of accessibility in Higher education regarding equal opportunities in the use of technology for students with disabilities. Accessibility to technology and with technology, especially in the internet era, includes different types of physical and digital design. These not only refer to specialised interface devices often referred to as assistive technology, but also to the accessibility of the web itself (Zaphiris & Zacharia, 2001). Examining access in higher education from the point of view of technology, this paper aims to: 1. briefly present and discuss the provisions of the current Cyprus and European legislation regarding the use of accessible technology and access to technology (and the use of the web) in higher education for students with disabilities. 2. investigate the ways universities respond to the needs of their students with disabilities regarding the use of accessible technology and access to technology 3. analyze the accessibility of the Cyprus universities’ web sites Data collection involves: (a) analysis of Cyprus and European documentation, (b) interviews with officers of the student affairs and welfare departments of each university and (c) expert accessibility evaluation of the websites of all universities in Cyprus. The educational system in Cyprus is highly centralised and policies of funding, administration and pedagogy are centrally developed by the government (Symeonidou, 2002). Education is compulsory until the age of 15, and almost 100% of the students continue their education in the lyceum or technical school, and the majority continue in further and higher education, in Cyprus and abroad. With the establishment of 3 public and 4 private universities in the country the numbers of student continuing in higher education are highly increase in the last 4 years, including an important number of students with disabilities. Provision for the education of students with disabilities is traditionally called by the 1999 Education Act for the Education of Children with Special Needs (MOEC, 1999), which was formally implemented in 2001. Preliminary data and information from previous studies evidenced that among others, the legislation is covering general issues of accessibility (cognitive, physical and communication), which also may imply technology, without though providing any specific guidelines (Mavrou, 2011). In addition, it provides relevant directions for higher education, but mainly poses the responsibility to the higher educational institutions. Hence, issues of accessibility and technology do not seem to be officially directed by legislation or regulations and guidelines by the Cyprus government, at any level of education or other sectors, even if the country have signed relevant EU conventions and documentation. Accessibility for information on the Web has been well regulated in the United States (U.S.) and the European Commission (DRC, 2004; Section508, 2011). The European approach to ensuring the availability of accessible information on public Web sites is encapsulated in the eEurope Action Plan 2002 which emphasises that, “Public sector web sites […] must be designed to be accessible to ensure that citizens with disabilities can access information and take full advantage of the potential for e-government” (EU Commission, 2000). Unfortunately the Cypriot legislature is not yet in line with the European action plan on the issue of web accessibility. There are no specific legislative or regulatory measures regarding eAccessibility for public or private websites in Cyprus (eInclusion). However, Article 16 of the new EU Structural Funds regulations is expected to have an impact on eAccessibility and as Cyprus has signed the Convention, now Article 9 sets forth the obligation of the country to ensure accessibility to the Internet (but it is not a legislation). As per eInclusion in Cyprus, it was planned that within 2010, these sites would be further enhanced based on WCAG 2.0, level AA (EU. 2010). To our knowledge, only one previous study has analyzed Cypriot web sites with respect to accessibility via automated testing on WCAG1.0 (Zaphiris & Zacharia, 2001). The results showed that the Cyprus websites, including academic websites, were ranked very low in terms of accessibility (only 20% of them were Bobby approved). The present study, aims to investigate the accessibility of new technologies, especially the web, of universities, 10 years after the first study, as well as after Cyprus joined the EU where signed relevant conventions and documents

HCI for peace: from idealism to concrete steps

This panel will contribute diverse perspectives on the use of computer technology to promote peace and prevent armed conflict. These perspectives include: the use of social media to promote democracy and citizen participation, the role of computers in helping people communicate across division lines in zones of conflict, how persuasive technology can promote peace, and how interaction design can play a role in post-conflict reconciliation

Interactive Reading Using Low Cost Brain Computer Interfaces

This work shows the feasibility for document reader user applications using a consumer grade non-invasive BCI headset. Although Brain Computer Interface (BCI) type devices are beginning to aim at the consumer level, the level at which they can actually detect brain activity is limited. There is however progress achieved in allowing for interaction between a human and a computer when this interaction is limited to around 2 actions. We employed the Emotiv Epoc, a low-priced BCI headset, to design and build a proof-of-concept document reader system that allows users to navigate the document using this low cast BCI device. Our prototype has been implemented and evaluated with 12 participants who were trained to navigate documents using signals acquired by Emotive Epoc

Spomenik Kvinta Valerija iz Hardomilja kod Ljubuškoga

U radu je opisan rimski nadgrobni spomenik iz Hardomilja kod Ljubuškoga. Veteran Kvinto Valerije iz Ikonija bio je pripadnik Vii. legije, koja je na području Ljubuškoga ostavila 11 spomenika. Imena s natpisa: Q. Valerius Q. f., Q. Portorius i Q. Valerius Anteros, vjerojatno su maloazijski domoroci koji nose romanizirana imena. I ostali pripadnici vii. legije, koji se imali imanja na području Ljubuškoga, bili su unovačeni u M. Aziji: Milijada, Pesinunt, Konana i Sevastopolj. Sedma legija vjerojatno je došla 6. – 9. po. Kr. u provinciju Dalmaciju, a 56. – 57. otišla je u Meziju. Spomenik Kvinta Valerija spada u monumentalne vojničke stele, slične onima u Tiluriju, Saloni i Aseriji, koje su u gornjem dijelu imale zabat i friz s vojničkim oru‘jem, u sredini natpis u edikuli, a u donjem dijelu prikaz vrata

Ideas mapping, surface computing and user experience

This paper reports work regarding the design, development and evaluation of a surface computing application to support collaborative decision making.. The domain- independent application, so called Ideas Mapping, builds on the principle of Affinity Diagramming to allow participants to analyze a problem and brainstorm around possible solutions while they actively construct a consensus artifact - - a taxonomy of their ideas. During idea generation, Ideas Mapping replicates physical post-it notes on a multi-touch tabletop. Additional functionality supports student collaboration and interaction around the organization of ideas into thematic categories associated with the problem at hand. We report on the functionality and user experience while interacting with the application which was designed and developed using a user-centered approach. We also report initial findings regarding the affordances of surface computing for collaborative decision making

Exploiting the social and semantic web for guided web archiving

The constantly growing amount of Web content and the success of the Social Web lead to increasing needs for Web archiving. These needs go beyond the pure preservation of Web pages. Web archives are turning into "community memories" that aim at building a better understanding of the public view on, e.g., celebrities, court decisions, and other events. In this paper we present the ARCOMEM architecture that uses semantic information such as entities, topics, and events complemented with information from the social Web to guide a novel Web crawler. The resulting archives are automatically enriched with semantic meta-information to ease the access and allow retrieval based on conditions that involve high-level concepts. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33290-6_47.German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety/0325296Solland Solar Cells BVSolarWorld Innovations GmbHSCHOTT Solar AGRENA GmbHSINGULUS TECHNOLOGIES A

A case study analysis of a constructionist knowledge building community with activity theory

This article investigates how activity theory can help research a constructionist community. We present a constructionist activity model called CONstructionism Through ACtivity Theory (CONTACT) model and explain how it can be used to analyse the constructionist activity in knowledge building communities. We then illustrate the model through its application to analysing the Wiki-supported community associated with a computer game. Our analysis focuses mainly on two perspectives: individual and collective actions, as well as individual and collective mediations. Experiences and challenges from the analysis are reported to demonstrate how CONTACT is helpful in analysing such communities

Seven HCI Grand Challenges

This article aims to investigate the Grand Challenges which arise in the current and emerging landscape of rapid technological evolution towards more intelligent interactive technologies, coupled with increased and widened societal needs, as well as individual and collective expectations that HCI, as a discipline, is called upon to address. A perspective oriented to humane and social values is adopted, formulating the challenges in terms of the impact of emerging intelligent interactive technologies on human life both at the individual and societal levels. Seven Grand Challenges are identified and presented in this article: Human-Technology Symbiosis; Human-Environment Interactions; Ethics, Privacy and Security; Well-being, Health and Eudaimonia; Accessibility and Universal Access; Learning and Creativity; and Social Organization and Democracy. Although not exhaustive, they summarize the views and research priorities of an international interdisciplinary group of experts, reflecting different scientific perspectives, methodological approaches and application domains. Each identified Grand Challenge is analyzed in terms of: concept and problem definition; main research issues involved and state of the art; and associated emerging requirements