MOOCs: When Opening Doors to Education, Institutions Must Ensure that People with Disabilities Have Equal Access

From The New England Journal of Higher Education, July 24, 2013: http://www.nebhe.org/thejournal/moocs-when-opening-the-door-to-education-institutions-must-ensure-that-participants-with-disabilities-have-equal-access/

MOOCs: When Opening Doors to Education, Institutions Must Ensure that People with Disabilities Have Equal Access

by Nicholas Anastasopoulos and Amanda Marie Baer
July 22, 2013

Massive Open Online Courses (“MOOCs”) are free online courses offered by institutions of higher education to individuals across the world, without any admissions criteria. Through web-based courses hosted by MOOC platforms such as Coursera or edX, student-participants learn by accessing media, including documents, pictures and uploaded lectures on the course website.

While MOOCs may make access to education easier for individuals with certain disabilities, their format may render the courses inaccessible to individuals who have vision or hearing impairment. Many individuals with vision impairment use “assistive technology” such as screen readers and voice recognition software to use computers and access the Internet. Individuals with hearing impairment, meanwhile, often rely upon captioning when watching videos. Therefore, MOOCs may be inaccessible for individuals with vision or hearing impairment if the websites are not designed to work with assistive technology or if the lectures are not captioned or transcribed. If the MOOC courses are inaccessible to students with certain disabilities, the institutions and/or the platform providers may be found to have violated the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 or the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990.

Title II of the ADA provides that qualified individuals with disabilities may not be excluded from participation in or denied the benefits of the services, programs or activities of, nor subjected to discrimination by, public universities and colleges. Meanwhile, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits disabled individuals from being excluded from the participation in, denied the benefits of or subjected to discrimination under any operation of a college, university or other postsecondary institution receiving federal financial assistance.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is responsible for enforcing Section 504 and Title II. Since the early days of the Internet, OCR has emphasized that an institution’s communications with persons with disabilities must be as effective as the institution’s communications with others. OCR has repeatedly held that the “communications” includes the verbal presentation of a lecturer, printed material and the resources of the Internet. To determine whether a communication with disabled students is “as effective as” communications with nondisabled students, OCR analyzes three factors: 1) timeliness of delivery; 2) accuracy of the translation; and 3) provision in a manner and medium appropriate to the significance of the message and the abilities of the individual with the disability.

Unfortunately, the three-factor test promulgated by the OCR has not been meaningfully expanded upon by the OCR in a way that would provide institutions with a useful roadmap to ensure which features websites must have to ensure compliance with Section 504 and Title II.

However, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division’s publication entitled Accessibility of State and Local Government Websites to People with Disabilities provides helpful guidance for website compliance under the ADA and Section 504. Specifically, the division suggests that web developers refer to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines developed by the Web Accessibility Initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium. ­The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines provide many recommendations for making web content more accessible for individuals with disabilities, such as the recommendation that all prerecorded audio be captioned. The division also outlines a “Voluntary Action Plan for Accessible Websites,” which suggests that website hosts:

1. Establish a policy that their website will be accessible;

2. Ensure that all new and modified web pages and content, including tags, captions, photos, graphics and scanned images, are accessible;

3. Develop a plan for making the existing content more accessible and describe the plan on an accessible web page;

4. Ensure that in-house staff and contractors responsible for web page and content development are properly trained;

5. Provide a way for visitors to the website to request accessible information or services and establishing a procedure for quick responses to users with disabilities; and

6. Periodically enlist disability groups to test web pages for ease of use.

The Department of Justice recently announced that, in light of the fact that the “Internet as it is known today did not exist when Congress enacted the ADA” and that “[m]any colleges and universities offer degree programs online; [and that] some universities exist exclusively on the Internet,” it intends to propose amendments to the ADA’s regulations to “make clear to entities covered by the ADA their obligations to make their website accessible.” Unfortunately for institutions currently offering MOOCs, the process for drafting and finalizing such regulations may take years. In the meantime, OCR emphasizes that institutions have “an affirmative duty to establish a comprehensive policy in compliance with Title II in advance of any request” for an accommodation by a student with a disability.

Given OCR’s emphasis on the importance of effective communications and in light of the current lack of direct guidance from the departments of Education or Justice, it is important for institutions offering MOOCs to proactively ensure that the MOOCs will be fully accessible to students with visual and hearing impairments, and it would be wise for institutions to adhere, as closely as possible, to the division’s Voluntary Action Plan. Toward that goal, institutions should insist that contracts with MOOC platforms address each party’s responsibility in providing accessible content and addressing the other requirements outlined in the Voluntary Action Plan. While not exhaustive, the agreements generally should address the compatibility of all of the course materials with software used by individuals with vision impairments, the captioning and/or transcripts of lectures and the policies and procedures for handling mid-course requests for accommodation by a student with a disability.

Nicholas Anastasopoulos is a member of the Labor, Employment and Employee Benefits Group and Higher Education Group at the Massachusetts-based law firm of Mirick O’Connell. Amanda Marie Baer is an associate in the firm’s Litigation Group and a member of its Higher Education Group.

Guest Column: Why Steve Jobs would have loved digital learning | WiredAcademic

n the wake of Steve Jobs’ passing, many wrote about the statements he made throughout his adult life about how to improve the U.S. education system. Some noted that for much of Jobs’s life, he had, ironically perhaps, been skeptical of the positive impact technology could make on education.

But what has received less attention is how digital learning could have improved Jobs’s own educational experience.

via Guest Column: Why Steve Jobs would have loved digital learning | WiredAcademic.

 

Early demographic data hints at what type of student takes a MOOC | Inside Higher Ed

Massive open online courses, or MOOCs, are popular. This much we know.

But as investors and higher ed prognosticators squint into their crystal balls for hints of what this popularity could portend for the rest of higher education, two crucial questions remains largely unanswered: Who are these students, and what do they want?

Some early inquiries into this by two major MOOC providers offer a few hints.

via Early demographic data hints at what type of student takes a MOOC | Inside Higher Ed.

 

Mediated Education, Inclusion, and 21st Century Thinking

Mediated Education, Inclusion, and 21st Century Thinking

 

I am not an evangelist for mediated education. I am a pragmatist and a laboratory of one.

Backstory

I came to education as a scholarship student, older, non-traditional, with an activist background.  That was fine, because in the 1970s, in Iowa City, I fit in quite well. A forward-looking Classics Department insisted that I mix philology with cutting-edge anthropology. Michael Harner had just published Hallucinogens and Shamanism, and my paper for the Anthropology of Religion course was on the application of some of his ideas to the Eleusinian Mysteries. I was also introduced to computer-mediated education, through the use of computers hooked up to the big mainframe. I would sign out time, and, thrilled, learn how to make vocabulary lists and quizzes using the computer.  My forward-thinking professor told me that one day the entire language would be able to be taught on computers. I asked him what the point was – the geek girl in me would have been happy with the usual “because we can.” But Professor Erling Holtsmark smiled – his smile was like a grimace – and said merely “more possibilities.” I wasn’t confident enough to ask him to elucidate. It was enough that he thought that computers, like anthropology and the study of women in the ancient world, were worth pursuing.

Fast-forward to the late 1980s, and the University of Maine. A bit more savvy now, I studied the distance education apparatus serving the University of Maine System – 7 campuses in a rural, sparsely populated state. Encouraged to offer a few courses via the Interactive Television System (ITV), I developed some pretty sexy graduate level courses, using a sort of talk show format and a phone bridge. I also developed undergraduate courses. I enjoyed ITV courses, once we all stopped thinking they should actually look like actual television shows. I was also a subscriber to AOL, and logged on nightly to visit various chat rooms and check out areas of interest. A buzz was building about something called the World Wide Web. I had no idea of what it was, but had a lot of fun once it finally became operational. As some of you will remember, the web was pretty wild and pretty original in those days. Every time I logged in, it was an exciting exploration, going from link to link to link.

I was one of the first six UMaine people to teach online, using a simple threaded system. I taught Latin. To over 50 students.

Why?

When I was 19, I wanted to go to school like my husband did. There was a problem. We had a baby. He worked and went to college. We had no money. Solution 1: a course at night at the local junior college. Coming home after class to a screaming baby and a distraught, tired husband who had walked the floor for two hours. Solution 2. Taking a slightly older baby to class. After all, what with Women’s Liberation and all, this should work. Another night course. Sometimes the cute, sweet, extremely interactive baby came. Mostly, my husband walked her to school with me and they hung out with his friends waiting for me. (This wasn’t too bad. He could get Daddy points for being the hip father that he was.)

I never forgot my despair and the stress I felt in trying to take a course at a time, with no resources and two people to deal with – husband and child.

I heard from my students who took ITV courses and online Latin that they were grateful to be able to stay at home and get their education – that they thought they would miss the interaction of face-to-face courses, but they felt part of the classes. They sent suggestions that helped me to refine my course designs.

I redesigned all my courses for online teaching, as Learning Management software developed. I also helped other faculty in their course designs and worked with them in developing ways to deliver content and learning using the new pedagogy, transforming the way we thought about education.

Then I began hearing from students who were enlisted, on aircraft carriers, or students studying in London, or in Barcelona. I heard from housebound students. Little by little, I heard from combat veterans who could not leave their homes, or students with disabilities. They helped me to work more with accessibility, and when I discovered the principles of Universal Design, I found an even more effective way to present courses.

Universal Design builds in addressing all areas of accessibility to your course or workshop up front. We were rolling!

Sandra

My friend Sandra, a brilliant teacher and scientist, was losing her hearing. She believed she would have to give up teaching. No matter what she tried, she could not effectively communicate to her students. She could not hear them, and her hearing loss was so profound that assistive technology did not help.

I had been thinking for quite sometime that if distance education provided access and inclusion for learners, why couldn’t it apply to teachers, as well. I shared these thoughts with Sandra. She is still teaching, exciting courses online. She negotiated this as her teaching assignment at her institution. She will not have to take early retirement. In fact, she may never have to retire. Everybody wins.

A laboratory of 1.

I have several chronic conditions, and I suspected that one day I might be physically unable to continue classroom teaching.  This is why I had been thinking about teaching exclusively online. Recently, that day has come, and I am considered disabled. My university has assigned me to distance education exclusively, because I do not have physical ability to be in the classroom.

At the same time, new technologies have developed – we are no longer limited to asynchronous experiences via online courses, or synchronous courses utilizing ITV or the more recent videoconferencing systems. We can have face-to-face conversations with our students and colleagues via Skype. We can IM and chat and utilize social media.

But, most exciting for me are the possibilities of immersive worlds. I have begun hybridizing my courses to include experiences in VR. As games like World of Warcraft become ubiquitous, students are less apprehensive of utilizing a platform in virtual reality.

More importantly, though, are the emerging pedagogies for knowledge acquisition. 21st century students, even the non-traditional, older learners, come from a media rich environment. With just a little learning, new worlds and new resources are available to all.

I will be able to continue what I love to do – teach, guide, facilitate, and learn.

Groups like Virtual Ability in Second Life keep the virtual world accessible and inclusive.

People of good will and wisdom work to keep education accessible and inclusive.

And technology will continue to improve the way we support learning for all.

This is the background to Lethy’s Table.

SLACTIONS 2012 | SLACTIONS – Life, imagination, and work using metaverse platforms

The metaverse is emerging, through the increasing use of virtual world technologies that act as platforms for end-users to create, develop, and interact, expanding the realm of human cooperation, interaction, and creativity. The conference focus is scientific research on applications and developments of these metaverse platforms: Habbo Hotel, IMVU, Second Life, OpenSimulator, Open Croquet, Activeworlds, Project Wonderland, and others, including MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft, and virtual worlds based on social networks, such as *-ville and others, providing a forum for the research community to present and discuss innovative approaches, techniques, processes, and research results.

via SLACTIONS 2012 | SLACTIONS – Life, imagination, and work using metaverse platforms.

 

The Minerva Project – The First Online Ivy League

The Minerva Project: The World’s First Online Ivy-League University

Will It Really be a “Virtual Harvard”?

By Jamie Littlefield, About.com Guide

The Minerva Project is a soon-to-be online college that offers an ivy-league style education at a distance. It’s the first project of its kind and has generated a lot of excitement as well as hesitancy in the distance education community. The for-profit university plans to offer a top-notch education to students from around the world at half the price of a traditional ivy-league school. Students will be accepted based on academic merit alone, and will learn in small classes that synchronously watch pre-recorded video lectures from top-professors and discuss them in small groups (around 25) with PhD-holding instructors. Students will be encouraged to live with other enrollees and travel the world as they complete their undergraduate educations.

via The Minerva Project – The First Online Ivy League.

 

Oakland University – E-Learning and Instructional Support (ELIS) – e-Cornucopia – 2012 Intro

Friday, June 8, 2012

8:00 am – 4:30 pm

Oakland Room in the Oakland Center at Oakland University

Creativity is necessary in today’s world as never before; to solve problems, engage students and workers in learning, generate prosperity, build a viable ecology and adapt to rapidly changing technology, society and culture.

This one-day conference includes 3 tracks that are brimming with knowledgeable presenters who are using technology in exciting ways to encourage creativity. There is also an entire track dedicated to the use of the iPad to stimulate creative learning.

This year’s keynote speaker is Mike Pegg, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Developer Platforms at Google. Mike will discuss The Democratization of Creative Tools.

Continental breakfast, lunch & afternoon snack will be provided.

Participants will be allowed guest access on the campus’ wireless internet.

If you are unable to attend in person, you may register to attend virtually via Elluminate.

Only those attending in person will be eligible for door prizes.

Contact: Diane Underwood (ddunderw@oakland.edu), Nic Bongers (bongers@oakland.edu) or Cathy Cheal (cheal@oakland.edu)

Mission Statement: The annual e-Cornucopia Conference developed and offered through e-Learning and Instructional Support at Oakland University, has a mission to support faculty in online teaching and learning. The title of the conference, e-Cornucopia as originally suggested by Nic Bongers, was to emphasize the growing abundance of online teaching software and pedagogical activities. Our first conference in 2009 highlighted the software needed in instructional technology units. Our second conference in 2010 focused on teaching with social media. Our third conference’s theme in 2011 was open learning.

via Oakland University – E-Learning and Instructional Support (ELIS) – e-Cornucopia – 2012 Intro.

 

HIGHER EDUCATION TEACHING & LEARNING ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE JANUARY 13-15, 2013, ORLANDO

HIGHER EDUCATION TEACHING & LEARNING ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE
JANUARY 13-15, 2013, ORLANDO

You are invited to submit a proposal for a presentation on emerging pedagogic or administrative technologies, approaches and issues in higher education. Although the meeting is structured into thematic tracks, we are open to the gamut of topics on new developments in higher education. This Higher Education Teaching & Learning Association conference is being held, January 13-15, 2013 in Orlando, in partnership with the University of Central Florida, whose campus will be its venue. A proceedings book of abstracts will be produced and best papers will be published in the HETL Review online journal.

Details are at: http://www.fctl.ucf.edu/hetl2013/ . Any questions should be sent to Charles Wankel, wankelc@stjohns.edu , Skype: mgtprof.

Charles Wankel, St. John’s University, New York, Program Co-Chair
Melody Bowdon, University of Central Florida, Program Co-Chair
Patrick Blessinger, HETL, Chair of the Cutting-Edge Technologies Track
Olga Kovbasyuk, Far East Russia Global Learning Center, Chair, Innovative Pedagogies Track
Agata Stachowicz-Stanusch, Silesian U. of Technology, Chair, International Collaborations Track

Report: Barriers to the rise of artificially intelligent tutors at traditional universities | Inside Higher Ed

The machines are rising. Soon they will be sophisticated enough to fill certain faculty roles at traditional universities. But to make this revolution work for students, academic leaders at those traditional institutions will need to broker a peace between artificially intelligent teaching programs and their human counterparts, according to a new report written by the former presidents of two prominent traditional universities on behalf of the nonprofit Ithaka S+R.

Online education has enabled many colleges to transition into the prevailing modern medium while adding new sources of revenue in times of scarcity, according to the Ithaka report. However, these innovative colleges have shown less interest in using the novel medium to curb tuition charges and measure learning outcomes.

via Report: Barriers to the rise of artificially intelligent tutors at traditional universities | Inside Higher Ed.

 

Exploring Spaces for Learning

Exploring Spaces for Learning

The International Higher Education Teaching and Learning Association (http://hetl.org/) cordially invites you to attend the 2013 International HETL Conference to be held at the University of Central Florida, in cooperation with the UCF Karen L. Smith Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning.

In Towards Creative Learning Spaces: Rethinking the Architecture of Post-Compulsory Education (2011), Jos Boys raises intriguing questions about changes in the spaces we use in higher education, pushing educators to think beyond traditional categories of “formal” and “informal” learning sites to imagine more complex relationships between our classrooms and the world beyond them. In the wake of increasing reliance on ever-expanding virtual learning spaces, greater emphasis on experiential learning, and a push toward the global classroom, leaders in higher education must consider their work from a wide range of perspectives.

via Exploring Spaces for Learning.