Drivers for change in accessibility practice

These notes are part of a series for the book.

Seale, J. (2014) ‘Ch. 3, Drivers for change in higher education accessibility practice’ in E-Learning and Disability in Higher Education: Accessibility research and practice, 2nd ed., New York, Routledge.

Outline

Introduction
Increasing numbers of disabled students in higher education
1. Percentage of disabled young people in higher education
2. The representation of different impairment categories in higher education
3. Success and retention rates
Legislation
1. United States legislation and policy
2. Canadian legislation
3. Australian and New Zealand legislation
4. European legislation
5. UK legislation
Guidelines for producing accessible e-learning
1. The web content accessibility guidelines
2. Guidelines validity
Accessibility specifications and standards
1. IMS Global Learning Consortium specifications and standards
  1. The Accessibility for Learner Information Package
2. The Learning Federation Accessibility Specification for Content Development
3. A common standard or benchmark?
What is the impact of drivers on e-learning accessibility practice?
1. The impact of guidelines and standards
2. The impact of legislation
Conclusion

Notes

Universities have improved their accessibility practices primarily because:

More disabled students are enrolled in courses
Laws prohibit discrimination and lack of access
Guidelines and standards have been provided for them to follow

Increased number of students

The number of undergraduate students who self-identify as disabled is on the rise, but there is a significant difference between the percentages in each country. The data does come with caveats:

Self-reporting data may not be accurate
Definitions used for “disabled” may vary across studies and locales

	mid-1990s	late-2000s
US	6%	11%
UK	1.18%	8%
Spain	n/a	0.53%
Turkey	n/a	0.08%

Some longitudinal studies in the US attribute the rise to an increased number of disabled students attending college. The most common disability reported by undergraduate students in the US are learning disabilities — there are more students with learning disabilities than with mobility issues or with vision, hearing, or speech impairments. In the UK, the most common learning disability among undergraduate students is dyslexia.

Although enrollment figures are up, disabled students in the US are less likely to stay in school and finish with a bachelor’s degree. This is particularly true for students with mobility and other physical disabilities.

Laws

This chapter provides an overview of laws in many countries. All seem to have anti-discrimination laws, with some further focused on education and/or assistive technology. I’m only noting US laws here.

This law...	Of...	Does this...	For example...
ADA Americans with Disabilities Act	1990 (amended in 2008)	Prohibits discriminating against people with disabilities, in a similar way that the Civil Rights Act prevented discrimination based on race, religion, gender, and national origin. Part of not discriminating means that schools, businesses, and employers must provide reasonable accommodation. Note: The ADA was signed into law after Sections 504 and 508, and is seen as extending the rights originally provided in those sections of the Rehabilitation Act.	This law guarantees rights for people with all types of disabilities (physical, mental, learning, and so on). - The ADA is the reason we have curb cuts, handicapped parking spots, and doors wide enough for wheelchairs. - It's why an employer cannot pay you less solely because of a disability. - It's also why Deaf children are assigned a sign-language interpreter in school.
Section 504 Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973	1973	Prevents organizations that receive federal funding from denying a person access to educational activities. This applies to schools: universities and vocational schools receive federal funding through student financial aid programs, and public K-12 schools also receive federal funding. It also applies (for example) to public libraries and airports. Note: It uses the medical model of disability.	Assistive technologies help provide the reasonable accommodations required by this law: - Electronic readers - Recorded lectures It may also include low-tech assistance, such as: - More time to complete assignments - Help with taking notes Section 504 does not include the individualized educational programs (IEPs) created for special education students in K-12 classes. That is part of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) which was signed into law in 1990 and is not discussed in this chapter.
Section 508 Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973	1998	Ensures that federal agencies provide accessible hardware and software to their workers.	- Software has keyboard navigation - Videos have captioning - Pictures in websites have text descriptions, which are used by screen readers - Telephones are compatible with hearing aids, and TTY is available
Tech Act Assistive Technology Act of 1998	1998 (amended in 2004)	Provides federal money that is distributed via state grants, for programs to purchase assistive technology for people with disabilities. These statewide programs are called State Tech Act Programs.	In Texas, this includes: - Program for borrowing devices such as computers, lighted magnifiers, mounts for devices, chat boxes, specialized keyboard mouses, and adapted toys. - Program for recycling, repairing, and reusing devices - Financial loan program
Higher Education Act Higher Education Opportunity Act	1965 (amended in 2008)	Provides financial assistance to college students, including financial aid, scholarships, and work-study programs.	This chapter specifically mentions Section 762 and 772. - Section 762 encourages an increase of distance learning programs that follow universal design principles, which makes education more accessible to students with disabilities. - Section 772 establishes an advisory group to assess barriers and identify best practices. The result was the Accessible Instructional Materials (AIM) Commission report.

It’s worth taking a moment to recognize that the ADA was not passed until 1990, and to see what it took to push members of Congress to sign it into law. Lobbyists for small businesses, Christian schools, and evangelicals wanted legislators to not sign this law, but the Capitol Crawl clarified the issue in an effective manner:

https://youtu.be/GBhjNy39hKk?t=1m44s

Perhaps it could be argued that these activists used the charity model of disability to their advantage!

E-learning guidelines, specifications, and standards

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) publishes several sets of guidelines, but it should be noted that these are not based on validated research, are not designed to help elderly people or people with cognitive disabilities, and are written in a way that is difficult for web masters to understand and apply to their practice. Having said that, they provide a good baseline minimum and starting point, and can be enhanced by including other accessibility standards.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0): Follow these guidelines to make sure web content can be perceived correctly by assistive devices, navigated and used by everyone, has content that is legible and understandable, and overall is compatible with current agents and technologies and those in the foreseeable future.
User Agent Accessibility Guidelines: Use these guidelines when creating user agents (such as browsers and browser extensions, readers, and media players)
Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 2.0: Use these guidelines when creating authoring tools.

Existing standards applicable to e-learning include:

IMS (formerly Instructional Management Systems) Global Learning Consortium Standards
The Learning Federation Accessibility Specification for Content Development

Katherine Hinchey