D4.3.1

=Institutional policies defines requirements for supporting accessibility during e-learning design, (re)development and delivery. =

Evidence
Seale (2006) argues that there is significant knowledge about accessibility in units that support disability student services. Specialists understand the need to assess learners for technological support, how to make appropriate equipment available, how to interface with existing networks, and so on. Academic staff can liaise with such units at the course design stage. This will be far more effective than waiting to respond to student needs.

Sloan & Walker (2008) explain the standard tripartite approach to creating a truly accessible web. This involves adherence to the WCAG-conformant content, created using ATAG-conformant authoring tools, accessed using WAAG-conformant browsing technology. However, they then argue that there are problems with this approach, one is that there is a scarcity of authoring tools that meet the ATAG guidelines. The importance of appropriate authoring tools is mainly due to the fact that increasingly authors are not dedicated web professionals. This places responsibility on web content authoring tools to ensure that all authors can easily create content that is as accessible as possible.

Kelly et al. (2007) argue that accessibility should be enhanced through ‘a user-focused approach, which embeds best practices through the development of achievable policies and processes and which includes all stakeholders in the process of maximizing accessibility’ (p. 1). They further argue that the standard tripartite W3C WAI model is flawed. This is because of the open-ended flexibility that users have in their choice of browsing and assistive technology. The claim is that evidence is lacking to demonstrate that the guidelines (particularly WCAG) will lead to resources that are usable by people with disabilities. Kelly et al. cite evidence that some web sites that are highly conformant to WCAG are the ones that disabled users find hardest to use.

Resources
Kelly et al. (2007) suggest a holistic approach including pedagogical issues, available resources, organisation culture and usability. Their ‘Tangram’ and stakeholder models overlap to mediate good design through more than merely the provision of guidelines. These authors identify seven examples of stakeholder responses to both the drivers and mediators of accessibility. It is also noted that some cautions about the accessibility of ‘institutional repositories’ particularly of PDF documents, will need to be addressed. Overall, Kelly et al. coin the term ‘Accessibility 2.0’ which is characterised by the following attributes: User focus, rich set of stakeholders, sustainability, always beta, flexibility, diversity, blended aggregated solutions, accessibility as a bazaar not a cathedral.