EMM v2.3 D4

'''D4. Courses are designed to support disabled students'''

Background
Eastwood (2005) notes that the number of disabled students attending higher education has increased significantly over the last decade. This is partly because the advent of many ICT technologies has been of great benefit in allowing them to access higher education. The consistent use of a variety of media in e-learning is a recommendation for all e-delivery (Clark & Mayer 2007). This practice has the added benefit of providing access to e-material to students with a range of disabilities as well.

Ensuring that materials are accessible to students with disabilities requires careful design and consideration of accessibility issues throughout the creation of materials, as well as the use of development tools to support student use of assistive technologies (Witt and McDermott, 2004). Although assistive technologies are readily available to enable ICT access for those with disabilities, they often only help overcome the first of many barriers that need to be addressed with effective learning design. Seale (2006) gives extensive discussion of disability and e-learning. Learners and practitioners must be partners in creating accessible e-learning. Attention needs to be paid not just to digital content, but to courseware, library resources, text documents, presentations and multimedia. Non-electronic alternatives may be preferable for some students. There is clearly a tension between the desire to provide a single learning experience accessible to all, and the attempt to produce a range of materials so that all learners may access resources and succeed. Differences that affect accessibility extend beyond vision, hearing, and motor impediments to include learning disabilities. Whilst there is a general lack of research-based resources for diverse learners, new technology offers potential for greater accessibility and flexibility, and there is a common view that implementing accessibility protocols and features for disabled learners inevitably benefits all online learners (Edmonds, 2004).

Evidence of capability in this area is seen through design and implementation practices that use a variety of complementary approaches to support student learning, including a variety of media. Accessibility should be explicitly considered during the design process and standards such as those provided by the W3C (http://www.w3c.org/WAI/) used to ensure compliance. Formal and regular reviews involving students as key stakeholders should be conducted both of courses and the supporting standards, templates and staff development materials.

Related Guidelines and Standards
This process is informed by: Quality On the Line: Benchmarks for success in internet-based distance education (Merisotis, J. P., & Phipps, R. A., 2000) faculty support benchmark set; Queensland University of Technology teaching capabilities framework (2004/2005); Canadian Recommended E-learning Guidelines (Barker, K., 2002); Australian National Training Authority, quality assurance information kit: Training package support materials (2002); Balancing quality and access: Principles of good practice for electronically offered academic degree and certificate programs (Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications, 2003) and; ADEC guiding principles for distance learning (American Distance Education Consortium, 2002).