[Archived] Call for Papers: Accessible E-Learning
Online Symposium 16 December 2013
Page Contents
Invitation
Paper submission closed. See Participating on how to register and contribute to this Symposium.
Introduction
This online symposium invites researchers, tutors and trainers, providers of online learning, developers of Learning Content Management System (LCMS), and users with disabilities, to explore new and on-going e-learning experiences and research and analyze past experiences related to the design, creation, and usage of accessible e-learning. The goal of the symposium is to discuss different approaches and applications to address accessibility issues in e-learning contexts, and to explore next steps to further advance the implementation of accessibility in e-learning environments, including Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).
See the main Accessible E-Learning Symposium page for more on background and objectives.
Important Dates
- 15 November 2013: Deadline for paper submissions
- 2 December 2013: Author notifications
- 6 December 2013: Deadline for publication-ready papers
- 9 December 2013: Registration opens
- 16 December 2013: Online symposium event at 15:00-17:30 UTC (times in different locations)
Scope
Systems: The main focus is on research and development of adaptive, customizable and personalized systems in order to allow, enable and facilitate e-learning for people with disabilities.
Users: Another primary focus is on users with disabilities. However, other users may also be addressed, such as older users with age-related accessibility needs. Users with disabilities should be supported in different system roles, not only as learners, but also as admins, tutors, content authors, etc.
Standards: Focus is also set on standards for e-learning accessibility, including those related to leaner profiles and content metadata.
Contributions
We invite researchers, practitioners, users, developers, and others to submit research and position papers that address the following issues and challenges:
- Gaps and challenges in accessibility of e-learning systems
- What are the accessibility issues related to user roles in e-learning systems (including accessibility of authoring tools and of admin features in e-learning environments)?
- Experiences in learner profiling (including privacy issues).
- Relationships and integration between content accessibility and interface accessibility.
- Authoring tool features and constraints with the aim of supporting authors in creating accessible e-learning content.
- Mechanisms to import-export content packages, taking into account accessible metadata and interface characteristics.
- Evaluating accessibility of e-learning environments: mechanisms to evaluate accessibility of content packages and e-learning environment interfaces; mechanisms to evaluate the process of content creation and delivery within a specific e-learning environment.
- Accessibility of e-learning assessments (including complexity of automated assessments, time limits, presentation of scores and answer feedback).
- Accessibility of synchronous communication tools in e-learning environments.
- Accessibility in m-learning (using mobile devices) and t-learning (using smart TVs) as well as e-learning environments by means of non-conventional devices.
- Standardization issues
- Where are the gaps in the accessibility standards at present?
- What work needs to be done in learner profiling, in content accessibility metadata and in the Accessible Portable Item Protocol?
- How do standards from other domains contribute to accessibility issues (i.e. device capabilities descriptive standards)?
- Experiences and examples of standards implementations in e-learning environments.
- Different standards, compliance and integration.
- Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC)
- Experiences and examples of accessible MOOCs?
- What kind of issues should be taken into account in the design and management of accessible MOOCs?
- Who is responsible for content auditing and approval for content coming from external contributors to the MOOCs?
- What are the most common problems, if any, in adopting accessibility solutions for MOOCs?
- Does the Peer to Peer learning model in MOOCs present extra challenges to participation for learners with disabilities?
Paper Submission
Paper submission closed. See Participating on how to register and contribute to this Symposium.
Review Process
Contributions will be reviewed by the Scientific Committee and each paper will get at least two to three independent reviews for criteria including relevance, clarity, soundness and power of the arguments, understanding of user needs, and contribution to knowledge about user modeling for accessibility. Papers will be accepted based on this criteria and space availability.
Copyright Policy
Accepted papers will be published online in an attributable form as part of the symposium proceedings.
(For more information, see the FAQ sections RDWG Publications and RDWG Practice for Writership and Credits.)
The Symposium Report will be published under the W3C Document License. Paper authors shall grant W3C a perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty-free, world-wide right and license to copy, publish, use, and modify the contribution and to distribute the contribution under a BSD License or one with more restrictive terms, as well as a right and license of the same scope to any derivative works prepared by the W3C and based on, or incorporating all or part of the contribution. The Contributor further agrees that any derivative works of this contribution prepared by the W3C shall be solely owned by the W3C.