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Relevant W3C Resources on Accessible Online Learning

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This page lists resources provided by W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) on their web site. This list includes normative standards and supporting informative resources.

The purpose of listing these resources is to help the AccessLearn group identify:

  1. resources that are particularly valuable as they stand to people working in accessible online education
  2. resources that would benefit from additional content that focuses specifically on online education accessibility
  3. where new resources are needed to specifically help people working in the education sector.

Normative Standards (W3C Recommendations)

Informative WAI Resources: Designing for Inclusion

The following WAI resources are informative resources providing additional background information on web accessibility, found in the Designing for Inclusion section of the WAI web site.

For each page, there is a section listing possible ways in which the page could be provided with additional additional, education-oriented, material and examples.

Stories of Web Users

This page (currently identified as being in draft) introduces a range of personas and scenarios, focusing on people with different accessibility needs and how each benefits from digital accessibility. Two of these personas have a specific educational context:

    • Ms Martinez, an online student at university, who is hard of hearing.
    • Ms Olsen, a middle school classroom student with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and dyslexia

For discussion: possible enhancements for online learning accessibility?

  • A complete set of personas and scenarios focusing on an educational context
  • Before and after scenarios? Scenarios that describes problems people encounter, and how accessible design can mitigate these problems
  •  ?

Diversity of Web Users

This page provides a detailed description of the different disability groups that are relevant to web accessibility. It provides cross references to stories, WCAG accessibility principles and key accessibility features that benefit multiple user groups.

There is some explanation on the terms "learning disability" and "intellectual disability" including global differences in definitions.

For discussion: possible enhancements for online learning accessibility?

  •  ?

Diversity of Web Use

This page gives examples of how people with different disabilities use the web, including preferred input and output formats and methods, assistive technologies and accessibility features. It shows how people might prefer diverse methods for interaction, and also where more than one disability group may benefit from a particular accessibility feature or assistive technology.

For discussion: possible enhancements for online learning accessibility?

  • More specific examples of educational technology?
  •  ?

Accessibility Principles

This pages introduces the four principles around which WCAG is constructed: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable and Robust (POUR). It lists each principle with its constituent topics. Each topic includes cross-references to relevant guidelines in WCAG, UAAG and ATAG, and to relevant points in the above pages (related user stories and diversity of web users and web use).

Web and Older Users

This page introduces a suite of resources, developed partly as output of the WAI-AGE project, that document the overlap between web accessibility for people with disabilities and web usability for older people. It provides:

  • details of age-related capability change and how it can affect sensory, motor and cognitive capability, and thus web usage
  • a literature review of research on web accessibility for older users
  • cross references to relevant WAI guidelines.

For discussion: possible enhancements for online learning accessibility?

  • Some information stressing the relevance of designing for older people to education, including lifelong learning?
  •  ?

Mobile

This page provides an overview of designing accessible mobile web sites and apps. It focuses primarily on how to address the needs of mobile users with disabilities, but also includes a link to documentation on the overlap between best practice in mobile design and web accessibility best practice.

It includes links to WAI projects that either directly focus on mobile accessibility or have an impact on mobile accessibility.

For discussion: possible enhancements for online learning accessibility?

  • Examples and scenarios of mobile learning experiences, and how accessible design can help to optimise these?
  •  ?

Guidelines & Techniques

This page is an index to each set of W3C accessibility guidelines and specifications (ARIA), other work (Indie UI and Evaluation and Report Language) and supporting resources, plus other research and technical papers:

  • WCAG Overview
  • How to meet WCAG 2.0 , quick reference
  • ATAG Overview
  • UAAG Overview
  • WAI-ARIA Suite Overview
  • Independent User Interface (Indie UI)
  • Evaluation and Repair Language (EARL) overview
  • WAI Technical papers
  • Referencing and linking to WAI Guidelines and Technical documents
  • How WAI develops Accessibility Guidelines through the W3C process

For discussion: possible enhancements for online learning accessibility?

  • Focus on writing education-specific techniques for each WCAG success criteria?
  • Focus on writing education-specific techniques for each ATAG success criteria?
  •  ?

Planning and Implementing Web Accessibility

Index of resources focused on accessibility policy and managing the process of accessibility.

Developing Organisational Policies on Web Accessibility

Guidance on creating an accessibility policy, including details of scope, conformance targets, monitoring and review processes, and how to reference WAI guidelines.

For discussion: possible enhancements for online learning accessibility?

  • New document: Using WAI Guidelines to create a workable educational accessibility policy?
  •  ?

Why Standards Harmonisation is Essential to Web Accessibility

Position paper arguing that global accessibility standards, such as those produced by WAI, are better than local, distinct standards, where requirements may be inconsistent from one to another.

For discussion: possible enhancements for online learning accessibility?

  •  ?

Policies relating to Web Accessibility

This page is intended to provide an index of legislation and policy relating to accessibility around the world. It is out of date.

For discussion: possible enhancements for online learning accessibility?

  • Produce a list of relevant legislation for access to education by people with disabilities?
  •  ?

Planning and Managing Web Accessibility

A resource that presents a 4-step process for implementing a web accessibility strategy at project or organizational level, so are necessarily fairly generic. There are no specific references to organizations in the education sector, or to projects that focus on developing learning materials, resources or learning management systems.

Each step has a series of sub-steps in the form of instructions, plus references to related steps elsewhere in the process and links to any relevant WAI documents. The steps may overlap in chronological process.

The 4 steps, each with a series of substeps are:

Step 1. Initiate

  • Sub-steps covered are:
    • Learning the basics
    • Exploring the current environment
    • Setting objectives
    • Developing a business case
    • Raising awareness
    • Gathering support.

Step 2. Plan

  • Sub-steps covered are:
    • Create accessibility policy
    • Assign responsibilities
    • Determine budget and resources
    • Review environment
    • Review websites
    • Establish monitoring framework
    • Engage with stakeholders

Step 3. Implement

  • Sub-steps covered are:
    • Build skills
    • Integrate goals into policies
    • Assign tasks and support delivery
    • Evaluate early and regularly
    • Prioritize issues
    • Track and communicate progress

Step 4: Sustain

  • Sub-steps covered are:
    • Monitor websites
    • Engage with stakeholders
    • Track standards
    • Adapt to new technologies
    • Incorporate user feedback

For discussion: possible enhancements for online learning accessibility?

  • Specific examples of how this process can be applied to a university's accessibility strategy, or to a specific learning resource development project
  •  ?

Improving the Accessibility of your web site

Involving User in Web Projects for Better, Easier Accessibility

Selecting and Using Authoring Tools for Web Accessibility

This page provides an overview of ATAG and how it can be used to evaluate web authoring tools for accessibility support, plus advice that can be used in procurement of tools and dealing with limitations of current tools.

For discussion: possible enhancements for online learning accessibility?

  • New document: Using WAI Guidelines in selecting learning management systems for accessibility?
  •  ?

Evaluating Accessibility

This page contains a link to resources focusing on accessibility evaluation, including listing some quick checks plus advice on a comprehensive evaluation methodology and how to report the results of an evaluation.

Easy Checks - A First Review of Web Accessibility

WCAG-EM Overview: Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology

WCAG-EM Report Tool: Website Accessibility Evaluation Report Generator

Involving Users in Web Accessibility Evaluation

Evaluation Approaches for Specific Contexts

Selecting Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools

Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools List Search

Using Combined Expertise to Evaluate Web Accessibility

Template for Accessibility Evaluation Reports

Tutorials and Presentations

Links to WAI educational resources on web accessibility.