With the rapid expansion of the Internet blurring the boundaries between on-campus and off-campus, virtually every course offered today by a college, university or technical school contains at least one online document. Furthermore, practically every course being offered in higher education can, to some extent, be called an online course, with all the advantages and challenges that distance education entails.
Advancements in assistive technologies offer new educational opportunities and improvement in the quality of life for individuals with disabilities. This makes it extremely important to ensure the needs of individuals with disabilities in the educational arena are fully met from every point of view - legal, moral, ethical and economic.
Considering the breadth of challenges involved, planning for the accessibility of online courses is absolutely essential. Accessibility planning also prompts the instructor to access the course content from the student's point of view. Instructors have new opportunities to implement learning tools that can substantially improve the learning experience for students with and without disabilities as well as themselves.
Many instructors are anxious about developing an online course, but with thorough planning and preparation, an instructor can typically succeed in creating a rich and satisfying learning environment for all students in the class. The extra effort that it takes to design an accessible online course has multiple dividends for the instructor and for all students.
There are three main areas in which planning is key to accessibility:
Planning Saves Time and Money in New Course Design. Putting together a new online course is a difficult undertaking and requires a great deal of planning and coordination. Including accessibility from the beginning as part of the planning process can save time and energy. Constructing an accessible template for all the HTML files used in a course is much simpler than going back later and making each individual web page accessible later. Building accessible PDF files from electronic documents is much easier than creating inaccessible PDF files through a scanner and then having to retype the content later. Making small changes in the course development process can result in large savings down the road.
Planning Helps Set Priorities For Course Retrofitting. When faced with making an existing course accessible for a student with a disability taking the course for the first time, faculty members should work out an action plan in cooperation with the disability services staff and with the student with a disability. Drafting an action plan helps prioritize the most important items needed to provide accessibility to an individual student, as well as providing a structure for making future corrections to achieve complete accessibility.
Policy Development Encourages Planning Across Courses. Having a strong campus-wide policy for accessibility in distance education provides an institutional commitment that all courses will be accessible for all students. Faculty members that buy in to the policy will be more likely to engage in the planning and training needed for accessibility. A strong evaluation and enforcement aspect written in the policy ensures that the policy will be carried out across departments.
The next page will present information on the first steps in planning an accessible distance learning course.
College of Architecture (COA)
Fax: 404-894-9320
Phone: 404-894-4960 (v/tty)
User Agreement
Access Plan
Background
Previous Page
