Unidad de Investigación ACCESO
Departament de Psicologia Evolutiva i de l'Educació de la Universitat de València.
Formación, investigación y desarrollo sobre tecnología, educación y discapacidad.
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Unidad de Investigación ACCESO Departament de Psicologia Evolutiva i de l'Educació de la Universitat de València. |
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Formación, investigación y desarrollo sobre tecnología, educación y discapacidad. |
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mICTE2003: Second International Meeting on Multimedia and ICTs in Education, Badajoz (Spain) December 2003.
R. ROMERO and F. ALCANTUD Research Unit ACCESO,
Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Universitat de València
Estudi General,
46010 Valencia, SPAIN - http://acceso.uv.es
PDF version in mICTE2003 website
This paper describes a pilot experience that took place in the framework of the European project IDCnet. The Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology of the University of Valencia Estudi General has offered during the 2002/2003 academic year an optional module of 60 hours on 'Design for All and Accessible Technology' to students of technical courses. The module included material on 'awareness', 'why Design for All', 'recommendations', 'accessible interaction' and 'accessible content', this last one focused on accessible web design and video captioning using SMIL and RealText. Overall the module was very successful but it is still to see if this topic can be incorporated in the curriculum of ICT-related courses of the University of Valencia in a more permanent way once the IDCnet project finishes.
According to the European Design for All e-Accessibility Network [1] the term 'eAccessibility' stands for the access which new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can provide to people - both access to the real world and to the growing Information Society world. eAccessibility also implies a need for new technologies and systems themselves to be accessible - especially to users with functional impairments, older people and others who may be in danger of being left behind by the rapid advances of technology in all areas of society. The integration of older people and people with disabilities into the information society will only come about as a result of designing mainstream products and services to be accessible by as broad a range of users as possible. This approach is termed ‘Design for All’ (DfA) and it is directly linked to ‘eAccessibility’.
This paper describes a pilot experience that has taken place in the framework of the European project IDCnet [2]. The aim of the Inclusive Design Curriculum Network (IDCnet) is to integrate information and identify core knowledge sets and skills for model curricula in DfA specifically for information and communication products, systems and services. Identifying such knowledge and skills is a step towards providing designers with training and competence in inclusive design principles, methods and tools.
IDCnet action plan included the setting up and running of pilot application training modules or sessions by different network members. In this sense, the Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology of the University of Valencia Estudi General (UVEG) has offered during the academic year of 2002/2003 an optional module of 60 hours on 'Design for All and Accessible Technology' to students of technical courses (Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Physics and so on).
The UVEG module included material on 'awareness raising', 'why Design for All', 'recommendations', 'accessible interaction' and 'accessible content', this last one focused on accessible web design and video captioning using SMIL and RealText. The module contents were designed following the main knowledge and skill sets for Model Curricula proposed by IDCnet experts [3]. However some of the recommended items were not included in the program, namely ‘New paradigms of interaction’ and ‘HCI and usability studies, user centred design and evaluation methods’.
The objectives of the module were:
The module was structured following these thematic units:
The module comprised 24 sessions of 2 hours each and was taught always in a computer room with Internet access. Although the course was presential, the eLearning platform WebCT was used for supporting the discussion forums, content presentation, course webmail and the submission of assignments.
Figure 1. eLearning platform used in module. Discussion forum.
Between one third and one half of the session time on average was spent reviewing peer comments on the forum and web links suggested in class, commenting on the forum or working on the assignments. Six complete sessions were left for preparing and presenting these assignments in class by groups of two or three students. The assignments to do were:
It was planned to do a third assignment about the DfA aspects of real ICT hardware devices for elderly and disabled people. For example, a mobile telephone, a TV set or an automatic cash machine. However, this could not be done due to lack of time.
There were also some visits from experts and users. This was the most valued aspect by students.
In order to pass the module, the students had to complete and present the two assignments and had to show also a minimum participation in the discussion forum, sending at least a message per each session where the lecturer posed a question to answer or discuss in the forum. Reading most of the messages sent by the other students was also a condition to pass the course. This was followed up using this available feature of WebCT.
The module was offered as an optional one (asignatura de libre elección) in the second term of the academic year. There were 20 students enrolled although only 18 did finally attend. There were 7 from Computer Science, 8 from Biology, 2 from Mathematics Science and 1 from Electronical Engineering.
All students passed the module as they all completed the two group assignments and had a satisfactory participation in the online forum, with a total of more than 300 messages sent.
The last day of the academic year the students had to fill in an evaluation questionnaire about the module. This questionnaire was based in the draft version of the one that will be passed to all students of different IDCnet pilots by the end of the project. The results of this questionnaire are presented here.
Overall, the students value the module as an “eye-opening” experience and think that they have learned new things in an area that they completely ignored. However some of them opine that it will be difficult to apply this knowledge in their future jobs as there seems to be presently a lack of legal exigency in providing accessible products and services, especially in the area of accessible web design.
The sessions that students liked most were the sessions with real users, where they appreciated that some users were students like them, and to a lesser extent the topic of accessible web design and revision. What they disliked most was the session about legislation and the initial theoretical sessions about DfA and the different disabilities.
It can be highlighted that many students chose the module because they hoped it to be ‘useful or interesting’ but did not expect its contents to evolve around the needs of elderly and disabled people. However they were happy with it in the end. As an anecdote, one student thought initially that ‘Design for All’ meant making computer technology easy for the students and he registered in the module because he considered that he was very low computer-skilled.
Some interesting student comments extracted from the questionnaires are quoted next:
And one final comment by one student that shows that the objectives of the authors when designing the course have been accomplished, at least for this person:
"I think it is one of the most useful modules I have chosen in my four years course so far. It is important to possess knowledge, but it is even more important to think about helping the others and make life easier for those who encounter more barriers. Besides, I think it has made me grow as a person."
This experience shows that DfA can be taught correctly in ICT-related courses as an autonomous module and it fits naturally with the rest of contents of these careers and is accepted quite well by students. However, it is still to see if this topic can be incorporated in the curriculum of ICT-related courses in a more permanent way once the IDCnet project finishes. Different alternatives and proposals are already being put forward in the framework of IDCnet but these still have to be assumed by the University of València.
On the other hand, the optional nature of the course impeded to introduce a high level of demand into it as students tend to put more effort into compulsory subjects and do not expect to work too hard into these “free-option” modules. And in this kind of module it is difficult to motivate with the final mark as only “pass” or “not pass” marks are possible.
The work described here was undertaken in the framework of the project IDCnet – IST–2001–38786, Thematic Network, created in order to promote the development of a Model ‘Design for All’ Curriculum for Information and Communication Products, Systems and Services. The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of their colleagues from the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology; the University of the Aegean; DocArch, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Research & Development; the Universitat de València Estudi General (Research Unit ACCESO); STAKES (Finnish National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health); and ISdAC International Association.