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Online Education Accessibility
Online education has great potential for people with disabilities. However, accessibility is one of online education's greatest challenges. Web site and online course accessibility is mandated for public institutions under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. In developing online courses or portions of courses, it is important to plan to be accessible from the start, as it is expensive to retrofit thousands of Web pages.
The following information on accessibility, as well as assistive and adaptive technologies, is available at the following sites:
- The World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative
- The Center for Rehabilitation Technology at Georgia Tech
- AAHE's Equal Access to Software Information - EASI
- University of Maryland University College's (UMUC) Accessibility in Distance Education (ADE) Web site has been designed to meet the needs of faculty who are teaching students with disabilities in the online environment. The ADE site explains accessibility problems that students with disabilities are likely to encounter in navigating Web-based resources, and shows faculty members how they can address and resolve these problems. The site also seeks to provide faculty with information about different types of disabilities, relevant laws and best accessibility practices.
- The Georgia Tech Research on Accessible Distance Education (GRADE) project has an online tutorial to help make distance education programs accessible for students with disabilities. This free Web tutorial, called Access E-Learning, includes 10 different course modules covering various distance-learning technologies.