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Issue 19: September 1, 2000 | « previous issue | next issue »

Guest Contributor: Dr. Joe Wheaton, Associate Professor in Rehabilitation Services and Co-Director, Web Accessibility Center, The Ohio State University

Contents:

Lack of Accessibility on the Web and the Need for ADA Compliance: Results from One University
by Dr. Joe Wheaton, The Ohio State University

Abstract

The accessibility of Web pages for the courses registered with the distance education coordinating organization was analyzed using the Bobby validation tool (Center for Applied Special Technology; CAST, 1999). Of the 80 unique pages examined, 29 (36%) were "Bobby approved." The most common errors and their difficulty of repair level were identified.

Introduction

The World Wide Web (WWW) is becoming a common method of delivering distance education. Many faculty members are modifying existing courses or creating new ones to be offered over the Internet. Moreover, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (U.S. Department of Justice, 2000) mandates that "State and local governments give people with disabilities an equal opportunity to benefit from all of their programs, services, and activities (e.g. public educationŠ.)" Nevertheless, it appears that little attention is being given to making these courses accessible to students with disabilities, even at state funded universities.

To allow students to identify courses that offer Web enhancements, Web pages created by faculty at The Ohio State University can be listed with the "Class Web Site Registry." Students wishing to take a course over the Internet, or one that has Web-based enhancements, can use the Registry to find such courses and link to the "welcome" pages. These "welcome" pages are typically the syllabus, although they can be anything the faculty member chooses, including links to the department or the faculty's homepage.

Method

Sample: As of June 12, 2000, 256 courses were listed in the Registry. Many of these courses, however, were duplicates (e.g., repeated sections using the same homepage) or had restricted access and were not accessible to persons not registered for the course. After the duplicates and restricted courses were culled, 80 courses were identified for analysis.

Instrumentation: The Bobby (CAST, 1999) validation software was downloaded for CAST and used to analyze each page's accessibility. Bobby's analysis is based on the guidelines developed by the Trace Research and Development Center (http://trace.wisc.edu) and subsequently codified by the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI; http://www.w3.org/WAI/) into the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/).

Using these guidelines, Bobby identifies three priority levels of accessibility. Typically, but not always, failure to meet the Priority 1 items will result in failure to obtain a "Bobby Approved" rating. Priority 2 and Priority 3 items are not required for Bobby approval but should be incorporated for full accessibility. Bobby generates a report for each site entered indicating approval, the number of Priority 1, 2, and 3 errors found, and a listing of all the errors with links to suggestions for repair. A summary report of all the pages analyzed is also generated.

Data Analysis: All courses listed were examined for duplicates (e.g., multiple sections) and the Web address for all remaining sites were entered into Bobby. Only the introductory page (the home page) was examined; linked pages were not evaluated. The number of approvals were tabulated and the most common errors identified. Frequency counts and percentages were calculated.

Results: Of the 80 unique, unrestricted courses analyzed, 29 (36.25%) were "Bobby Approved," indicating that they meet all Priority 1 guidelines (they also meet all the Priority 2 and Priority 3 guidelines).

A closer examination of these pages indicated that they were rather simple; that is, their most common design element was tables, used by 15 of the 29 pages; images, used by 5 pages; and background images, used by 2 pages. Fourteen pages were strictly text, without any of the above common formatting attributes.

Across all 80 pages there were 6,812 instances of errors of some type. The most common Priority 1 problems encountered and Bobby's estimate of repair difficulty were: (a) the contrast between text, images, and background (519 instances, 7%, moderate difficulty); (b) images possibly conveying important information needing descriptive links (377 instances, 5%, moderate difficulty); (c) having flashing or blinking images (301 instances, 4%, moderate difficulty); (d) failure to identify row and column header cells in tables (295 instances, 4%, easy to repair); and (e) failure to provide alternative text for images (291 instances, 4%, easy to repair). As part of the output, Bobby identifies how difficult it is to fix these errors. Providing alternative text for images and identifying header cells were classified as easy, and the effort and skill need to fix the other three errors was identified as moderate. Thus, none of the problems identified above were difficult to remedy.

Discussion and Recommendations

Eighty Web pages were examined for accessibility to persons with disabilities. Approximately 36% were judged to be "Bobby Approved"; however, these pages were typically very simple and lacked many of the design elements commonly associated with quality Web design. In addition, the errors that were committed most frequently were relatively simple and easy to fix.

This study was begun with the assumption that very few Web pages would be able to pass even minimal accessibility criteria, but, happily, over 36% of the pages were able to pass Bobby's evaluation. Nevertheless, this means that almost two-thirds of the pages were not accessible. In addition, the sites in this two-thirds were often the sites that were more extensive and usually showed more effort in their design, effort that obviously did not include making the page accessible. Finally, the five most common Priority 1 errors found were all moderate to easy to fix. This suggests that even Web page authors with moderate to high skills are not aware of or are not using even simple good accessibility design practices.

The results of this study indicate that students with disabilities are being denied full access to the educational services offered to other citizens, notwithstanding the legal mandates arising for federal laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Consequently, colleges and universities should be providing education to increase awareness of the legal requirements and training to ensure that all courses, including distance education courses, are accessible to all students. And there is evidence that the level of knowledge needed to upgrade web pages to ensure accessibility will not be outside of the range of skills of an instructional web page developer.

References

About the author:

Joe Wheaton is an associate professor in Rehabilitation Services in the College of Education at The Ohio State University. Dr. Wheaton teaches courses in medical information, adjustment to disability, job placement, and adaptive and assistive technology. He is also the technology coordinator for the School of Physical Activity and Educational Services in the College of Education and co-director of the Web Accessibility Center (WAC), a center developed to assist faculty making their Web pages accessible. For more information on this study, e-mail Dr. Wheaton at wheaton.3@osu.edu or call 614-292-8313. Visit his web site at http://www.coe.ohio-state.edu/jwheaton
Is Your Course ADA Compliant?

If you can see this sentence, please read the following paragraphs.

The first step toward ADA Compliance is awareness. To hear how text sounds through a screen reader visit "Accessible Design for Users with Disabilities" at http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9610.html You will be amazed at "...the speed of reader, which can reach 1,000 words a minute and still be discernible by the blind person." (This is more than twice the speed of the average sighted person.)

Now, to find out if your web courses and sites can be read by a screen reader, visit "Bobby" at www.cast.org/bobby Simply type in the URL of your course or web site. Bobby will analyze your page's accessibility and produce a short report, including links that explain how to fix the page for a screen reader.

Sandeep Sharma, a graduate assistant in the Office of Distance Education, ran Bobby on both the Distance Education site and the ISU home page. The Distance Education home page failed miserably - with 56 instances of Priority 1 accessibility errors. The ISU home page fared a little better with 25 instances of Priority 1 accessibility errors. Efforts to make the Distance Education web site ADA compliant are already underway.

On behalf of those faculty members using CourseInfo, Sharon Guan contacted Blackboard to request information regarding their courseware program and ADA Compliance. Per Reidy Brown, Blackboard Accessibility Coordinator, "The CourseInfo student interface implements a text-only version designed to work with screen readers or command line browsers. This text-only version encompasses the entire navigational structure. It allows the students to move from section to section without using frames, tables, or javascript, which can cause accessibility problems in some browsers or system environments. Many of the CourseInfo subsystems are also available in the text-only version, such as Announcements, Course Documents, and Assignments. Student Tools that are available include Student Dropbox, Homepage Editing, Personal Information Management, and Grades. There are some specific areas that are not yet available in the text-only interface. These include Communications Tools such as the Discussion Board, Virtual Classroom (chat function), and Send Email."

For additional information about CourseInfo and ADA Compliance, contact Mr. Brown at rbrown@blackboard.com For assistance with Bobby, contact Sandeep Sharma, Distance Education, at ext 8689.


Distance Education - What's New?

New Publications for your students:

Contact the Office of Student Services - Lifelong Learning at studentservices@indstate.edu to request copies of any distance education publication.

New services:

  • http://webcourses.indstate.edu
    This new ISU site enables students to locate and log into their ISU web courses by guiding them to their "My Blackboard" page. The page lists every CourseInfo web course in which the student is registered. For those courses not offered via CourseInfo, a list of URLs is provided under the External Links button. This site, which will be updated each semester, should eliminate some of the confusion for students when searching for their course on the "first day of class." Please encourage your students to use this site.
  • Distance Education/Netscape CD
    Upon enrollment in ISU web courses, students are sent a free CD that contains Windows and Macintosh versions of the latest Netscape browser, Word Viewer, PowerPoint Viewer, and Acrobat Reader. This CD should provide students with enough software to complete most courses.

* New Programs and Students:

Enrollments in ISU distance education courses continue to increase, allowing ISU to maintain its overall enrollment levels despite decreasing on-campus student participation.

Here are some interesting facts.

    Distance Education Head Counts:
    FY98: 1,232 students
    FY99: 1,647 students
    FY00: 2,571 students

    DegreeLink Head Counts:
    FY98: 56 students
    FY99: 112 students
    FY00: 376 students

Distance-Only Student Enrollments:
FY2000: Distance-only semester-based students comprised 29% of the total distance student semester-based participation. Hybrid students (those participating in both distance education and on-campus courses) comprised 71%.

FY2001 (to date):
Distance-only students comprise 44% of the total distance student semester-based participation. Hybrid students (those participating in both distance education and on-campus courses) comprised 56% of the total.

New ISU Distance Courses: The following offers an overview of distance education courses offered:

  • Fall 97: 79 courses
  • Spring 98: 84 courses
  • Fall 98: 87 courses
  • Spring 99: 135 courses
  • Fall 99: 161 courses
  • Spring 00: 175 courses
  • Fall 00: 202 courses

New Distance Programs:
In Fall 97, ISU offered four certificate programs and two master's degrees via distance. Currently (Fall 2000), ISU offers 11 bachelor degree-completion programs, seven certificates, five master's degrees, and one doctoral program. (See http://indstate.edu/distance for a listing of distance programs.)


Faculty Development Workshops

The following workshops are offered through the Office of Distance Education and Faculty Development. For more information, visit the Lifelong Learning site at http://indstate.edu/lifelong/faculty.html or contact Mary Luz Petrowski at extension 8639 or aafpetro@amber.indstate.edu


Sketches 2000 - > http://indstate.edu/lifelong/sketches

Each year, Indiana State University's Office of Distance Education and Faculty Development publishes "Sketches of Innovators in Education," a collection of articles in which ISU faculty members describe their experiences teaching with technology.

This year's edition, published in August 2000, has been distributed to faculty and staff at Indiana State University, Ivy Tech State College, and Vincennes University. In addition:

Contributors to Sketches 2000 include: Thomas Derrick, Douglas Herrmann, Oladele Omosegbon, Douglas Peterson, David Gilman, Georgia Hambrecht, Susan Kiger, Karen Liu, Lawrence Reck, Steve Gabany, Thomas Sawyer, Esther Acree, Mary Bennett, Dale Ann O'Neal, Stephen Shure, and Christopher Zirkle.


Virtual Instructional Designer - An Update

The Virtual Instructional Design (VID) development team was officially complete in July with the addition of Rhonda J. Leistner as Web Graphic Designer, and Brynn Alysun as Online Content Editor.

Some of you may remember Rhonda as a supervisor in computer and graphic design with ISU's Media, Technology, and Resource (MTR) unit. Brynn's former experience includes sub-editor with "That's Life" magazine in Sydney, Australia, as well as editing copy on Sydney's Channel 9 web site.

In addition to Rhonda and Brynn, the VID development team includes two other full-time staff members: Jianling Jiang, the Web Applications Programmer; and Paula Vincini, Associate Project Director and author of the $1.5 million Learning Anytime Anywhere Partnership (LAAP)grant that is funding development of the VID.

The first project tackled by the new VID team members has been the design of a public site explaining the grant-funded project. The public site should be launched by mid-September. Currently over 60 higher education faculty, teaching and learning center administrators, and faculty training staff from the U.S., England, New Zealand, and Hong Kong have expressed interest in using the VID as soon as it is available.

The alpha version of the VID will be pilot tested by faculty creating a total of 21 courses from ISU, Vincennes University, and three Ivy Tech State College sites (Terre Haute, Columbus, and South Bend). This version of the VID will be available by Sept 15.

Pilot testers will use this interactive web site to gain new skills, follow a course development plan, analyze best practices, and learn new ideas to incorporate into the design of their online courses.

The VID will incorporate the best practical experiences and theoretical research currently available on online learning and teaching as well as demonstrate how to replicate these ideas.

Faculty designing these courses during the second year of the LAAP grant will offer these courses to students during the third year of the grant when a new group of pilot testing instructors will begin using the VID.

If you have questions or wish more information, contact Paula Vincini at ext 8690.


IPSE Grants - Last Call for Proposals

September 25, 2000 is the deadline for proposals for the Indiana Partnership for Statewide Education (IPSE) Module and Course Development Grants.

The Partnership has identified four tracks for this year's grants:

The Request for Proposals (RFP) is located at www.ihets.org/learntech/grants/rfp00.html

Faculty members who are interested in submitting a proposal should contact the Office of Distance Education at extension 8639 to arrange a consultation with Sharon Guan, ISU's Instructional Designer.


Etcetera, Etcetera, Etcetera: News, Interesting Links and So Forth

Books by the Chapter or Verse:
At the same time that many colleges and universities are beginning to develop and market modules of instruction rather than entire courses, some publishers are beginning to sell individual chapters of books via the Internet. Travel books, cookbooks, and textbooks are just a few of the first books that are being diced into "edible" marketable pieces for purchasers. Some companies are even offering the opportunity to "build a book" that contains only those chapters desired by the purchaser. Visit Primis (www.mhhe.com/primis), the MacGraw-Hill database that allows professors to choose from 180,000 pages of material from 20 disciplines.
Source: New York Times (Jul 2000)

Electronic Books:
Simon & Shuster and Barnes & Noble are just two of the publishers who began selling electronic books this fall. Books can be downloaded and read on a desktop, laptop, or hand-held computer. Simon & Schuster will charge $5 to $15 dollars for books sold only in electronic versions, and will sell all other electronic books for the same price as their hardcover versions. Barnes & Noble have partnered with Microsoft in order to offer customers a few extra perks, including providing private storage space, free software for reading screens online, and the choice of over 2,000 digital titles - with 150 added each week.
Source: New York Times (Aug 7 2000)

iCEBOX
iCEBOX is a new compact device that combines a television, the Internet, and a DVD player in a box. The device was developed by CMi Worldwide and is manufactured by Samsung Electronics. Samsung will sell a similar product later this year for about $650. The unit is cable-ready and has an internal 56k modem for internet connection. Other features include .."a dedicated printer port and an audio and video jack to allow DVDs played on it to be viewed on a larger screen. A video camera can also be attached to turn the unit into a nursery monitor or home security system.... The unit does not include a hard drive or other storage device."
Source: Excite New (Aug 29 2000)

www.webshots.com is a searchable database of thousands of photos that can be downloaded for free.

The National Teacher Recruitment Clearinghouse is a new "resource for prospective teachers seeking jobs -- and for school districts and states seeking qualified teachers. A central feature of the Clearinghouse is the unique gateway to job banks nationwide." This site is hosted by Recruiting New Teachers, a national nonprofit organization.
www.recruitingteachers.org

Just for fun, visit the following sites:


Thought for September:

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.
Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
- Helen Keller


Interaction is an electronic newsletter delivered on the first day of the month via electronic mail. Each issue offers information on teaching, learning, course design and educational technologies, and events pertaining to distance education at Indiana State University. We invite your comments, articles, and suggestions. Please contact Interaction at interact@web.indstate.edu

Interaction is published by the Office of Continuing Education/Instructional Services.


Issue 19: September 1, 2000 | « previous issue | next issue »



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