Abstract

The Georgia Research in Accessible Distance Education (GRADE) project launched a new, free, online tutorial at http://www.accesselearning.net/ that provides information about making distance learning accessible to all students. This session will highlight the resources of the tutorial and provide information on how IT professionals can increase accessibility on their campuses.

Universally designed online education has the potential for removing many barriers that students with disabilities face in higher education. Asynchronous distance education allows students with disabilities to move at their own pace, which may help keep them from falling behind in the classroom. Online education can help students with disabilities attend on a part-time basis, which may help with the financial burden. Accessible distance education can allow people with transportation difficulties the option of attending class at home. Distance education can allow people whose health is fragile to attend online classes in an environment that is medically friendlier for them. Online education can open up classrooms that were not accessible before. Finally, increased availability of universally designed online education can encourage students to improve their access to the online world.

However, students with disabilities face severe barriers to online education. As online content becomes more and more prevalent in education, providing universal design in online education becomes more and more critical in ensuring the success of students with disabilities. Although assistive technology for people with disabilities is prevalent, assistive technology alone does not remove all access barriers for students with disabilities in online education. Online education elements that are designed without planning for students who use assistive technology can result in barriers for those students. Poorly designed online education can result in students with disabilities not being able to participate equally in academics or in career preparation.

The accesselearning.net website provides faculty members, information technology specialists, and disability services professionals with the tools they need to retrofit existing distance education courses and online materials for accessibility. This session will familiarize disability services professionals with the most common barriers to online education and provide answers to how schools can make online education accessible for everyone.