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Disability Access To Virtual Learning Environments

By Professor Mark J Stiles, University of Staffordshire. Published 10th January 2002, first published by Disability and Information Systems in Higher Education (DISinHE) 23rd February 2001.


This article describes a DISinHE Study provided by Staffordshire University Learning Development Centre & Disability Services.


Summary

The purpose of this study by Staffordshire University was to identify problems encountered by disabled students in using Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) and to identify solutions where possible, making the appropriate recommendations to improve accessibility. The work done in compiling the report was underpinned by Staffordshire University’s commitment to, and contributes to the development of, a learning and teaching strategy called “Building a Learning Community [1]” (which is detailed in this report) and included the use of two VLEs:

Both systems are accessed by students via standard Internet browsers programs, Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer. The suitability of Staffordshire University’s approach was investigated by staff from both the University’s ‘Learning Development Centre’ and from Disability Services using a volunteer group of disabled students to test and comment on the use of the VLEs and their supporting technologies. The findings identify some ways in which course designers and software developers could make changes both to the design of VLEs and the ways material is presented using them.


The study attempts to encapsulate the difficulties and needs of a broad cross section of the disabled student community. There are generic problems associated with each broad category but it should be noted at the outset that it is impossible to assess the VLE accessibility across the whole disability matrix. There are accessibility issues which are associated with multi-disabilities and therefore any study will have inherent gaps of reference.


However, for those intending to develop or are already developing software for students with disabilities, or indeed for those intending to purchase or implement a VLE, the study provides some key indicators about a broad range of issues. Further and more detailed technical investigation is required to guide development teams towards a more appropriate solution for the disabled student community. Since the study, both COSE and Lotus LearningSpace have been enhanced considerably and further development is planned for COSE in line with Sun Java Accessibility [9] standards whilst also referencing (amongst others) the following guidelines:

What is a Learning Environment?

Virtual learning environments (VLEs) are on-line systems that provide collaborative interaction between tutors and students, and between students as peers, while also providing asynchronous learning resources for individualized use by students at any time. Students normally use a WWW URL to reach a login screen, where they connect using an ID and passwords. Once connected, they are able to communicate with their tutors and peers; view course materials; work on projects in small, collaborative groups; engage in asynchronous (and sometimes synchronous) discussion; and access wider reference materials. Despite the inclusion of a wide variety of media in VLE-based content, the primary form of content remains text.


Rather than being “instructional systems”, VLEs are designed to act as a focus for learning activities which can either be on-line (in the case of distance learners) or integrated holistically with other forms of (more traditional) delivery in the case of on-campus learners.


However, the “environment” in a VLE is, in fact, dominated by the architecture of the particular system. Some are divided in functional areas which use a “virtual classroom” metaphor – for example Lotus LearningSpace with its “Schedule”, “MediaCenter” and “CourseRoom”, whilst others based more on metaphors related to learning activity, for example COSE. Regardless of which, it is the success of the metaphor and the ease in which learners can intuitively navigate between components and functions which play a major role in the success of an individual VLE. For a VLE to be truly accessible, the metaphors and navigation, must be independent of disability.


A set of features a VLE may seek to provide [4]:

One classification of VLEs is as "Content Centred" or "Learner Centred".


In a Content Centred system, course material is aggregated into "Courses" to which learners are assigned, thus coupling the learner closely to the content. Such systems tend to be pedagogically neutral, and unless a strong approach to course design is made, can lend themselves to the recreation of traditional delivery approaches. Lotus LearningSpace is one example of a Content Centred VLE


In a Learner Centred system, learners are organised into groups ("Courses" or smaller collaborative groups). Content exists independently (is "decoupled" from learners) and can be made available to learners in a more flexible and dynamic way in support of assigned activities or learning opportunities. Such systems lend themselves more readily to active, constructivist approaches to learning than do Content Centred systems. In addition, this also lends itself to more straightforward reuse of content across courses.


A second dimension amongst VLEs is the emphasis and perspective placed on the use of communication. One categorisation is as "Content Oriented" or "Discussion Oriented", but a more meaningful division might be between "Activity Oriented" and "Discourse Oriented" systems as this allows the reason for communication to be focused on. COSE is an Activity Oriented, Learner Centred VLE.


The Study

3.1 Objectives:

The objectives of the study were two-fold:

  1. To evaluate the accessibility of the Virtual Learning Environments (COSE and LLS) for a range of disabled students.
  2. To draw conclusions from the findings in order to recommend changes, where necessary, to VLE developers.

The study set out to be as informative as possible, focusing upon the students’ total experience of using each piece of software and taking into account general comments made by the students as well as specific difficulties.


3.2 The Students

The students were been chosen, from volunteers, to represent the five categories of disability:

  1. Visual Impairment
  2. Hearing Impairment
  3. Dyslexia
  4. Mobility Impairment
  5. Other (Stickler Syndrome, Williams Syndrome)

It should be noted also that each student had a varying degree of expertise with computer hardware and software and access was gained via a number of assistive software products.


What follows is a description of each student outlining their personal disabilities, level of IT skill, and educational stage at the time of the study.


Student A

This student is male, visually impaired and registered blind. He has no practical vision but can just see outlines and some colours. He is already using a computer running WordPerfect V5.1 and Hal 5 but has recently purchased new hardware running Windows 98 and Supernova as he intends to use the Internet for research purposes. He is a final year student working towards a B.A. Honours degree in Literacy Studies and intending to move forward to study for a Masters degree.


Student B

This student is female and visually impaired. She has little vision although under the right conditions, she can see and read a computer screen and CCTV. She is unable to use screen-enlarging software as this makes her dizzy. She uses the enlarging features within Windows and has Jaws V3.3 screen reading software.


Student C

This male student has severe cerebral palsy, poor motor control and speech. He uses adapted mouse (trackerball), keyguard and word prediction software, ‘Penn friend’. He has successfully completed an Access course and is currently studying on level one of a B.Sc. Honours degree in Computing and Information Systems. He is computer literate and uses the Internet.


Student D

This male student has Stickler Syndrome. He has poor eyesight and uses both laptop and desktop computers running screen-enlarging software, Lunar. He is a Braille user and is on Level Two of a B.Eng. Honours degree in Electronic Engineering.


Student E

This student is autistic (Williams Syndrome). Some of the key disabilities of Williams Syndrome are important to bear in mind within the context of the study. See ‘Adults with Williams Syndrome : Guidelines for Employers and Supervisors’ by Dr. Orlee Udwin, Dr Patricia Howlin and Mark Davies. This can be found on the Williams Syndrome Foundation Website [5]


Student F

This student is moderately dyslexic and a computer user studying on level three of a B.A.H. MNG. And Business Computing. She has some difficulties when reading and can misread or misinterpret information.


Student G

It was decided for the purposes of the study to enlist the help of Staffordshire ASSIST [6] (Assessment and Support to Sensory Impaired Students and Trainees), a body of support workers dedicated to the welfare of deaf students within the University. Their vast experience of the deaf student contingency was felt to offer a broader point of view regarding the assessment of the VLEs rather than an individual student with specific disabilities.


For the purposes of this study, the software was assessed by a student who is prelingually deaf because it was felt that accessibility difficulties would be more pronounced with prelingually deaf students than with students who have become deaf later in life. To clarify the issues, see ‘A Guide to Disabilities’ (Reproduced from the Co-ordinator’s Handbook, Part 2 by Skill, the National Bureau for Students with Disabilities) [7].


3.3 Methodology

Given the vast range of disabilities it was felt that the study should focus on the experience of the individual students in using the VLEs, and importantly to capture the experience from the students’ own viewpoint, as well as from the point of view of an observer.


Following a group session at which the study and the two VLEs were introduced and set in context, personnel drawn from both The Learning Development Centre and the Access Centre worked with individual students and asked each student to access both Virtual Learning Environments via assistive software relevant to their disability and asked to perform basic functions within each system. Each category of disability was represented. Students were asked to pinpoint specific difficulties in navigation through the software but also to comment upon the general “user friendliness” of the system.


The assisting personnel from the Access Centre have vast experience of assessing disabled students and have accumulated considerable knowledge of the day-to-day difficulties encountered by students whilst working with Information Technology. As a prelude to the study, Access Centre personnel predicted a broad range of difficulties, which they felt each category may encounter and this framework was referenced throughout. The information was gathered from over two hundred assessment reports completed by the Access Centre.


The predicted difficulties were:


DisabilityPossible difficulties/problems
Visually Impaired/Blind Using standard accessing features Using screen enlarging software Using screen reading softwareReading text Size Font Colour Clarity Viewing graphics Movies Pictures etc. Navigation Being able to see links Being able to track the mouse Being able to use keystrokes Unable to see colours (correctly, clearly) As above plus interfacing with Java/HTML and graphics. (Enlarging software not enlarging movies etc.) Does the software affect screen resolution? Compatibility with Internet software (APIs etc.) Navigation Alternatives to graphics (Text)
Mobility Impaired Using standard and assistive technology Using voice input Navigation by: - Standard mouse Joystick/Rollerball Keyguards Pointing devices Are there navigation difficulties? Does the command mode work correctly? Does the software work with the browser?
Hearing Impaired Are there audio clips with alternative text? Are there any language difficulties - is modified text required? What if BSL is the first language?
Autism Are instructions precise? Are links easy to follow? Is navigation using keystrokes and the mouse easy? Are help messages clear and easy to use?
Dyslexia Using assistive software Can the student read the text? Is the font clear? Can it be changed (size, type, colour)? Can background colours be altered? Is there too much text? Does the Web page use other mediums such as graphics (including movies) and audio to help convey the information? Can information be downloaded easily in a suitable format and/or printed? Does the design allow for different size screens? How suitable is the design when using screen-enlarging software? Can any data input be spell checked? Is navigation through the pages clear and easy to understand? Is the information accessible by a screen reader or is there text contained within graphics? Is the software compatible with the screen resolution? Will graphics become distorted? Can speech input be used to input data?

The Results

Students were asked to provide feedback, in written form and/or via interviews with Access Centre personnel. Comments were both specific and generic and included references to the suitability of assistive software as well as the VLEs.


Student A (Visually impaired, registered blind)

Assistive Software: SuperNova, JAWS 3.3


COSE

The first problem encountered was unrelated to the system but immediately identified problems with the University’s web pages:


Student A found it very difficult getting into the COSE system because the voice software did not announce what was selected on the University home page. (The announcement given was “Graphic 100” instead of “DLC” – distributed learning centre - presumably because the University home page was not text based and the required button did not have alternative text.


The student could type in the URL for COSE but then had to tab twice to select the COSE logo, and then press “Enter”. This sometimes resulted in a Java Warning message, but the full message was not read out.


Jaws did not announce that COSE was loading but subsequently announced that COSE Management tools were loaded. However, because of the spelling of COSE, the software is unable to pronounce it.


The student had difficulty selecting a course from the Published List but eventually succeeded. However, even though he managed to select a course using the tab and down arrows, Jaws did not announce which course was selected. He was also unable to load a course even when selected i.e. [Enter], [Space Bar] did not work and [Alt] + F did not bring up the File menu so he was unable to select “Open in Browser”.


Once the course had loaded the contents of the page in the right hand frame, these were announced by Jaws. There were then some content issues: linked icons posed a problem for this student (the software announces the link) and he felt that there was little value having areas highlighted in red. He would have preferred the content to be more specific and succinct, possibly with a menu of items from which to select specific points.


The biggest problem was that he was also unable to access the left-hand navigation frame. This effectively left the system unusable.


Lotus LearningSpace

As with COSE, the student encountered difficulty when loading the software. Once loaded, Jaws announces the full course list but he was not actually able to select a course. However, he subsequently found that using a series of tabs, the course could be selected but this was cumbersome.


Having persevered with attempting to access the core functionality of the system, the student found it virtually impossible to make any headway whatsoever.


Student B (Visually impaired, but can read a computer screen under the right conditions)

Assistive Software: JAWS V.3.3, Windows screen enlargement software.


This student reported back in writing and for the purposes of the study, her comments have been reproduced in full:


A major difficulty with both the software packages was that the University home page from which they must be accessed is not itself accessible to the visually impaired. The list of links does not lend itself to the use of JAWS as the links are read out as codes. Many of these codes are exactly the same for different links. For example, the link for distributive learning, the one required for accessing the programs being discussed, is the third graphic 100 code in the list.


Once into the programs, navigation around them is similarly difficult, because they are not programmed with readable links, but only codes. Some of these are very long strings of numbers and letters, others are identical to each other, even when the links are different. For example, the codes for the various areas of Lotus LearningSpace, such as the media centre, or courseroom, are all identical, so it is impossible to tell which one you are accessing.


Another difficulty I found was the colouring of the program screens. They are very bright and full of glare, making them impossible to see, and there is no facility for changing the colours. This makes looking at the screen for any length of time very tiring. It also means that if a student needs to save some information from a Lotus LearningSpace screen onto a disk and take it home to work on, as has actually happened to me with a law assignment, even though my computer is set to invert colours, the Lotus page stays the same, and consequently is hopeless to use, especially as it is not very accessible through JAWS.


It should be technically possible to overcome these difficulties, because JAWS works very well on the internet in general, reading all the links and so on, and the colours of web sites can be inverted.”


Student C (Cerebral Palsy, poor motor control, severely mobility impaired)

Assistive Software: Penn friend word prediction software, keyguard and mouse trackerball


COSE

This student had few problems actually navigating through the system but due to his poor motor control, found it difficult to use the trackerball. He prefers to navigate via the keyboard, which is a facility greatly improved in Version 2 of the software. However, he found it easy to find his way through the system even without the use of a screen reader and even though he does not currently use the system, he has the advantage of being computer literate and regularly uses the Internet.


Whilst he can see the screen well, he found that some text was too small and that icons were placed too close together.


Lotus LearningSpace

This student had much the same experience with Lotus LearningSpace as with COSE, namely, reasonably simple and straightforward access to the software, and easy navigation throughout. Once again, some text was too small and icons were too close together and again, he prefers to use keystrokes, having difficulty with the trackerball.


With both systems, the student found it too time consuming and difficult to adapt the word prediction software (Penn friend) and therefore did not use it.


Generally, this student felt that the use of VLEs would provide some distinct advantages for students with disabilities of this nature and commented that e-mail and chat room facilities would be a very useful enhancement to personal interaction and group discussion. He also saw both suites of software as a useful tool to undertake tests and examinations, due to the time constraints placed upon him by the nature of his disability.


His experience would have been enhanced by the use of an appropriate screen reader; the Access Centre recommended ‘Read and Write’. This student is extremely enthusiastic about the human-computer interaction component of his course and would welcome either system as a complement to traditional learning environments.


Student D (Stickler Syndrome, poor hearing and eyesight.)

Assistive Software: LUNAR, textHelp!, Textbridge, Sensiva, Mouseware, Active Desktop.


This student provided a very comprehensive review of his experience with both VLEs and his report, in his own words, follows:


Using COSE (Creation of Study Environments)

There are successful ways to read the Creation of Study Environments page in Netscape and Internet Explorer. The print is ample size and it can easily be set using the preferences in the Internet browser. Enlarging the print with Lunar is a bonus. My screen reader (Text! Help) had no problem with reading the screen. The picture below shows how the Internet browser looks on my computer.


The print on the COSE Management Tools Java screen was very small even with my screen magnifier, Lunar being used. Increasing the magnification factor I normally use to a higher one solved this. After using COSE, I set the magnification back to what I normally use. The snapshot below shows print size difficulty from the Management Tools screen. I guess that the font size is about 6 when even most normal sighted people read size 8 comfortably.


Text! Help, the screen reader was unable to read from the Java. On the general Internet, I have come across problems when accessing Java pages. Java is something yet to be developed with screen reading.


My (long!) way of getting around this was to select a page on the COSE Management Tools and make a screen capture and save it to disk. My OCR software, mainly used for scanners could then read text from anything that is scanned or anything that is saved as a picture on disk, as long as it has text on it. The text can then be converted into a Word document so that it can be viewed at any size and be read by a screen reader. My OCR software is called Textbridge.


The fact that I couldn’t use a screen reader on the Java pages wasn't much of a problem to me because I can make Lunar scale up the print size happily. Other people who don't have the sight will have tremendous difficulty navigating and reading, especially the blind.


All in all, using COSE in the Internet browser and in Java was easy to get used to (for me). If you know how to use Windows Explorer or File Manager, then the idea is the same. All of the folders / directories appear on the left pane where main topics opens out into many sub topics. Clicking on a sub topic will then show the content of that topic in the right pane of the computer screen. The same type of navigation is done in the Windows Explorer and in now-a-day programs such as Simeon Mail.


An unexpected flaw on using the Creation of Study Environments page was the fact that moving the cursor over the picture icons didn’t bring up the tips. The picture below shows two lilac coloured broken boxes. This may be an incompatibility between Java and my screen enlargement software.


Using Lotus LearningSpace

Using Lotus LearningSpace was a treat for all of the special needs software that I use. For improvements of the LearningSpace pages, look at the next page of this documentation. The web pages are all in framed HMTL enabling me to have the print in larger sizes (as print often appears in my Internet browser). Using the Lunar screen enlargement was a plus and so was the ease of using my screen reader Text! Help.


My conventional way of using the screen reader is to highlight a text paragraph using the mouse and then pressing a hotkey for reading of the text. Below shows an example of text selecting.


My idea (invention) for future releases of screen reading software such as “Jaws”. Below, I have inserted a shot of the main menu for Lotus LearningSpace.


Here is a good example of screen reading incapability. Every word that you can see on the picture is in fact not a word, but web graphics instead. The words “Course”, “Instructor” and “Student” are little pictures that can be clicked on. There is no way that current screen readers can read the graphics.


My scanning software has sparked me an idea. With the scanner, I have a program called Textbridge that can recognise text from scanned articles and convert it into a Word document. Words and pictures can be scanned together and be laid out the way it originally looked. Textbridge can also recognise text from pictures already saved on the hard disk. If this special software became an extension of screen reading such as “Jaws”, then the words in the pictures can be extracted and be read to the user.


Note: Lunar did not show all of icons/text on the web. For example, the LearningSpace and links on the University home page did not show. However the icon labels came up when the student pointed in the right area.


Student E (Autistic: Williams Syndrome)

COSE

Even following detailed instruction, this student was unable to access COSE and commented that there were no instructions on the first or second page and access could only be achieved by using the mouse. She had difficulty entering the password and the system rejected login once a number of attempts had been unsuccessful.


Once in the system, she commented that icons were much too small and close together as well as having no alternative text. Entering the size of a window does not work. As it was difficult for this student to adjust frame sizes, it was frustrating for her to have individual frames covering other information; she needed as much information on view at any one time as possible. Overall, she felt that “Help” was limited and once in the “Help” screen, it was not obvious or easy to get out.


Lotus LearningSpace

As with COSE, this student felt that icons were too small and close together and often clicked on the wrong one, but colours and graphics improved visibility to some extent. Use of enlargement of some pieces of text helped considerably and the use of symbols in order to navigate around the system offered a logical course through the software.


Help was not used as the student found the system sufficiently user friendly.


Student F (Moderately dyslexic)

Assistive Software: textHelp!: Read and Write


COSE and Lotus LearningSpace

The major drawbacks for this student accessing the VLEs in question are predominantly those which would affect a dyslexic student accessing most software or web content, specifically:

  1. Misreading spaces in text words punctuation
  2. Misinterpretation the meaning of words context

This student’s experience with both systems was rather frustrating in that text and icons were rather small and text was often not as interspersed with graphics as would have been desired. However, most of the text in Lotus LearningSpace appeared in a more spatial, readable form than COSE, although the student had great difficulty getting through the User Name list in Lotus LearningSpace. The student would have liked to have seen more graphics and possibly video clips to break up large blocks of text. (Which were found problematic.) The student commented that use of blank lines between paragraphs, bullet points, and making the first line of a paragraph stand out (with bold text, for example) also helped to make content readable.


Navigation was relatively easy in both systems but some background colours slowed down the process of making headway through the software. The ability to change text and background colour would have been a distinct advantage for this student, improving legibility and therefore enhancing the experience.


As with Student D, this student encountered difficulty when using textHelp! Read and Write screen-reading software due to incompatibility with Java. This difficulty is explained in Student D’s report.


Student G (Prelingually deaf)

No assistive software was used during the assessment. (Students who have diminished hearing capabilities can benefit from amplification and software such as Texthelp!)


Because of the difficulty in interpreting written English, one of the major issues for prelingually deaf students is the amount of text presented in the software. Long tracts of written information, particularly '‘informed'’ or complex pieces, can pose extreme difficulty. Our study found that COSE provided too much text (a content rather than system issue) whilst LearningSpace was easier to use because graphics were used more widely to intersperse text.


Those students accustomed to using British Sign Language would encounter difficulties with text because of the nature of BSL itself. As is pointed out in ‘A Guide to Disabilities’, sign languages are “…indigenous languages in their own right with their own grammar, syntax and vocabulary.” Evidently, these difficulties are not confined to software alone and it is difficult to envisage a successful development strategy, which could compensate for these inherent difficulties. However, the use of an on-line dictionary such as ‘Cobuild’ [8] would be a distinct advantage whilst using the VLEs.


Conclusions And Outcome

Firstly, it is clear that, regardless of issues associated with the use of VLEs as software products and their operation and navigation, unless proper regard is paid to issues effecting the content put into the VLEs by tutors for use by students, all that attention to the other issues by VLE manufacturers will achieve is easy access to inaccessible content.


A classic problem identified by the students who took part in the study was that unless an institution pays attention to accessibility issues in the design and organization of its websites, students might not be able to navigate to the pages from which a VLE is launched.


There are a number of studies and websites covering the issues of WWW content accessibility and rather than reproduce their efforts here, the reader is referred to: http://www.disinhe.ac.uk and its associated reports.


The rest of these conclusions dwell on issues of accessibility as they affect the work of VLE software developers.


It is clear from the reports provided by the students who took part in the study, and from additional feedback from Learning Development Centre staff who observed the students trying to use the two VLEs, that there were problems with the accessibility of both COSE and Lotus LearningSpace (in the versions studied) which ranged from minor to catastrophic depending on the type of disability in question. It is likely that similar issues would be found with any VLE system.


Whilst specific accessibility difficulties have been unearthed, there are evidently some key issues in each disability category that need to be addressed. These are:


Visually impaired:

Hearing Impaired:

Mobility Impaired:

Dyslexia:

Other (Stickler Syndrome, Williams Syndrome):

5.1 Analysis

Some of the issues above also content design issues, but neglecting them has a much more profound impact, in that:

5.1.1 Navigation and related issues

Clearly navigating the systems posed the most problems, and is the issue that developers need to address first. The following are the main points to be covered:

5.1.2 Text and Colour Issues

These are of particular importance to dyslexia and visual impairment. VLEs must allow the user to override settings such as:

5.1.3 Icons and Graphics Issues

The use of icons to convey meaning or navigation must be accompanied by the provision of textual information or alternative text which can be accessed via screen reading software. In addition the choice of icons must be such as to make each icon clear and distinct from its neighbours. The issues associated with the use of graphics in content are well covered elsewhere.


5.1.4 Java and compatibility with assistive software/hardware

Much use is now made of the Java programming language by software developers. This poses many problems for disabled users unless good practice is ensured by both VLE vendors and the producers of assistive software and hardware. Java itself is NOT the problem, indeed, Bobby [15], which provides a service for checking websites for accessibility is itself written using Java 2 SDK and JFC (Swing).


Sun Microsystems and IBM have both put considerable effort into Java related disability issues and informing software developers of best practice.


Software vendors are making significant use of the Sun Java Accessibility standards by:

The importance of the Sun Java Accessibility Bridge lies in the potential flexibility of compatibility with other assistive technologies.


The Java Accessibility Bridge to Native Code

For existing assistive technologies available on host systems (e.g. Microsoft Windows, Macintosh) to provide access to Java applications, they need some way to communicate with the Java Accessibility support in those Java applications. The Java Accessibility Bridge [13] supports that communication. This bridge is a class which contains "native methods." Part of the code for the class is actually supplied by a DLL on the host system - Solaris, OS/2, Microsoft Windows, Macintosh, etc. The assistive technology running on the host (e.g., a Macintosh screen reader) communicates with the Macintosh native DLL portion of the bridge class, which in turn communicates with the Java Virtual Machine, and from there to the Java Accessibility utility support and the Java Accessibility API on the individual user interface objects of the Java application it is providing access to.


For example, in order for a screen reader for Microsoft Windows to provide access to Java applications running on that system, that screen reader would make calls to the Java Accessibility Bridge for Microsoft Windows. If/when a user launched a Java application, the bridge would inform the screen reader of this fact. Then the screen reader would query the bridge about the Java application and the bridge would in turn forward those queries on to the Java Accessibility Utilities that were loaded into the Java Virtual Machine, and in many cases on to the individual user interface object that implemented the Java Accessibility API. When those answers came back to the bridge, the bridge would forward them on to the screen reader for Microsoft Windows, which would then use the answers to tell the user what was going on in the Java application.


How Staffordshire plan to address the disability issues with COSE

Staffordshire University has made available to The Learning Development Centre’s team, who are the developers of COSE, funds to allow the technical work required to produce a more accessible version of the product.


Version 2.0 of COSE includes many improvements, including keyboard equivalents to COSE menus and menu options. A 2.x version, for release during 2001, will include the results of the following work.

The COSE team has been liaising with suppliers of assistive technology to seek support and collaboration. Positive responses have been gained from


Sight and Sound [17] – UK Distributors of the Jaws screen reading software, whose Technical Director has offered to interchange technical information and provide a link to the US developers. Jaws 3.5 and later utilises the Java Accessibility Bridge. Sight and Sound also supply and support the ZoomText screen enlarger.


Dolphin UK [18] - UK distributors of the Lunar screen enlarger, Supernova screen enlarger+audio and Hal visually impaired assistive software. Dolphin’s management have also expressed support and willingness to interchanged technical information. (Some of these products plan to use Microsoft Accessibility Standards).


TextHelp [19] - this UK based vendor produces ‘Read and Write’ for use by students with dyslexia (and related products). They have not only offered similar support, but have already supplied pre-release versions of their software which used the Sun Java Accessibility standards.


Testing and Evaluation will be carried out continuously from the point of availability of the first prototype. Disabled Learners will be involved in the prototyping and evaluation processes to ensure that all work meets user needs. Staffordshire University Student Services’ Disability Support Staff will manage the evaluation activity using a range of disabled learners covering visual, mobility, dyslexia, colour blindness and other issues (Sticklers Syndrome and Williams Syndrome).


When all accessibility issues have been considered, prioritized and addressed, the deliverables would be as follows (provided that funding can be found for the advice and dissemination aspects):


References

The study has referenced many repositories of information including, most importantly, those which allude to the standards, measures and criteria by which accessibility to appropriate collaborative learning, or web accessed software, is assessed. The DISinHE website is an extremely useful guide to the issues surrounding accessibility for disabled students in Higher Education and to the rapidly emerging and evolving technologies but, for the purposes of this study into Virtual Learning Environments, the following Web sites should point to significant information for those wishing to develop, implement or procure a Virtual Learning Environment with the specific needs of disabled students in mind.


  1. Staffordshire University Learning and Teaching strategy: http://web.staffs.ac.uk/services/ldc/blc/welcome.html
  2. The COSE Project Website http://www.staffs.ac.uk/COSE/
  3. Lotus LearningSpace http://www.lotus.com/home.nsf/welcome/learnspace
  4. C Milligan, 'Delivering Staff and Professional Development Using Virtual Learning Environments', in JTAP Report 044, (Heriot-Watt University, 1999). http://www.jtap.ac.uk/reports/htm/jtap-044.html
  5. The Williams Syndrome Foundation Website http://www.williams-syndrome.org.uk/employ.htm
  6. Staffordshire ASSIST http://www.staffs.ac.uk/service/welfare/staffass.html
  7. A Guide to Disabilities http://www.sbu.ac.uk/caxton/guide/
  8. Cobuild http://titania.cobuild.collins.co.uk/about.html
  9. A primer on the Java Platform and Java Accessibilty by the Sun Java Accessibility Team http://www.sun.com/access/articles/
  10. IBM Accessibility Centre guidelines for Java, Software, and Web Content Accessibility http://www-3.ibm.com/able/guidelines.htm These include excellent checklists
  11. W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/
  12. IBM Keyboard Guidelines http:www-3.ibm.com/able/accesssoftware.html
  13. The Java Accessibility Bridge to Native Code http://java.sun.com/products/jfc/jaccess-1.2.2/doc/bridge.html
  14. Microsoft Accessibility HOME: http://www.microsoft.com/enable/
  15. Bobby http://www.cast.org/bobby
  16. IBM’s Self Voicing Kit – 100% Pure Java Screen Reader http://www.alphaWorks.ibm.com/tech/svk
  17. Sight and Sound Technology Ltd http://www.sightandsound.co.uk
  18. Dolphin Computer Access http://www.dolphinuk.co.uk
  19. textHelp Systems Ltd http://texthelp.com


Appendix A: A short comparison of LLS, COSE and Generic WWW approaches to Distributed Learning at Staffordshire

This appendix is available in Microsoft Word 2000 version or pdf version.


Please contact dmag@computing.dundee.ac.uk if you need an alternative format


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