Accessibility and Office DocumentsAccessibility and Office DocumentsIncreasingly professional development specialists are turning to technological solutions to deliver "on demand" learning to constituents. The Web has made the delivery of this type of learning easier and more efficient as new Learning Management Systems (LMS) have been developed. However, despite safeguards and established protocols, the possibility exists that content developed with these tools will be inaccessible to some learners.
In this tenth in a series of articles about accessibility and office documents we will provide an overview of some of the major Learning Management Systems with a primary focus on Moodle, an Open Source Software (OSS) solution. The article will outline the accessibility issues facing course developers and system administrators and provide some recommendations for ensuring their LMSs are accessible to all users.
In every business and organization, an essential activity is the provision of high quality continuing professional development for staffs and constituents. We know from research with adult learners that professional development is most successful when the learner is engaged in the process and that the conditions of learning are flexible in terms of time and place. For these reasons many businesses and organizations have embraced "distance learning;" learning situations where the "teacher" and "student" are often separated by space and or time.
Distance learning - which originated in the 18th Century - was first introduced using simple written correspondence. Indeed some of the early programs of study were called "correspondence courses" and often were conducted using the public postal system. Beginning in the mid 20th Century, modern technology began being introduced. Methods involving radio and television became popular in the 1960 as an effective and efficient means of providing education and training to large numbers of people at a distance. And in recent years, computer networks and the internet have become the primary vehicle for deploying learning at a distance.
Modern information technologies have created the capacity to design and deploy whole Learning Management Systems (LMS) that not only deliver the course work, but also manage all aspects of the learning environment including student registration, financial services, grading, learner support and even social services. Sometimes referred to as "a school in a box," these solutions come in a variety of shapes and sizes including a number of commercial and Open Source Software (OSS) packages.
Among the major commercial applications (e.g., BlackBoard/WebCT, ANGEL Learning, Desire2Learn, eCollege/Pearson, and It’s learning), BlackBoard/WebCT stands out as the most popular and widely used LMS. Among the OSS applications (e.g., ATutor, Claroline, Dokeos, Moodle, and Sakai), Moodle stands out as the most popular and widely used LMS.
In comparing commercial and OSS applications there are some important considerations. First, commercial applications are generally hosted solutions and the price paid generally includes all of the hosting, installation, and maintenance costs. Commercial applications therefore do not typically require any installation by the local system administrator, merely some set up and content development of the hosted solution. As a result, one might say that commercial LMSs work "right out of the box" at the time of sale.
On the other hand, OSS solutions generally require the system administrator to provide sufficient web resources (i.e., server capacity and access to an online database) and then download, install and set up the application. Unless the system administrator has some experience setting up content management systems and working in a dynamic web development environment, the set up process can be a bit complicated and not for the faint-hearted. On the other hand, OSS solutions are free and commercial applications can often run into the tens of thousands of dollars per year. OSS solutions also have a larger developer base and often allow for a great deal more flexibility, customization and expansion. The commercial applications typically charge more for customizing and tend to focus on features that are mainstream.
Perhaps the biggest difference between commercial and open source software solutions is support and customer service. The primary cost of the commercial application is for an extended level of customer service and professional development for staff. Typically these solutions provide direct on-site training as well as on-line and telephone tech support. Users of OSS solutions know that there is no toll-free number to call with questions and that they often have to dig through volumes of discussion groups and knowledge base entries to find answers to questions and assistance with installation and set-up problems.
But the issue that creates the greatest distinction between commercial and OSS solution is the degree of usability and accessibility of the products out of the box. Perhaps because OSS solutions are "closer to the masses" and therefore more responsive to the "needs of the many," they tend to be more accessible out of the box and, even on the back end, work well with all assistive technology devices. Our experience is that the same cannot be said of some commercial applications, particularly the back-end or administrative side of the solution. Many U.S. colleges and universities are heavily committed to ensuring that they campuses and web sites are accessible and become conflicted when they discover the distance learning application that they are paying many thousands of dollars for each year is not accessible to some users.
Among the most popular of all of the Learning Management Systems is Moodle. With over 51,000 registered user sites around the planet, Moodle - which is an acronym for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment - currently serves up over 2 million courses with over 25 million users. Moodle is available in 61 languages and is being used in at least 199 different countries (for more information about the popularity of Moodle see the Moodle statistics page and Moodle sites page )
In addition to being robust and stable, Moodle enjoys a development network of dozens of developers, hundreds of translators and thousands of users who test and contribute feedback. In addition, Moodle has received support from Google and Microsoft and several leading universities who have help guide development in a way that ensures high usability and accessibility.
As noted, deploying Moodle, like all content management systems, requires some expertise and talent. Most commonly, Moodle is installed and configured in a LAMP environment (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP), although it can be deployed on any web server system as long as it can run PHP and a SQL database. There are a number of commercial hosting solutions that can run Moodle as well as a long list of hosts that deploy Moodle exclusively.
Moodle users come in four major categories: the Admin - or superuser, Course Creators/Developers, Teachers and Students. Once installed, the Admin sets up the theme and site description and begins to add users. Each of the successive level of authenticated user has less and less control over all of the Moodle content. In other words, Teachers have more control over content that Students, Course Creators have more control over content than Teachers and so on. But even the Student level user has a great deal of control of their Moodle environment and can create blogs, wikis, use student chat rooms and engage other students on the on-line student social discussion boards.
Courses in Moodle can be constructed in four major styles: Weekly, Topics, Social, and Project Course format. In addition, courses constructed in other LMSs that use the SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) standard can be imported and used in Moodle. Likewise, all Moodle courses are developed to SCORM standards and can be exported to other LMSs.
In thinking about a typical program of secondary and post secondary courses, most are organized to fit within a specific time period (semester, trimester, etc.). This format mirrors the Weekly course style where student submit course work within a specified time frame; courses begin and end at a certain time and generally "meet" on a specified schedule. In Moodle’s system, the default is a weekly schedule, however the actual time frame can be customized.
Many distance learning courses are organized in an asynchronous format allowing the learner to pace themselves and complete assignments at their own rate. In the Moodle course style of Topics, the learner studies a specific amount of content and only moves to the next topic when the assignment is complete.
The Moodle Social course style is most reminiscent of a graduate level course where there is no specified time frame or assignment requirement for moving ahead in the course. In the Social course style, learners freely interact with faculty and other students and pace themselves accordingly.
Lastly, the Project Course format is designed to allow a group of students to work together on a specific project.
Like all LMSs, Moodle has administrative tools to register students into courses and include the ability to accept payment. The Course Creator assigns a Teacher (or teachers) to each course and identifies the course style. The Teacher can be given a broad or narrow range of authorization to set up the course. The Course Creator may also assign students to each of the courses, or Moodle can be set up to have students self-register.
Teachers can interact with students through a variety of means including Instant Messaging/Chat, Discussion Groups, and through the formal submission and grading of assignments. Various on-line student assessment methodologies are included in Moodle including testing with multiple choice questions, true/false and essays. Moodle comes installed with a Grade Book that can be customized to allow students to view their grades and or the grades of other students. In Moodle, each user is also given some blog space and access to a social discussion group. These informal settings can be used as a "student lounge" and may or may not include teachers.
The good news is that "out of the box" Moodle (version 1.8.x) meets all accessibility standards and produces valid XHTML code according to international W3C standards. The product is "technology neutral," running on any browser, on any operating system and in any environment. In that Moodle has been translated and is installed with 61 language modules it enjoys a great deal of usability. Moodle has been tested with all of the major assistive technology devices and is viewed as being accessible on both the front end - student/learner side - as well as the back end - teacher administrator side.
The bad news is that Moodle, like all CMSs can be easily rendered inaccessible by any one user. Because no one can completely control the content that users upload to the Moodle, there is the distinct possibility that inaccessible content will be posted.
While the use of the ALT text for images is the most often cited culprit in web accessibility circles, Moodle attempts to guard against this by including a script that pops up a warning if the user fails to enter ALT text for the image. But this is only in the case of images that are posted directly into Moodle. If the user tries to upload a document file or other content to the Moodle course that has not been made accessible, there is no mechanism for testing the document and ensuring it meets accessibility guidelines.
While this list is written up specifically for Moodle, the same list of cautions can be used with any Content Management System:
In the final analysis, accessibility in Learning Mangement Systems and Content Management Systems requires ongoing training and vigilance. Simply put, the more people who have access and input to any web application, the greater the probability accessibility and usability issues will be introduced. Training all users on the importance of these concerns is a first step. However vigilance, testing, and remediation of the web site are a must.
The following are some suggestions:
Maine CITE provides additional resources that can help you with your goal of creating accessible documents. http://www.mainecite.org/awd/accdocs.html
John Brandt is a web designer and consultant who works with the Maine CITE Program in the area of accessibility and universal design. He may be reached at jeb@jebswebs.com
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