Supporting Open Access to Teaching and Learning of People with Disabilities

University of Piraeus
Department of Digital Systems
Centre for Research and Technology – Hellas (CE.R.T.H.)
Information Technologies Institute (I.T.I.)
Advanced Digital Systems and Services for Education and Learning (ASK)
Supporting Open Access to Teaching
and Learning of People with
Disabilities
Panagiotis Zervas
Post Doctoral Researcher, Information Technologies Institute, Center for Research and Technology
Hellas, Greece & Department of Digital Systems, University of Piraeus, Greece
Member of Executive Board, IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Learning Technology
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial License. To view a copy of
this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/1.0 or send a letter to Creative Commons, 559 Nathan
Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
P. Zervas November 27, 2014
1/34

OOvveerrvviieeww ooff tthhee PPrreesseennttaattiioonn
 Advanced Digital Systems and Services for Education
and Learning (ASK)
 Overview of Activities
 Research Areas and Fields of Application
 Current Research Projects
 Supporting Open Access to Teaching and Learning of
People with Disabilities
 Inclusive Learning
 Technology-enhanced Learning and Accessibility
 Opening up Education
 Inclusive Learning Portal
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Advanced Digital Systems and Services for
Education and Learning (ASK)
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Where are we?
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How does Piraeus look like?
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Advanced Digital SSyysstteemmss aanndd SSeerrvviicceess ffoorr
EEdduuccaattiioonn aanndd LLeeaarrnniinngg ((AASSKK)) –– ((11//22))
 A research establishment, associated with:
 the Department of Digital Systems at the University of
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Piraeus and
 the Information Technologies Institute (ITI at the Center for
Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH)
 that aims to conducts evidence-based research in
response to real-life problems for the Design,
Implementation and Evaluation of Digital Systems and
Services for Technology Supported Learning and
Education

Advanced Digital SSyysstteemmss aanndd SSeerrvviicceess ffoorr
EEdduuccaattiioonn aanndd LLeeaarrnniinngg ((AASSKK)) –– ((22//22))
 Founded in 2000 by Prof. Demetrios G. Sampson, Senior and Golden Member IEEE,
Professor at Department of Digital Systems, University of Piraeus, Greece
 Participation in 43 R&D projects attracting total external funding over 8Million Euro.
 More than 330 scientific publications with at least 1477 known citations (with h-index
21) and 8 Best Paper Awards in International Conferences.
 Scientific World Leadership in the field of Technology-enhanced Learning with:
 Co-Editorship of the Educational Technology and Society Journal (one of the
top research journals in the field based on its impact factor), Steering
Committee of the IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies
 Co-Chairship of major international conferences on Learning Technologies,
such as IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies
 Active participation in International and European Centers of Excellence
7/34

RReesseeaarrcchh AArreeaass
 Cloud Computing for Open Educational Resources and
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Practices
 Context-Aware Adaptive and Personalized Mobile
Learning
 Web 2.0 and Social Computing for Learning
 Learning and Knowledge Analytics
 Digital Game and Intelligent Toy Enhanced Learning
 3D Virtual Worlds in Real Education
 Learning Technologies for People with Disabilities

FFiieellddss ooff AApppplliiccaattiioonn
 Technology-supported:
 Formal and Informal STEM Education
 Training for People with Disabilities
9/34
 Language Learning
 Competence-Based Lifelong Learning

Current RReesseeaarrcchh PPrroojjeeccttss ((11//22))
Inspiring Science Education: Large Scale
Experimentation Scenarios to Mainstream eLearning in
Science, Mathematics and Technology in Primary and
Secondary Schools (Funding Programme: European
Commission, ICT Policy Support Programme). More
info at: http://www.inspiring-science.eu/
Go-Lab: Global Online Science Labs for Inquiry
Learning at School (Funding Programme: European
Commission, 7th Framework Programme, ICT
Cooperation Programme, Technology Enhanced
Learning). More info at: http://www.go-lab-project.
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eu/

Current RReesseeaarrcchh PPrroojjeeccttss ((22//22))
Open Discovery Space: A socially-powered and
multilingual open learning infrastructure to boost
the adoption of eLearning Resources (Funding
Programme: European Commission, ICT Policy
Support Programme). More info at:
http://www.opendiscoveryspace.eu/
Inclusive Learning: Supporting Trainers for an
Inclusive Vocational Education and Training
(Funding Programme: European Commission,
Lifelong Learning Programme 2007-2013,
Leonardo Da Vinci Transfer of Innovation
Programme). More info at: http://www.inclusive-learning.
11/34
eu/

Supporting Open Access to Teaching
and Learning of People with
Disabilities
12/34

IInncclluussiivvee LLeeaarrnniinngg
 Several frameworks have been developed such as:
 Universal Design for Learning (Rose & Meyer, 2002)
 Differentiated Learning (Tomlinson & McTighe, 2006)
 All recognize the broad diversity of learners with respect to
ability, language, culture, gender, age and other forms of human
difference and they provide specific learning design principles to
ensure accessibility of all learner types to the learning
environment or education delivery.
Rose, D.H., & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal design for learning. Alexandria,
VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Tomlinson, C. A. & McTighe, J. (2006). Integrating differentiated instruction and understanding by design: Connecting
content and kids. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
13/34

E Technology-Ennhhaanncceedd LLeeaarrnniinngg ((TTeeLL)) aanndd
AAcccceessssiibbiilliittyy ((11//22))
 Accessibility recognized as a key design consideration for TeL systems ensuring
that learners with diverse needs and preferences can access technology-supported
resources, services and experiences in general (Seale & Cooper,
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2009)
 “Learners experience a disability when there is a mismatch between the
learner’s needs (or preferences) and the education or learning experience
delivered” (IMS GLC, 2004)
 “Accessibility is the ability of the learning environment to adjust to the needs
and preferences of each learner (IMS GLC, 2004)
IMS Global Learning Consortium (GLC). (2004). IMS AccessForAll Meta-Data Overview. Retrieved October 30, 2013
from: http://www.imsglobal.org/accessibility/accmdv1p0/imsaccmd_oviewv1p0.html
Seale, J. & Cooper, M. (2009). E-Learning and accessibility: An exploration of the potential role of generic pedagogical
tools. Computers & Education, 54(4), 1107-1116.

E Technology-Ennhhaanncceedd LLeeaarrnniinngg ((TTeeLL)) aanndd
AAcccceessssiibbiilliittyy ((22//22))
 ISO/IEC 24751-1:2008 “Individualized Adaptability and Accessibility in e-
Learning, Education and Training” is intended to meet the needs of learners
with disabilities and anyone in a disabling context. ISO/IEC 24751-1:2008
provides a common framework to describe and specify learner needs and
preferences on the one hand and the corresponding description of the digital
learning resources on the other hand, so that individual learner preferences
and needs can be matched with the appropriate user interface tools and
digital learning resources.
 ISO/IEC Standard has been influenced by IMS Access for ALL specifications:
 IMS Accessibility for Learner Information Package (IMS AccLIP)
 IMS Accessibility Metadata Description
ISO IEC JTC1/SC36 24751-1:2008. “Individualized Adaptability and Accessibility in e-Learning, Education and Training.”
Available online at: http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=41521
15/34

OOppeenniinngg uupp EEdduuccaattiioonn
 Global movement that aims to facilitate open and flexible learning by
exploring the potential of digital technologies in providing enhanced learning
experiences (Conole, 2013)
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 Open Access to:
 Educational resources (OERs) / practices (OEPs)
 Tools, services and people
 Via multiple devices
 Desktop and laptops
 Mobile devices
 Cloud Technologies and Cloud Infrastructures
Conole, G. (2013). Open Educational Resources. In Designing for Learning in an Open World (pp. 225-243). Springer
New York.

OOppeenniinngg UUpp EEdduuccaattiioonn -- AAssppeeccttss ooff
OOppeennnneessss
17/34
 Open Curriculum: learners can mix educational
resources for different disciplines to meet their
needs. This places learners in charge of their own
learning.
 Open Learning: teachers, experts and/or peers can
share new ideas and new understanding during the
learning process.
 Open Assessment: instead of formal evaluation of
learning results, previously led by accredited
education providers, assessment of what learners
have learned can be carried out by their teachers,
others and peers during the learning process via peer
to peer or crowd-sourced assessment with on-demand
accreditation for learners.
 Open Platform: cloud–based provision and the use of
open standards make it easier for different platforms
and services to exchange information and data
European Commission (2011). Public consultation on opening up education - a proposal for a European initiative. Directorate-General for
Education for Culture. Retrieved December 12, 2013, from http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/documents/consult/open_en.pdf

The Inclusive Learning Portal
(http://www.inclusive-learning.
18/34
eu/)

IInncclluussiivvee LLeeaarrnniinngg PPoorrttaall
OOvveerrvviieeww
 Includes accessible OERs in two aggregation levels:
 Accessible educational resources : digital materials such as video and audio lectures
(podcasts), references and readings, workbooks and textbooks that conform to Web
Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
 Accessible Training Courses: sequences of learning activities, which include accessible
educational resources, tools and services. They follow a specific pedagogical strategy,
which is suitable for disabled people training, and they are conducted entirely online
targeting specific educational objectives.
19/34
 Two main types of portal users:
 Teachers of people with disabilities: they are the main recipient of the functionality
offered by the Inclusive Learning Portal
 Learners with disabilities: they are using only a limited set of the Inclusive Learning
Portal services. More specifically, they can enroll to accessible training courses offered
by their teachers

FFuunnccttiioonnaall RReeqquuiirreemmeennttss ((11//22))
 User profiling: teachers should be able to create their profile and access a dashboard with
20/34
the activities that they have performed.
 Uploading Accessible OERs: Teachers should be able to upload and store accessible OERs to
the portal by describing them with appropriate metadata.
 Authoring Accessible OERs: Teachers should be able to use authoring tools for developing
accessible OERs in the form of accessible training courses.
 Annotating Accessible OERs: Teachers should be able to rate, comment, tag and bookmark
accessible OERs. These annotations are expected to be used by other teachers for assessing
the quality of the accessible OERs during searching.
 Searching Accessible OERs: Teachers should be able to search for accessible OERs across
existing repositories by either using formal metadata added by the authors of these OERs
e.g. grade level, subject domain, disability type etc., or by using social metadata added by
the users of the OERs (namely, the teachers) such as social tags and ratings.

FFuunnccttiioonnaall RReeqquuiirreemmeennttss ((22//22))
 Delivering Accessible OERs: Teachers should be able to organize and deliver
their own accessible training courses to their learners. Learners should able
also to enroll to these courses.
 Communicating with users: Proper tools should be made available to the
teachers for communicating and collaborating with other colleagues in order
to exchange ideas and best teaching practices.
 Participating to training academies: teachers should have access to training
academies that offer them training opportunities towards enhancing their
competences about inclusive learning and accessibility.
21/34

Existing Portals SSuuppppoorrttiinngg OOppeenn AAcccceessss TToo
TTeeaacchhiinngg aanndd LLeeaarrnniinngg ooff PPeeooppllee WWiitthh DDiissaabbiilliittiieess
TILE, Canada EPKhas,
Malaysia
22/34
KlasCement,
Belgium
TESConnect, UK LALIDC, USA

Comparing FFeeaattuurreess ooff EExxiissttiinngg PPoorrttaallss
Features TILE EPKhas TESConnect LALIDC KlasCement
User profiling     
Uploading Accessible LOs     
Authoring Accessible LOs     
Annotating Accessible LOs     
Searching Accessible LOs     
Delivering Accessible LOs     
Communicating with users     
Participating to training academies     
23/34

TThhee IInncclluussiivvee LLeeaarrnniinngg PPoorrttaall
AArrcchhiitteeccttuurree
24/34

MMeettaaddaattaa HHaarrvveesstteerr
 Collects educational metadata from the external repositories. It includes four sub-components
 Harvester: harvests metadata records from external repositories. Based on Open Archives
Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). All metadata is based on the IEEE
LOM standard and it has been tailored specifically to support the classification of OERs
based on their accessibility characteristics.
 Validator: validates the metadata records that are harvested by the harvester, so as to
ensure that they conform to the Inclusive Learning AP.
 Link checking: it is used in order to verify that the metadata record includes a valid URL to
the respective OER of the external repository. If the URL doesn’t work, then the metadata
record is excluded from the harvesting process.
 Metadata Checking: it performs completeness check of the metadata records that are
harvested based on the Inclusive Learning AP. If incomplete metadata records exist, then
they are flagged, so as to be enriched in the future by appropriate Inclusive Learning Portal
users.
25/34

SSeeaarrcchh OOEERRss MMeecchhaanniissmm
Facilitates teachers in searching for accessible
OERs by following different approaches such as:
 simple keyword search: using keywords and
combinations.
 facetted search: the teacher is able to
qualify the keyword search with several
additional facets such as the OER type, the
disability type etc.
 social tagging search: the teacher is
presented with the most popular tags
contributed by the Inclusive Learning Portal’s
teachers, visualized by a tag cloud. A tag links
to the respective accessible OER(s).
26/34

MMeettaaddaattaa AAuutthhoorriinngg TTooooll
 Enables teachers to characterize
27/34
their own accessible OERs with
educational metadata (following
the IEEE LOM) and upload them
to the Portal.
 This tool is also used by the
Inclusive Learning Portal users to
edit and enrich the metadata of
accessible OERs that are
harvested by the external
repositories.

OOnnlliinnee LLeeaarrnniinngg HHaannddbbooookk
28/34
 Provides the teachers with specific
learning design principles to ensure that
teaching practices can accommodate all
types of students.
 It also aims to assist teachers in
developing engaging and motivating
learning experiences for all learners,
regardless of their special abilities and
preferences.
 It provides guidelines for developing
accessible OERs, as well as examples for
restricting or eliminating non accessible
elements
 It can be customized with different
display preferences

CCoouurrssee MMaannaaggeemmeenntt SSyysstteemm ((11//22))
29/34
 It has been integrated to Inclusive
Learning portal via Single-Sign-On
functionality
 Enables teachers to design accessible
training courses and deliver them to
their.
 Teachers are also able to participate in
teacher training courses that will facilitate
them in enhancing their competences in
process of designing and developing
accessible OERs
 It is based on ATutor, which is built
around IMS Access For All Specifications

CCoouurrssee MMaannaaggeemmeenntt SSyysstteemm ((22//22))
30/34
 The design and development of
accessible training courses in ATutor
is supported by TinyMCE (a web
content authoring tool).
 TinyMCE has been adapted in order
to provide with better support when
teachers are developing accessible
OERs, by following the W3C Web
Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0.
 TinyMCE integrates a plugin, which
uses the Achecker automatic
validation results

Join our Massive Open OOnnlliinnee CCoouurrssee ((MMOOOOCC))
 Title: “Designing and Developing Inclusive
Learning”
 Duration: 4 Weeks (1/9/2014 – 27/9/2014)
 Training Modules:
 Introduction and Tools
 Inclusive Learning and Teaching
 Universal Design for Learning
 Open Educational Resources (OER)
 Accessible content for OER
 Validating accessible content for OER
 Register at: http://www.inclusive-learning.
31/34
eu/mooc

CCoonncclluussiioonnss -- FFuuttuurree WWoorrkk
 The issue of accessibility in Technology-enhanced Learning is too important
32/34
to be ignored.
 Therefore, it is important to empower the teachers with appropriate tools
and services towards supporting accessible Technology-enhanced Learning
 Inclusive Learning Portal aims to support this and provides tools and services
for facilitating the main stages of a typical e-Learning chain, namely, creation,
publication, discovery, acquisition, access, use, re-use and delivery of OERs. It
also provides teacher training opportunities regarding several aspects of
inclusive learning and accessibility.
 Future work includes further development of the Inclusive Learning Portal in
order to support latest developments of accessibility metadata in
Schema.org.

RReellaatteedd PPuubblliiccaattiioonnss
 P. Zervas, V. Kardaras, S. Baldiris Navarro, J. Bacca, C. Avila, Y. Politis, Deveril, J. Treviranus, R.
Fabregat, L. Goodman and D. Sampson, "Supporting Open Access to Teaching and Learning of
People with Disabilities", in D. Sampson, D. Ifenthaler, J. M. Spector and P. Isaias, (Eds.), Digital
Systems for Open Access to Formal and Informal Learning, Springer, ISBN 978-3-319-02263-5,
Chapter 5, pp 58-68, September 2014
 P. Zervas, V. Kardaras and D. Sampson, "An Online Educational Portal for Supporting Open Access to
Teaching and Learning of People with Disabilities", In Proc. of the 14th IEEE International
Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT 2014), Athens, Greece, IEEE Computer
Society, 7-10, July 2014
 D. Sampson and P. Zervas, "Supporting Accessible Technology-Enhanced Training: The
eAccess2Learn Framework", IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies (TLT) (ISSN 1939-1382),
vol. 4(4), pp. 353-364, IEEE Computer Society, October 2011
 D. Sampson and P. Zervas, "Technology-enhanced Training for People with Disabilities: The
eAccess2Learn Framework", in Proc. of the 2nd International Conference on Intelligent Networking
and Collaborative Systems (INCoS 2010), Thessaloniki, Greece, IEEE Computer Society, (ISBN: 978-0-
7695-4278-2/10), (BEST PAPER AWARD), 24-26, November 2010
 D. Sampson and P. Zervas, "Technology-enhanced Training for All: Evaluation Results from the use
of the e-Access2Learn Framework", in Proc. of the 10th IEEE International Conference on Advanced
Learning Technologies (ICALT 2010), Sousse, Tunisia, IEEE Computer Society (ISBN: 978-0-7695-
4055-9), 5-7, July 2010
33/34

Stay in contact …
e-mail me: pzervas@iti.gr
skype me : pzervas
google me : www.ask4research.info
Linkedin with me
or come and visit me:
Department of Digital Systems,
University of Piraeus, Greece
34/34

Supporting Open Access to Teaching and Learning of People with Disabilities

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