This document discusses digital accessibility in higher education. It makes the following key points: 1) Around 15% of students in higher education report having a disability or health impairment that limits their studies. Common impairments include mental health issues, physical disabilities, and chronic health conditions. 2) Ensuring digital accessibility and inclusion is important for complying with legal requirements and allowing all students to access information and learning opportunities regardless of ability status. 3) Higher education institutions need to consider accessibility in all dimensions of their work, from teaching practices to policies and engagement with stakeholders. Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence could improve inclusion but also risk exacerbating existing inequities if not developed responsibly.

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Digital Accessibility & the New Normal
Higher Education in the New Normal: the Role of Online, Blended
and Distance Learning
Innovating Higher Education Conference 2021, Bari, Italy
DR. BJÖRN FISSELER
Educational Technology Specialist & Digital Accessibility Evangelist

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Dr. Björn Fisseler
 FernUniversität in Hagen
 Educational Technology Specialist & Digital Accessibility
Evangelist
 Research topics
 Digital Accessibility & Universal Design
 Students with disabilities in higher education
 Inclusive digital teaching and learning
 Educational technology and Artificial Intelligence
 Questions? Mail me: bjoern.fisseler@fernuni-hagen.de
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Digital accessibility?
Digital accessibility is about designing information-
and communication technology in a way that allows
all people to access and use it.
Consider that people with disabilities
 might use different or specialised hard- and
software
 might prefer different ways to communicate
 might prefer different means to participate in
teaching and learning activities.
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Students with disabilities in Higher Education
EUROSTUDENT VII
 ∅ 15% of all students in HEI report limitations in
their studies due to a health impairment
 Varies between 31% (Iceland) and 5% (Romania)
 Most reported impairments
 Mental health issues
 Physical chronic diseases
 Long-standing health issues
(Source: eurostudent.eu)
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Source: 21. Sozialerhebung, 2016, p. 37

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Legal requirements
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International level
• UN Convention on Rights for People with Disabilities
• UNESCO Salamanca Statement
• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
European level law
• EU Directive 2016/2102
• Harmonised European Standard EN 301 549
• EU Directive 2019/882 European Accessibility Act
State level law
• § 2 Inclusion Principles Act NRW
• § 10 Disability Equality Act NRW
• § 3 Higher Education Act NRW

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Dimensions of Digital Accessibility
• Universally designed higher
education
• Inclusive digital learning
opportunities
• Policies & Guidelines
• Services & Procurement
• Engaging Stakeholders
• Digital Divide: Material /
Mental & Skills / Usage
• Digital Inclusion:
Role of ICT for SWD
• WCAG / POUR-Principle
• Perceivable
• Operable
• Understandable
• Robust
Technical
Socio-
Economic
Pedagogical
Institutional
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Ed-ICT Project
 3-year international project
 Jane Seale, Open University UK
 Tali Heiman, Open University Israel
 Catherine Fichten, McGill University Canada
 Sheryl Burgstahler, University of Washington
 Björn Fisseler, FernUniversität in Hagen
 Change in HEI is necessary
 Question your models and frameworks
 Engage more (all) stakeholders
 Question your HEI‘s practices
 Develop your preferable future
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Question your models and frameworks
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Engaging stakeholders
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Lecturers
IT professionals
(Senior)
Management
Administration
Institutional Development
Students
External
Stakeholders

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Develop practices: Teaching accessibility
Increase in accessibility training
 2021: 76% Quality-Matters-Institutions offered
training to their faculty and staff (2017: 65%,
2011: 25%)
 Targeting lecturers, faculty developers, academic
staff developers
 Formats: internal courses, online resources, external
offerings
 Topics: accessible table design, writing alternative
texts, structuring with headings, accessible PDFs
Really?
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But what are they teaching?
Fisseler (2021):
 Top-5: syllabus statements, accessible documents,
UDL, captions & transcripts, accessible PDFs
 Least-5: contact persons, laws & legal obligations,
writing for accessibility, audiodescriptions, alternative
media
Lewthwaite & Sloan (2016)
 Missing pedagogical culture, accessibility is a socio-
technical challenge
 Problem of good practice: „high-agreement, high-
certainty territory of standards“
 Develop a pedagogical culture with community-level
discussion, engaging with, and sharing pedagogy
Source: Mancilla, R., & Frey, B. (2021). Professional
Development for Digital Accessibility: A Needs
Assessment. Quality Matters.

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Awareness & Institutional integration
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Online Faculty Development
 Essential for the adoption and use
of technologies and accessibility
 Idea: new solutions are only effective
to the extent faculty understands
why and how to use them
 Short courses, webinars, hybrid training
 Engaging joint learning: Communities of Practice,
Faculty Learning Communities, Teaching Circles
Seale, J. (2006). A contextualised model of accessible e-learning practice in higher education
institutions. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 22(2), 268–288.

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Artificial Intelligence & Digital Inclusion
Artifical Intelligence as a chance
 Automatic transcription, captioning and translation
 Auto-generated alt-texts and descriptions
 Intelligent conversion of documents and other
materials
 „AI for Good“
 Chatbots and recommender
 Mentoring apps
 Personalised learning adaptive teaching
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Artifical Intelligence as a risk
 AI is often biased against marginalised groups
 Reproducing existing discrimination
 Technoableism (Shew, 2020): Using technology and
AI to empower disabled people, but simply
reinforcing ableist ideals of body-minds are good to
have
 Accessible website overlays
 E.g., AudioEye, AccessiBe
 Use AI to „enhance“ accessibility, often for
compliance only: „attain accessibility with just
one line of code“
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The Future of the New Normal is in the Margins
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Source: Wikipedia; M. W. Toews / CC BY-SA
Source: Acroterion / CC BY-SA
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