Francisco Iniesto and Covadonga Rodrigo Institute of educational Technology. The Open University Department of Computer Systems and Languages. Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia (UNED)

1. Can user recommendations be useful for improving
MOOCs accessibility? A project for inclusive design
and profitable feedback
Francisco Iniesto and Covadonga Rodrigo
Institute of educational Technology. The Open University
Department of Computer Systems and Languages. Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia
(UNED)

2. 1. Introduction and related work
2. Rationale
3. “YourMOOC4ALL” project
4. Conclusions

3. INTRODUCTION AND RELATED WORK
MOOC platforms:
• Web based eLearning engines
• Scheduling academic curriculum
• Synchronous and asynchronous
communication
Interface elements:
• Logging in, logging out
• Navigating in courses and content
• Multi layered structures
eLearning materials:
• Specific technology.
Barriers :
• The interface elements
• The manner in which users interact
with these objects
• Components which do not always
share a consistency of interface
logic:
• Posting in a forum
• Making up elements in
tests or timed quizzes
• Embedded videos
• Variety of document
formats

4. INTRODUCTION AND RELATED WORK
The minimum required level of
accessibility :
 Guarantee access to the
content by means of the
platforms.
 Produce the content
accessible in itself.
 Evaluate the access conditions.
 The technological platform.
 The content of the MOOC must
be the same for all of the
students.
 The students must be able to
access the content using assistive
technologies.
 It is necessary to offer alternative
textual descriptions for
multimedia content.
 Assistance must be provided.
How should the model for an accessible MOOC platform be?

5. INTRODUCTION AND RELATED WORK
A selection of a set of Web pages:
•The platform’s homepage.
•A representative page of the course.
•A course page including a form.
•A course page including a forum.
 Educational resources (Knowledge Pills)
Text based: PDF, Word,…
Multimedia, Video lessons.
Methodology that combines:
 Conformance reviews.
 Screening techniques.

6. INTRODUCTION AND RELATED WORK
Global or heuristic vision:
Evaluation through automatic
accessibility tools :
WCAG Accessibility Validation:
eXaminator
 Disability Simulators:
aDesigner
 User Experience (UX)
Testing Tools: Sortsite
 Educational content evaluation
The MOOC
platform
The educational
content.

7. INTRODUCTION AND RELATED WORK
Accessibility evaluation of MOOC platforms and courses
COLMENIA: Weprendo + UnX + UNED COMA + Miriada X + UAb iMOOC
All platforms obtain average results 5 – 6 /10 -> place for improvement.
None of the platforms achieve reasonable values (higher than 60%).
For the educational content -> no standards (either platforms or
accessible educational content). -> SCORM and accessibility guidelines.
Lack of accessibility of audiovisual resources exist for all the platforms.
In particular learning disabilities guidelines are very difficult to be
checked in the evaluation of accessibility due to the lack of tools and the
weakness of standards such as WCAG 2.0.

8. RATIONALE
No reference has been found in the literature review regarding user’s opinions or
expectations about what they would like to improve in MOOCs about usability
and accessibility issues
There are several MOOC aggregator sites:
 Class Central (www.class-central.com)
 MOOC List (www.mooc-list.com)
 CourseTalk (www.coursetalk.com) -> You can review different pedagogical
aspects of the course.

9. RATIONALE
(Floratos, Guasch & Espasa, 2015):
• Information that can be extracted from the CourseTalk website
• Responses from all the e-courses reviewed at CourseTalk that satisfy concrete conditions:
being offered for free, by Universities top-rated (i.e. 5/5 stars) and receiving more than
100 reviews, identifying 7 MOOCs and around 4050 reviews for their study.
• The authors of this study provide results on concerning modes of formative assessment
and feedback practices which promote stronger engagement in MOOCs.
(CourseTalk, 2015):
Performed over more than 7000 courses, 74000 reviews and 46 providers.
Conclusions include:
• “providers should embrace reviews from unbiased, third-party sites as a way of
promoting improved course selection and engagement”
• “Providers should make courses experiences clear, easy to navigate, fun, interactive,
supportive and flexible”
Few studies have been conducted on MOOCs recommendations

10. RATIONALE
The design of a website that allows users to freely include accessibility opinions
will enable:
• Researchers to collect information that the can hardly obtain during the expert
evaluation on site.
• Users can comfortably fill the information from home, freely and
independently, without the pressure of conducting an analysis with an expert at
their shoulders
“YourMOOC4ALL” project

11. • Access to social networks
• Access to login
• Tabs to access courses by subject, provider, starting date and ranking
• Possibility of free search
• Courses sorted by starting date
“YOURMOOC4ALL” PROJECT -> COURSETALK

12. Course information:
• Title and link to the course
• Price, availability and
provider
• Course description
• Average assessments
• Link to reviews or to add
one
• Video presentation of the
course

13. Qualification
Order
Utility
Author:
• Enrolled courses
• Number of reviews
• Courses completed
Review a review of a colleague

14. Free text
5 stars:
• Content
• Instructor
• Provider
Course:
• Taking now
• Completed
• Dropped
Prior knowledge

15. “YOURMOOC4ALL” PROJECT
Enable to distinguish the different platforms and MOOC courses at three levels:
1. Provider (The MOOC course platform provider, e.g. FutureLearn (futurelearn.com),
edX (edx.org), MiriadaX (miriadax.net), UNED COMA (coma.uned.es), etc.).
2. University (the university providing the course, e.g. UNED (portal.uned.es) or The
Open University (open.ac.uk)).
3. Course (the specific course)

16. “YOURMOOC4ALL” PROJECT
Search Home Course Information Page to add a review
Registration page
The information architecture of the portal is centred on a simple and intuitive design
that consists only of a group of four pages:
1. Search Home Free Search.
2. Registration page and user profile. The evaluator profile.
3. Course Information Page and consult the reviews.
4. Page to add a review. This page will include the accessibility experience.

17. “YOURMOOC4ALL” PROJECT
Search Home Free Search. A search engine that lets you search by words contained in
the title of the course, university and provider.
a) Offering a paged list of courses, first in order of antiquity or alphabetical.

18. “YOURMOOC4ALL” PROJECT
Registration page and user profile. The evaluator profile.
a) Name and affiliation.
b) Information related to assistive technology that could need to use the user
c) Previous knowledge on the use of MOOCs and accessibility assessment
experience is saved.

19. “YOURMOOC4ALL” PROJECT
Course Information Page and consult the reviews. This page will contain useful
information.
a) Basic course information (title, description of the course).
b) Average value of accessibility ratings.
c) Link to the video presenting the course.
d) List of reviews ordered by antiquity.

20. “YOURMOOC4ALL” PROJECT
Page to add a review. This page will include the accessibility experience.
a) The evaluation of various common points related to the platform, the courses
and resources
b) Free text to include qualitative information on the evaluation.
c) Information like the state that the user is the course at the time of the evaluation
(in progress, completed or abandoned)

21. “YOURMOOC4ALL” PROJECT
The user will be asked to describe the accessibility of the MOOC on several levels:
1. Accessibility of the platform itself:
1. accessibility of the registration process
2. entrance to the main platform
3. course overview
2. Accessibility of the course itself:
1. Access to the videos
2. Evaluation items (auto-test, file upload to the platform, peer review processes…)
3. interventions in forums, chat, inspection of personal karma (social reputation)
assigned badges, course completion, etc.
3. Educational content accessibility:
1. existence of subtitles
2. transcripts
3. alternative audio
4. audio-description.

22. CONCLUSIONS
 The current status of the proposal is in a prototype
 The idea is to develop this application motivated by the real
need of a website where users:
 can make accessibility assessments of the current state
of courses and platforms
Can user recommendations be useful for
improving MOOCs accessibility?

23. Francisco Iniesto
Institute of Educational Technology
The Open University, UK
francisco.iniesto@open.ac.uk
Covadonga Rodrigo
Research Chair “Technology and Accessibility”
UNED – Fundación Vodafone España, Spain
covadonga@lsi.uned.es