IHE2021

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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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