Special Educational Needs

One of the advantages of using a VLE is that it can provide 24-hour access for students who are unable to physically attend a course or unable to work during the allotted hours the course is delivered in. It can also help to accommodate, with a small degree of planning and forethought, those with special needs. Used without planning and forethought on the part of the administrators and the tutors who populate it, however, it can be an impenetrable barrier to many students.

The Disability Discrimination Act (1995), in particular Part 4 as amended by the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (2001) - (SENDA), has affected all aspects of life in tertiary education (for further information see Willder, B. (2002) 'Disability legislation: implications for learning technologists in the UK' in Phipps, L., Sutherland, A. and Seale, J. 'Access All Areas'). This imperative has been heightened by the Disability Equality Duty. Not only do you need to ensure that your physical spaces and buildings are accessible to those with mobility and vision impairments, but also that your teaching and online material (including that within a VLE) is also as inclusive as possible. By inclusive, we mean something designed so as to be accessible to all users, regardless of impairment.

The couching of the DDA in general phrases such as 'less favourably', 'reasonable adjustments', 'substantial disadvantage' and 'anticipatory' created a sense of anxiety in some while others recognised an opportunity to take a more learner-centred approach and evolve good practice. There has been a distinct shift in recent times away from a rigid standards-based approach to electronic materials and towards a more holistic approach that discriminates between delivery mechanisms, content and context, focusing more on the learner's experience than meeting any checkboxes and guidelines.

If we make the distinction between the vehicle of delivery and the context of use it becomes possible to distinguish quite separate issues requiring quite separate guidance.

Vehicle of Delivery

The VLE is the mechanism by which all resources will be stored, shared or otherwise delivered - i.e. the actual VLE package (for example: BlackBoard or Moodle).

In January 2003, TechDis undertook a survey to consider the position and documentation of VLEs with regard to accessibility. The full report is available on the TechDis website and is reprised in Cann,C., Ball,S. and Sutherland, A. (2002)'Towards Accessible Virtual Learning Environments' in Phipps, L., Sutherland, A. and Seale, J. 'Access All Areas'

The survey covered seven off-the-shelf VLEs and asked the suppliers of each for details of the product's accessibility and the work being done by the developers to enhance this. It indicated that most VLEs still need further development before they are completely accessible for a majority of disabled students. WebCT and BlackBoard were at the time leading the field in terms of accessibility features within their products and assistance offered via their websites. The position is consistently improving, but even now the responsibility still lies with the person creating the learning materials and putting them into the VLE to make them as accessible as possible within the confines of what the VLE will allow.

Following on from the research outlined above, TechDis undertook a user testing trial in conjunction with the Royal National College at Hereford, using WebCT and BlackBoard. Students who were hard of hearing, dyslexic or with motor or vision impairments tried carrying out simple learning tasks within the VLEs, such as uploading assignments, accessing a discussion facility, creating a home page and accessing a multiple choice quiz. If they used screen reading software (a package that converts what is displayed visually on-screen in words into 'spoken' words) such as JAWs or SuperNova, this was incorporated into the trial.

The results of the trial

The results of the trials showed that students using screen readers initially needed a great deal more support to overcome problems with navigation and actually accessing content. Most students spent three quarters of their task time actually undertaking the task in hand, and one quarter accessing the necessary information. In comparison, for students using screen readers the figures were almost reversed, with only a third of the time being spent on actually undertaking the given task. This emphasises therefore that the mere availability of assistive technology does not immediately mean that your students using that technology will be able to access a VLE without problems. However, students with other needs (such as using a screen magnifier for example) were able to operate within the VLE relatively successfully. The trial also showed that, however many difficulties the students had encountered, they still enjoyed the experience of interacting with the VLE. The message to tutors is to use the VLE to its fullest and try a range of methods to ensure access for all.