Moodle Accessibility Techshare 2007
18
Moodle accessibility Making the Moodle e-learning software more accessible Techshare 4-5 October 2007 Dr Nick Freear Dr Chetz Colwell
-
Upload
nick-freear -
Category
Education
-
view
1.771 -
download
2
description
Presentation on work to improve the accessibility of the Moodle e-learning software. Presented at the RNIB Techshare conference, October 2007. Co-presented with Dr. Chetz Colwell, also of the Open University.
Transcript of Moodle Accessibility Techshare 2007
Moodle accessibilityMaking the Moodle e-learning software more
accessible
Techshare 4-5 October 2007Dr Nick FreearDr Chetz Colwell
The Open University• Campus in Milton Keynes, 50 miles from London.
Founded 1960s. • Mission "open to people, places, methods and ideas"• Only university in the UK dedicated to distance learning
–"supported open learning". • One of the largest universities in Europe – 150,000
undergraduate students, 30,000 postgraduates. • 1 in 20 of our students declare disabilities.
Fatigue/Pain 4361 Sight 1039
Mobility/Physical 3239 Unseen disability 793
Mental Health 2695 Hearing 777
Other 2065 Personal care 752
Manual 2123 Speech 375
Dyslexia 1876 Autistic Spectrum 59
• Students may have more than one disability• 1. Fatigue/pain 22% … 6. Sight 5% (exclude other)• Total 20154
Figures for August 2007
OU disabled students
Moodle• Course management system, virtual learning
environment• Social constructivist pedagogy – learner as teacher,
interaction, observation• Open source – GPL licence, free to modify, run.
– like Linux, Apache, Mozilla Firefox browser• Founded: Martin Dougiamas, Perth Australia (school of
the air, PhD project) – Moodle 1.0 2002“Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment”
Moodle.org course page
Moodle (2)• Modular: course formats, activities, blocks, question
types, filters, languages, themes, authentication …(20)• Default includes: assignment, blog, database, forum,
glossary, quiz, resource, wiki …• 25,000 registered sites, 176 countries (10 million users,
1 million courses), 75 languages, 3000 download/day.• Universities, colleges, schools, government,
companies, independents.• Community, Moodle.com consulting, worldwide
partners.
OU and Moodle• Adopted Moodle October 2005; live with 1.6 Beta April
2006.• Currently running OUVLE 1.5/ Moodle 1.8
(PostgreSQL). • A big installation: 395,000 users, 2900 courses! • We're involved: Roles & Permissions, Quiz,
Accessibility, Groups, offline Moodle, e-Portfolio• Also, OpenLearn uses Moodle; Platinum IMS Global
Learning Impact Award 2007.
Accessibility evaluation• Ongoing expert evaluation since February 2006
– All available tools– Long list of issues – still being addressed in each
major release of Moodle• Student evaluation
– 3 rounds of testing with disabled and non-disabled students (Dec 06 – Aug 07)
– Observational sessions using ‘think aloud’– Realistic tasks in educational context– Tools included Course web site, Forum, Wiki, Quiz,
Profile
Student evaluations
Problems & solutions• Moodle 1.6, June 2006
– Some ALT text, headings, layout tables, colour contrast, list markup, breadcrumb navigation trail
• 1.8, March 2007– Adoption of forms library to standardise forms
• Adding form labels and markup (ongoing)– Removed deprecated tags, text editor keyboard
shortcuts, not using colour/format alone, lists, Javascript, English help
Open University course page
Progress: lists, headings …
Solutions (2)• Moodle 1.9, due October 2007
– Fixing form markup– Adding list markup– Replacing mis-used markup in help files– Course resource links, miscellaneous issues
Issues outstanding• Moodle 2.0, mid 2008
– More removal of layout tables– More forms markup– Headings, lists in some modules– Text editor
Challenges• Retrofitting• Size/ complexity (1 million lines of code)
• Accessibility of user generated content• Raising awareness of issues & techniques
– 3rd party modules, themes, language packs
Acknowledgements• Open University colleagues• Moodle.com including Martin Dougiamas, Jamie Pratt• Contributors on Moodle.org forums
Useful Links• Open University: http://www.open.ac.uk• Accessibility in Educational Media team:
http://iet.open.ac.uk/aem • Moodle Accessibility Specification:
http://docs.moodle.org/en/Moodle_Accessibility_Specification
• Moodle accessibility wiki: http://docs.moodle.org/en/Category:Accessibility
• Moodle development accessibility notes: http://docs.moodle.org/en/Accessibility_notes
• Moodle community: http://moodle.org• Moodle consultancy: http://moodle.com
Contacts• Dr Nick Freear, Technical Developer, Learning &
Teaching Solutions, [email protected]
• Dr Chetz Colwell, Project Officer (AEM), Institute of Educational Technology, [email protected]
