Accessible e-Learning Platform: Design and Implementation Matevž Pustišek, Iztok Humar, and Janez Bešter University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Tržaška c. 25, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
[email protected]
Abstract. In this article accessibility issues of Internet based e-learning systems are discussed. In particular, the process of design, development and implementation of an elearning management system is presented. The design was based on field tests and usability studies using a prior version of the system, conducted with students with motor impairments and a group of blind and visually impaired. The design-for-all principle was followed through the entire implementation phase of our system, called ECHO. It reflects in a system which is able to cope with different accessible Web design requirements imposed to the Internet based applications. In this way a solution for general audience was created, but enabling at the same time a rich scope of user interface related accessibility enhancements and distinguished by dedicated functions making e-learning experience more efficient and usable for the users with special needs.
1 Introduction Telecommunications and information technologies based e-learning shows rapid growth in number of applications and users involved. Efficient and successful e-learning solutions are present in various fields of knowledge and aim to different target groups and educational purposes, including corporate training and academic education. E-learning is being introduced for different reasons, but among the most common ones time-, spatial- and financial barriers can be encountered [1]. E-learning can supplement traditional learning methods and in case of the users with special needs often provides the only viable solution to access the learning content and lessons. At the same time it can diminish the social isolation of the users by enabling contacts with peers and support by tutors during the learning process. E-learning is becoming an integral part of the IT (information technology) systems, overcoming the frequently present hype of a miraculously simple and powerful solution, requiring only a minimal level of involvement by the e-learning providers. Fully functional e-learning systems are usually based on e-learning platforms - dedicated application systems enabling the management of the learning processes and users, evaluations and progress tracking, content creation and delivery and various modes of communication [2]. There are two main development directions present, first focused on the learning processes - LMS (Learning Management Systems) and second focused on the content - LCMS (Learning Content Management Systems). Both functional areas can be implemented separately or within the same application system. In order to facilitate a flexible interchange of the learning content among e-learning platforms, different standard initiatives have been launched. They focus mostly on technical issues for interoperability, provide only very basic guidelines for the pedagogical perspective of the content and don't deal with the usability or accessibility issues [3-5]. In contrast to the content development, there are no specific recommendations about the learning management system and learning content management system functionality, therefore the e-learning platforms provide merely the functionality, specified by their authors.
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Matevž Pustišek, Iztok Humar, and Janez Bešter
Although the problem of accessible Internet applications has been addressed in various projects and initiatives [6-13] and has lead to design technologies, guidelines and tools to enhance the accessibility of applications, there is not much common initiative in developing specific frameworks for accessible for e-learning platforms. The available accessible web design guidelines and tools (e.g. Web Accessibility Initiative [14]) do provide a solid starting point for building accessible web application. However, such guidelines are mostly limited to the accessibility of user interfaces and do not provide sufficient design background for the usability of the applications themselves. This problem has been addressed in other fields of IT applications, e.g. e-commerce applications [15] in terms of technical accessibility (whether or not it is possible for a user to perform a task) and functional usability (how easy, efficient and fast can a user accomplish certain task, e.g. learning activity). It has been shown that technically accessible systems can be still several times less usable (tasks completed correctly, time spent on task, erroneous actions) for users with special needs. Another problem arises when several (Internet based) applications are more or less transparently integrated into one application system. Accessibility in particular applications can be addressed differently, which can be prohibiting common accessibility design strategies. In our case the focus was set on the usability of e-learning applications. We strongly believe that not only the computer GUI design but also the application itself contributes to the efficiency of the learning process. As the ultimate design strategy the "design-for-all" concept was introduced. In this way a common approach can be established, providing a single solution for different target user groups.
2 Accessibility design approach The motivation to design and implement a learning/content management system on our own was based predominantly on much larger flexibility (user interface adaptation, multi-language support, etc.) in comparison to the application of the already existing e-learning platforms and a possibility to optimise the system functionality according to the learning needs. The system (called ECHO [16]) is targeted to the academic and corporate environments and is being used primarily by the users who have no special needs regarding the usage of telecommunications and information technologies. But it was of key importance to develop a solution being able to provide also a level of accessibility needed for the users with special needs. This fact has been considered from the first scratch on. In this way a practical implementation of the "design-forall" principle was achieved. To obtain specific design guidelines for the newly designed e-learning platform ECHO, a combination of steps was made including a study of the existing WAI recommendations, accessibility evaluation of the prior version of the system performed by the authors and two small usability tests, one with a physically disabled student and another with a group of highschool students with different visual impairments. The expected results of the usability study were: 1. to identify the common usability problems of users with and without disabilities (resolvable by the "design-for-all"), 2. to identify new and emphasized problems for the users with special needs, which might reduce the usability of e-learning system, 3. to propose solutions to overcome the problems encountered and 4. to setup a simple framework assuring delivery of accessible e-learning content through the accessible e-learning platforms. The analysis tried to determine the main advantages and the existing drawbacks of the functionality and implementation of an existing system in the scope of users with special needs. It was based on our practical experience in the field of e-learning we have gained with the
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system in the past and our understanding of the design of accessible web pages applications [17] and portals [18]. 2.1 Accessibility perspective of the current e-learning system Among other features the prior e-learning system was distinguished by a variety of navigation tools, simple customisation of GUI layouts and possibility to combine various available Internet based applications (mail, videoconferencing, video and audio broadcasting) within the same user interface. Our past studies showed that the users use both the table of contents and the guided path as the main navigation mechanisms. Regardless of the selection, a user predominantly applies only the one tool selected. It is therefore essential to support different navigation tools. In the system different Internet based applications ranging from communication tools (videoconferencing, on-line chats, discussion forum, etc.) to study tools (calculator, annotations, etc.) were combined. It had been observed that different users apply particular tools more or less frequently. There was no possibility for a user to customize the menus and include only the tools he/she uses most frequently. The prior version of the e-learning system followed the Internet based approach, but lacked several key features, limiting is accessibility. There were static GUIs used with client-side embedded functionality, no personalization was possible and only static navigation support was included, limited to a single path through the course content. 2.2 Field test with user with motor impairments A field test was conducted with a motion-disabled student, suffering from tetraplegia. He had acquired the basic computer literacy skills and was equipped with the appropriate assistive computer technology to access Internet. The existing e-learning system was used which had no specific features for the users with special needs, but already considers some of the accessible web design guidelines. The student attended three of our existing courses, corresponding the student's background and study needs. All the courses were in student's mother tongue. The average effective course duration was about 5-8 hours. The total course duration was not strictly limited. The student selected the pace of study and the usage of the system was monitored by the mechanisms included in the system itself. Tutor support during the course was also provided. Within the learning experience we observed the following: 1. much more effective usage of mouse input than onscreen keyboard, 2. reduced efficiency due to the problems with scrolling over large pages and pointing at small items in the user interface, 3. the predominant usage of the "guided path" as the navigational tool (it uses one click buttons, not text input needed) and 4. inability to use all the possible communication mechanisms efficiently (real time chat, video conferencing) and predominant usage of mail correspondence. Most other problems were not system dependent and were related to general computer literacy questions. We also noticed that the computer literacy (and not the e-learning application itself) could be the key limiting factor for a successful learning experience. 2.3 Usability study with blind and visually impaired There was a study conduced during a workshop held in the Centre for the Blind and Partially Sighted [19], Slovenia, where about 10 kids in the age 14-18 - all with at least basic computer literacy - participated in an e-learning course.
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Matevž Pustišek, Iztok Humar, and Janez Bešter
Another version of the e-learning system was applied in this case, yet again with no modifications or customisations particularly supporting the blind and visually impaired. The students attended a course titled "Internet", with an effective duration of about 5-8 hours. During their learning sessions, they were asked to create simple conceptual model of the system and the content and to study the introductory chapters of the course. Within their learning experience we observed: 1. much longer times needed to build a conceptual model of the system and to perform a learning activity (especially evident with blind users), 2. inefficiency of the e-learning system where large chunks of content were offered to a student during a learning activity, requiring browsing of long tables of contents using screen reader, 3. certain key functions of the system were overlooked (e.g. guided path navigation buttons), because textual browser or screen-reader and 4. problems with colour inversions where GUI toolbar frame had different background colour from the content frame.
3 System implementation
3.1 Overview of system functionality ECHO is a e-learning system which provides various e-learning related functionalities in an Internet based environment. It comprises of a powerful shell which stores, manages and distributes one or more e-learning courses and manages students. Some of the key features of the system are the access to the hypermedia learning materials, different methods of navigation through the learning material, support of the automatic assessment and monitoring, student's history records, individualized learning environment and simultaneous self examination. The learning process is augmented by different synchrononous and asynchrononous communication mechanisms. The main targeted features are: 1. the support of learning service provisioning, 2. focus on the management of the courses, users and learning activities, 3. flexibility of content development and specially and 4. various levels of customisation of the learning activities and personalization of the user interfaces. The system supports different fields of knowledge and is independent of the field of education. 3.2 User roles The most frequent role of ECHO user is being a learner. Learner reviews study material by attending courses, communicates with other learners and course tutor using advanced communication channels, such as discussion boards, chats, audio and videoconferencing and participates in tests, exams and surveys. The pedagogical aspects of learning process are covered by tutor who customizes learning activities of a particular lessons if needed, supports guided discussions among learners and tracks learner's statistical data to have an effective feedback on the learner activity. Administrative work done by managers of e-learning system consists of managing learners, human resources, learning content, different learning tools and disseminating group statistical data. Content of e-learning is prepared by content developers. Content delivered by ECHO can include all types of multimedia, supported by the Internet. Developers can develop content any
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way they are used to and simply upload the materials on the e-learning platform. Once the content is on the system, it can be managed by managers, assigned to courses and reviewed by the learners. 3.3 System architecture The main goal of our approach being put forward while designing ECHO is its simple accessibility with minimum requirements on the users side. Due to large flexibility of information delivery over Internet, ECHO is implemented as a standard Internet application. The client side requires no more than standard Internet browser (such as Internet explorer or Netscape navigator) installed on the local computer, while the main application functionality is assured by the server side. ECHO is developed using three-tier application design approach. In this approach, we logically divide application architecture into three main layers. The layer that gives a user access to the application is called presentation tier. It presents data to the user and optionally permits data manipulation and data entry. In a three-tier application, the client-side application is skinnier than a client-server application because it does not contain the application logic rules now located in the middle tier - a system in between the user interface and the data storage system. The middle tier ensures that all of the application logic processing is done as required. It serves as an intermediary between the client and the data storage. In this type of application, the client would never access the data storage system directly. Since the parts of the application communicate through interfaces, the internal workings can be changed without affecting the rest of the system, as long as the interface remains the same. The third layer, also termed as a data services layer interacts with persistent data usually stored in a database or in permanent storage. It can be accessed through the application logic layer and on occasion by the user services layer. A three-tier approach allows for any part of the system to be modified without having to change the other two parts. 3.4 Modularity of ECHO Modular design of ECHO allows integration with other Internet applications and collaboration with our system. As an illustration, we have integrated third party application used for writing, administering and reporting on assessments, tests, quizzes, exams and surveys. Another example - a multipoint videoconferencing server is integrated into our system as a communication tool. 3.5 Enabling technologies: XML, XSL and CSS XML (Extensible Markup Language) was designed to address two principal weaknesses of HTML. Firstly, in HTML, the limited information about what parts of the document are is mixed up with instructions about how to present it. Secondly, HTML is not expansible. There is no possibility to added new meaningful semantic tags and extend the language to support a wide range of new clients. Using XML, the content is separated from its presentation form. Since the XML documents are used only to store the content, XSL is concerned with layout. XSL (Extensible Stylesheet Language) is declarative language for describing transformations (XSLT) of XML documents. It can be used to transform one XML document to another, but it can be also used to produce the documents, supported by the end-client: HTML for web browsers, WML for WAP browsers, text files, etc. In case of HTML output, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) can be used for more control over the appearance of a web page. There have been several attempts to extend CSS to suit terminal equipment which assists people with special needs.
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Matevž Pustišek, Iztok Humar, and Janez Bešter
Comparing with XSL, it is slightly limiting and different for its purpose. Both together built a strong presentation layer used for displaying the content stored in XML format.
4 Accessible e-learning platform
4.1 System GUI The first possible approach to make the e-learning system accessible for the people with special needs is to employ particular changes to the design of user interfaces. Our approach uses a separated presentation layer and it proved to be very adaptable and easy to supplement. For user interaction with the system the pages displayed are composed of the data that is gathered from database using the data layer regarding the state of the system and the user parameters. Once data is collected, the XML is used to transfer it to the next layer, application logic layer. The application logic transforms the data according to the expected functionality and passes the data in XML to the presentation layer. The presentation layer transforms the content using XSL defined in the user profile. XSL can be prepared based on the assessment of the user's needs.
Fig. 1. Multi-modal presentation achieved by using different XSL and CSS at the presentation layer
Using XML, XSL and CSS, multi-modal presentation can be achieved without having to produce several forms of the same document. In case of visually impaired student, using an appropriate XSL can replace pictures with a descriptive text enables individuals with disabilities to navigate through user interface of elearning system using text-only browsers or have the text read with "on screen" text-to-speech systems or read it tactical with Braille displays. In case of mobility impaired student, different XSL can be used to display icons in larger format. In this way users without fine motor skills can access buttons easily.
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4.2 System functionality As a part of the system functionality a set of enhancements and tools is provided, which support accessibility within the learning process. 1. Client side functionality is moved to the server side. This enables usage of a broader range of WWW browsers to access the system, including text-based ones and text-tospeech converters. 2. Some general accessibility features are included in the system, like selection of text based GUI or larger fonts and icons, etc. 3. Different navigation methods are supported. A special attention is paid to the "guided path" mechanisms. There are several guided paths possible in every course including those, created by users. There are also different levels of the tables-of-content reflecting the setting in the study profile. This enables more effective and rapid access to the study content. 4. A concept of a "study profile" is included in the system to help a user fully customize his/her learning environment. A user is able to select among the available study tools and to include in the GUI only those which he/she finds useful. 5. A simple voice control could be included in the system itself. It would enable the control of the common system's commands via spoken commands without a need for any special voice recognition software. 4.3 Main e-learning system accessibility scenarios Beside the GUI related accessibility features, both the implementation and the tools provided by the system make it possible to perform different accessibility supporting scenarios within the learning sessions and processes. Tutor support based on selection of the course items and creation of customized paths can strongly augment the efficiency of learning. A tutor can organize the course content into smaller chunks for every learning session a student intends to join. There is only the course material needed for this session presented to the student and thus the overload of the interface minimized to the smallest possible level. This approach does not require any content editing skills from the tutor, who can completely concentrate on the pedagogical aspects of learning and individual requirements of the student with special needs. Beside of the tutor guided learning organization, two other learning modes are available for the student. There is a full course path present which overrides the tutor's filtering of the course. Using the full course path a student can always access the entire learning content and is thus not limited in the scope of content he might require. Students can also organize their learning paths and in this way create their views of the learning content. In terms of adaptability system does not provide sophisticated methods based on user modeling. The adaptability is therefore introduced as personalization, based on the user's selection of the GUI appearance, learning mode and other learning tools and the ability to reconstruct the user session in the same way it was terminated. From the user global perception of the system, multi-modality reflect in different roles provided and the possibility to choose among different learning modes within the role of the student. From the multi-modality defined in this way both, the users with special needs and those who differ only in their learning styles can benefit. We believe that the features of the system mentioned, help a user building a concise and simple conceptual model of the system, focusing on customized learning session provided by the tutors, including everything a learner needs to study at the time, but still having the option to access the full scope of content, to take all the advantages of the system or even to create their personalized variants.
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Matevž Pustišek, Iztok Humar, and Janez Bešter
6 Conclusions There is a range of promising research activities aiming toward guidelines for accessible Internet applications. Nevertheless, when designing a specific application it is in our opinion of key importance to verify the practical value of the accessibility enhancements implemented. This can be done in small usability tests with users of the target groups. In e-learning both the user-interface and the system functions have to be considered from the accessibility perspective. The later especially relies on the results from developers' own experimentation, since the specific field can not be covered by general accessibility guidelines. It was our intent to implement an e-learning platform dedicated to a "common" user, and to apply at the same time the technology in a way to conform the web accessibility guidelines easily, to enhance the flexibility of GUI creation enabling at the same time a rich scope of user interface related accessibility enhancements and being distinguished by dedicated functions making e-learning experience more efficient and usable for the users with special needs The accessibility issues related to the user interface accessibility require flexible UI creation and accessibility enabling functionality. The first can greatly benefit from general WWW accessibility research and guidelines, the latter is e-learning specific. Accessible e-learning content requires a combination of both, general accessible Internet content creation guidelines and learning specific aspects. Due to the lack of integrated content creation guidelines, this can be one of the key directions for further research and studies. The main development challenge for the near future is filed-testing of the systems with new groups of users with special needs, within national projects and possibly at the international level, basing on our past activities in COST 219 bis [20] and other cooperation.
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