WEB ACCESSIBILITY OF MOOCS FOR ELDERLY STUDENTS: THE CASE OF TURKEY

Öz

Learning, eLearning and distance education has a significant function on the elderly for advancing well-being, which has indicated in the literature. In addition to this, e-learning provides an opportunity to become unified with the rest of society to older people. In this context, older people have extensive opportunities to raise the qualified life and enable lifelong learning and inclusion in learning communities by using Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC). The number of users over age 65 has more than doubled since 2000. Currently elderly users represent less than 10 % of MOOC users. Besides, the certain outcome of younger participants aging will raise the number of older people using the Internet the next decades. In this research, it is attempted to examine whether a MOOC-platform is accessible for elderly people. For this purpose, three MOOCs selected and were evaluated. The evaluation was carried out according to the Achecker. The results of the study showed that one of the investigated MOOCs met the overall criteria. And, there is no study has been carried out on the accessibility of MOOCs for elderly users in Turkey context.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• MOOC,Accessibility,Elderly,e-Learning,WCAG

References

1. ALARIO-HOYOS, C., PÉREZ-SANAGUSTIN, M., KLOOS, C. D., & MUÑOZ-MERINO, P. J., (2014), Recommendations for the design and deployment of MOOCs: insights about the MOOC digital education of the future deployed in MiríadaX. In Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality, ACM, 403-408.
2. AL-MOUH, N. A., AL-KHALIFA, A. S., & AL-KHALIFA, H. S., (2014), A first look into MOOCs accessibility. In International Conference on Computers for Handicapped Persons, Springer, Cham, 145-152.
3. BOHNSACK, M., & PUHL, S., (2014), Accessibility of MOOCs. In International Conference on Computers for Handicapped Persons, Springer, Cham., 141-144.
4. BONG, W. K., & CHEN, W., (2016), How accessible are MOOCs to the elderly?. In International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs, Springer, Cham., 437-444
5. BRESLOW, L., PRITCHARD, D. E., DEBOER, J., STUMP, G. S., HO, A. D. and SEATON, D. (2013) “Studying learning in the worldwide classroom: Research into edx’s first mooc,” Research & Practice in Assessment, vol. 8, 13–25.
6. CARTER, J., & MARKEL, M., (2001), Web accessibility for people with disabilities: An introduction for web developers, IEEE transactions on professional communication, 44 (4), 225-233.
7. HEW, K. F., & CHEUNG, W. S., (2014), Students’ and instructors’ use of massive open online courses (MOOCs): Motivations and challenges, Educational research review, 12, 45-58.
8. INIESTO, F., RODRIGO, C., & MOREIRA TEIXEIRA, A., (2014), Accessibility analysis in MOOC platforms. A case study: UNED COMA and UAbiMOOC, V Congreso Internacional sobre Calidad y Accesibilidad de la Formación Virtual (CAFVIR 2014), 545-550.

9. JANSEN, D., & SCHUWER, R., (2015), Institutional MOOC strategies in Europe, Status Report Based on a Mapping Survey Conducted in October-December 2014, Mimeo.
10. KOWTKO, M., (2012), Using assistive technologies to improve lives of older adults and people with disabilities, In Systems, Applications and Technology Conference (LISAT), 2012 IEEE Long Island, IEEE, 1-6.
11. LIYANAGUNAWARDENA, T. R., & WILLIAMS, S. A., (2016), Elderly learners and massive open online courses: a review, Interactive journal of medical research, 5 (1), e1.
12. RIZZARDINI, R. H., CHANG, V., GÜTL, C., & AMADO-SALVATIERRA, H., (2013), An open online course with accessibility features. In EdMedia: World Conference on Educational Media and Technology, Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), 635-643.
13. SÁNCHEZ GORDÓN, S., & LUJÁN MORA, S., (2013a), Accessibility considerations of massive online open courses as creditable courses in engineering programs, Proceedings of the 6th International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation (ICERI 2013), Seville (Spain), November 18-20 2013, 5853-5862.
14. SÁNCHEZ-GORDON, S., & LUJÁN-MORA, S., (2013b), Web accessibility of MOOCs for elderly students, In 12th International Conference on Information Technology Based Higher Education and Training (Ithet 2013), 1-6.
15. SHAH, D., (2015), “MOOCs in 2015: breaking down the numbers”. edSurge. 2015. https://www.edsurge.com/news/2015-12-28-moocs-in-2015-breaking-down-thenumbers.
16. SLATIN, J. M., & RUSH, S., (2002), Maximum accessibility: Making your web site more usable for everyone. Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc..
17. United Nations, New York, Ny. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, (2015), World population ageing, 1950-2015. United Nations Publications.
18. VIGO, M., BROWN, J., & CONWAY, V., (2013), Benchmarking web accessibility evaluation tools: measuring the harm of sole reliance on automated tests, In Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility, ACM, 1.
19. W3C, (2005) “Introduction to web accessibility,” September 2005. [Online]. Available: http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/accessibility.php [Accessed: 08.July.2018].
20. W3C, (2008) “Older users online: Wai guidelines address older users web experience,” December 2008. [Online]. Available:http://www.w3.org/WAI/posts/2009/older-usersonline [Accessed: 08.July.2018].
21. W3C, (2008) “Web content accessibility guidelines (wcag) 2.0,” December 2008. [Online]. Available: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/
22. W3C, (2009) “Web accessibility initiative guidelines and older web users: Findings from a literature review,” March 2009. [Online]. Available: http://www.w3.org/WAI/WAIAGE/ comparative.html
23. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 at https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/ Retrieved 5 July 2018)
24. World Health Organization. (2012). Good health adds life to years: Global brief for World Health Day 2012. In Good health adds life to years: Global brief for World Health Day 2012. [Accessed: 08.July.2018].
25. YOUSEF, A. M. F., CHATTI, M. A., SCHROEDER, U., & WOSNITZA, M., (2015), A usability evaluation of a blended MOOC environment: An experimental case study, The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 16 (2), 69- 93.