Tata Interactive Systems hosts conference on 'Accessiblity'
Ensuring that e-learning materials are fully 'accessible' to anyone - especially those with physical or learning disabilities - was the theme of a conference, held in London at the end of November and organised by global e-learning producer, Tata Interactive Systems.
Ensuring that e-learning materials are fully 'accessible' to anyone - especially those with physical or learning disabilities - was the theme of a conference, held in London at the end of November. Organised by global e-learning producer, Tata Interactive Systems (TIS), the invited delegates were drawn from senior learning executives from the public and private sectors along with leading educational publishers - including HM Treasury, the Office of National Statistics and Hertfordshire County Council, British Airways, Legal & General and PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Oxford University Press and Hodder Murray.
Speaking at the conference, Sue Garrett, ICT/ILT development officer at The Royal National College for the Blind (RNC), a specialist further education college, with some 200 students - all of whom are residential, said: "Accessibility and usability cannot be divorced.
"Usability focuses on making software, websites and online materials and applications easy for people to use. Accessibility focuses on making them equally easy for everyone to use, including people who may use assistive technologies such as screen readers.
"Making e-learning accessible to those with disabilities should enhance the experience for all learners, if only because the developers of that e-learning will be thinking more about the learning materials they are developing," she added.
"Indeed, it might be preferable in e-learning programmes to refer to learners' 'preferences' rather than to issues of 'accessibility'. After all, this whole issue is about how each learner wants to work through the learning materials."
Sal Cooke, the head of TechDis, an educational advisory service, working across the UK, in the fields of accessibility and inclusion, said: "Of course, every situation is different and every accessibility solution is individual.
"There are many factors to take into account: place, time, teaching resources, staffing, context, emotional state and so on. The circumstances under which material is delivered affect the way an individual can access it - and whether something is 'accessible' can only be judged at the point of delivery."
After a lively panel session - where Sue Garrett and Sal Cooke were joined by TIS's Wendy Weller-Davies and Helen Fox - the delegates agreed that they would like to attend further, similar events.
According to Alan Samuel, head of TIS in the UK: "As a result, TIS has agreed to organise a similar one day conference early in the New Year, along with establishing a 'working group' of delegates to 'network' and exchange ideas and best practice on a more informal basis. TIS will work with client organisations to conduct workshops to define accessibility guidelines and standards, as requested.
"Of course, these one day conferences and workshops have an annual focus in the Tata Learning Forum (TLF) - a worldwide series of conferences for key top executives in the field of learning which are organised by TIS," he added. "The next TLF - following TLFs in Boston, USA, and Sydney, Australia, is scheduled for London in April 2006."
end