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All Things to All Online Students: Assessing Faculty Attitudes and the Accessibility of Their Online Courses. Paul Dombrowski, Assoc. Prof., UCF Patrick Fleming, Ph.D. Candidate, UCF Sloan-C ALN Conf., November 2002. Background. ADA Section 508/W3C Digital Divide Ethics
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All Things to All Online Students:Assessing Faculty Attitudes and the Accessibility of Their Online Courses Paul Dombrowski, Assoc. Prof., UCF Patrick Fleming, Ph.D. Candidate, UCF Sloan-C ALN Conf., November 2002
Background • ADA • Section 508/W3C • Digital Divide • Ethics • UCF Distributed Learning • Ph.D. Program in Texts and Technology
Pilot Study • Diverse convenience sample • Permission • Potential scope • Generalizability
Research Questions • What is the measured accessibility of web courses at UCF? • What are the attitudes toward disability of faculty responsible for these courses? • What is the correlation between accessibility and attitudes? • Perception vs. reality?
Research Design • Accessibility - LIFT (UsableNet) • Attitudes - Disability Rights Attitude Scale (DRAS) • Coordinate with UCF Course Development and Web Services • Coordinate with Dr. Dziuban, Research Initiative for Teaching Effectiveness
LIFT (UsableNet and Nielsen) • Automated (reliability) • Objective (impersonal) • Widely used (validity) • Authoritative (validity) • Suggests improvements • Pre- and post-intervention in later research
Disability Rights Attitude Scale (DRAS) • Source • Suitability • Validated
Data Collection and Analysis • Measure accessibility • Measure attitudes • Correlate • Narrative comments
Interpretation • Meaning of correlation • Limitations • Interrelation of attitudes and accessibility – which comes first? • Possible avenues of intervention
Recommendations & Application • Extend pilot to larger sample • University-wide • State-wide • Nation-wide • Non-academic • Maximize accessibility • Improve attitudes • Maximize positive correlation
Application • Educate faculty on need for accessibility • Educate faculty on attitudes • Educate faculty on measured accessibility • Educate faculty on techniques to increase accessibility • Re-assess
Conclusion • Federal and state mandates • Ethical responsibility • Automated, objective measures • Perception vs. reality