research-article

Best Practices for Teaching Accessibility in University Classrooms: Cultivating Awareness, Understanding, and Appreciation for Diverse Users

Authors:

Cynthia Putnam,

Glenn BradfordAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS), Volume 8, Issue 4

Article No.: 13, Pages 1 - 26

https://doi.org/10.1145/2831424

Published: 18 March 2016 Publication History

Abstract

As Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) become more diffuse, developers and designers need to consider a growing diversity of users including people with disabilities and aging populations. As a result, computing education needs to respond by providing students opportunities to learn about accessibility and designing for inclusion. This article presents results of a qualitative research study of practices in teaching accessibility in university-level programs in the US. The study included interviews with 18 professors from some of the top universities in the US and a content analysis of syllabi and other teaching materials. Using the pedagogical theory of authentic learning and elements from the 21st Century Skills framework, we found that instructors emphasized the need for students to develop awareness and understanding for a diversity of ICT users through multiple different experiences; experiences that included research projects that directly involve users with disabilities, guest speakers, field trips, simulating disabilities, and the use of videos/movies. Additionally, instructors used multiple resources (e.g., research papers, online resources), in part, to offset the challenge that there is a perceived lack of a comprehensive textbook. Instructors also emphasized the importance of their individual initiative; that is, the inclusion of accessible topics or courses was often linked to a faculty member's research and/or personal commitment. This article contributes to a gap in the literature by disseminating and sharing different approaches to teaching accessibility across multiple instructors, courses, and campuses.

References

[1]

Julio Abascal and Colette Nicolle. 2005. Moving towards inclusive design guidelines for socially and ethically aware HCI. Interact. Comput. 17, 5 (September 2005), 484--505.

Digital Library

[2]

Access Computer Knowledgebase. Retrieved on December 12, 2015 from http://www.washington.edu/accesscomputing/search-accesscomputing-knowledge-base.

[3]

Accessing Higher Ground. 2015. Retrieved on August 18, 2015 from http://accessinghigherground.org.

[4]

ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Task Force on Computing Curricula. 2013. Computer Science Curricula 2013. ACM Press and IEEE Computer Society Press.

[5]

Carlos Benavídez, Jose L. Fuertes, Emmanuelle Gutiérrez, and Loïc Martínez. 2006. Teaching web accessibility with “Contramano” and Hera. In Computers Helping People with Special Needs. Springer Berlin, 341--348.

[6]

Gretchen Berland. 2007. Rolling. Presented by THIRTEEN and distributed by American Public Television. Available online at http://www.thirteen.org/rolling/thefilm/.

[7]

Jeffrey P. Bigham, Chandrika Jayant, Hanjie Ji, Greg Little, Andrew Miller, Robert C. Miller, Robin Miller, Aubrey Tatarowicz, Brandyn White, Samual White, and Tom Yeh. 2010. VizWiz: Nearly real-time answers to visual questions. In Proceedings of the 23rd Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST’10). ACM, New York, NY, 333--342.

Digital Library

[8]

Paul Ryan Bohman. 2012. Teaching Accessibility and Design-For-All in the Information and Communication Technology Curriculum: Three Case Studies of Universities in the United States, England, and Austria. Ph.D. dissertation. Utah State University, Logan, UT. UMI Order Number: AAT 3546296.

[9]

Sheryl E. Burgstahler and Rebecca C. Cory. 2010. Universal Design in Higher Education: From Principles to Practice. Harvard Education Press, Cambridge, MA.

[10]

Alex Carmichael, Alan F. Newell, and Maggie Morgan. 2007. The efficacy of narrative video for raising awareness in ICT designers about older users’ requirements. Interact. Comput. 19 (2007), 587--596.

Digital Library

[11]

Albert M. Cook and Jan Miller Polgar. 2007. Cook and Hussey's Assistive Technologies: Principles and Practice (3rd. ed.). Elsevier, Philadelphia, PA.

[12]

EDeAN. 2007. Retrieved on August 26, 2015 from http://www.edean.org/.

[13]

Krzysztof Z. Gajos, Jacob O. Wobbrock, and Daniel S. Weld. 2008. Improving the performance of motor-impaired users with automatically-generated, ability-based interfaces. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’08). ACM, New York, NY, 1257--1266.

Digital Library

[14]

Larry Goldberg. 2015. Teaching Accessibility: A Call to Action from the Tech Industry. Retrieved August 16, 2015 from http://yahooaccessibility.tumblr.com.

[15]

Billy Golfus. 1995. When Billy Broke his Head and Other Tales of Wonder. Distributed by Kartemquin Films.

[16]

Dimitris Grammenos, Anthony Savidis, and Constantine Stephanidis. 2009. Designing universally accessible games. ACM Comput. Entertain. (CIE) 7, 1, Article 8 (Feb. 2009).

Digital Library

[17]

Peter Gregor, Anna Dickinson, Alison Macaffer, and Peter Andreasen. 2003. SeeWord—A personal word processing environment for dyslexic computer users. British J. Educ. Technol. 34, 3 (2003), Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 1467--8535.

[18]

Vicki L. Hanson. 2001. Web access for elderly citizens. In Proceedings of the 2001 EC/NSF Workshop on Universal Accessibility of Ubiquitous Computing: Providing for the Elderly (WUAUC’01). ACM, New York, NY, 14--18.

Digital Library

[19]

Susan M. Harrison. 2005. Opening the eyes of those who can see to the world of those who can’t: A case study. SIGCSE Bull. 37, 1 (Feb. 2005), 22--26.

Digital Library

[20]

Shawn Lawton Henry, Shadi Abou-Zahra, and Judy Brewer. 2014. The role of accessibility in a universal web. In Proceedings of the 11th Web for All Conference (W4A’14). ACM, New York, NY, Article 17, 4.

Digital Library

[21]

Shawn Lawton Henry. 2007. Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design. ET\Lawton, Madison, WI, 2007. Retrieved April 3, 2015 from http://www.uiaccess.com/JustAsk/index.html.

[22]

Sarah Horton. 2006. Access by Design. A Guide to Universal Usability for Web Designers. New Riders, Berkeley, CA. Retrieved April 3, 2015 from http://ptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com/images/9780321311405/samplepages/032131140X.pdf.

[23]

Matt Huenerfauth and Vicki L. Hanson. 2009. Sign Language in the Interface: Access for Deaf Signers. In The Universal Access Handbook, C. Stephanidis (Ed.). CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, USA/Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 38-1--38-18.

[24]

It's Our Story. 2010. Retrieved August 19, 2015 from https://sites.google.com/a/pinedafoundation.org/ios/home.

[25]

Simeon Keates. 2009. Motor Impairments and Universal Access. In The Universal Access Handbook, C. Stephanidis (Ed.). CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL/Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 5-1--5-14.

[26]

Suzette Keith and Gill Whitney. 2008. Bridging the gap between young designers and older users in an inclusive society. In Proceedings of The Good, The Bad and The Challenging: The User and The Future of ICT.

[27]

Suzette Keith, Gill Whitney, and Andrea Petz. 2009. Design for All as Focus in European ICT Teaching and Training Activities. In Proceedings of INCLUDE, 1--6.

[28]

Sri Kurniawan, Sonia Arteaga, and Robert Manduchi. 2010. A General Education Course on Universal Access, Disability, Technology and Society. In Proceedings of the 12th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS’10). ACM, New York, pp. 11--18.

Digital Library

[29]

Jonathan Lazar. 2002. Integrating accessibility into the information systems curriculum. In Proceedings of the International Association for Computer Information Systems. 373--379.

[30]

Jonathan Lazar, Jinjuan Heidi Feng, and Harry Hochheiser. 2010. Research Methods in Human-Computer Interaction. John Wiley and Sons, Ltd., West Sussex, UK.

[31]

Jonathan Lazar. 2011. Using community-based service projects to enhance undergraduate HCI education: 10 years of experience. In CHI’11 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA’11). ACM, New York, NY, 581--588.

Digital Library

[32]

Jonathan Lazar, Daniel Goldstein, and Anne Taylor. 2015. Ensuring Digital Accessibility Through Process and Policy. Waltham, MA: Elsevier.

[33]

Clayton Lewis. 2009. Cognitive Disabilities. In The Universal Access Handbook, C. Stephanidis (Ed.). Boca Raton, Florida, USA: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 7_1--12.

[34]

Blaise Liffick. 2005. An Adaptive Technologies Course in a CS Curriculum. In Proceedings of the 7^th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility. ACM, New York, NY, USA. 192--193.

Digital Library

[35]

Stephani Ludi. 2007. Introducing accessibility requirements through external stakeholder utilization in an undergraduate requirements engineering course. In Proceedings of the 29th international conference on Software Engineering. IEEE Computer Society, 736--743.

Digital Library

[36]

Israel Martin-Escalona, Francisco Barcelo-Arroyo, and Enrica Zola. 2013. The introduction of a topic on accessibility in several engineering degrees. In Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), 2013 IEEE, 656--663.

[37]

Klaus Miesenberger and Daniela Ortner. 2006. Raising the expertise of web designers through training—The experience of BFWD—Accessible web design (Barrierefreies Webdesign) in Austria. In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs, 2006.

Digital Library

[38]

Gary Moulton, Ladeana Huyler, Mark Levenson, and Janice Hertz. 2002. Accessible Technology in Today's Business. Microsoft Press, Redmond, WA, USA.

[39]

Roland Ossmann and Klaus Miesenberger. 2006. Guidelines for the development of accessible computer games. In Computers Helping People with Special Needs. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 403--406.

[40]

Partnership for 21st Century Skills. 2011. Framework for 21st Century Learning. Retrieved December 9, 2015 from http://www.p21.org/storage/documents/1.__p21_framework_2-pager.pdf.

[41]

Helen Petrie and Alistair D. Edwards. 2006. Inclusive design and assistive technology as part of the HCI curriculum. In Proceedings of HCI Educators Workshop 2006. pp. 23--24.

[42]

Mark Pilgram. 2002. Dive into Accessibility. Retrieved April 3, 2015 from http://diveintoaccessibility.info/.

[43]

G. Michael Poor, Laura M. Leventhal, Julie Barnes, Duke R. Hutchings, Paul Albee, and Laura Campbell. 2012. No user left behind: Including accessibility in student projects and the impact on CS students’ attitudes. Trans. Comput. Educ. 12, 2, Article 5 (April 2012), 22 pages.

Digital Library

[44]

Raising the Floor. 2011. Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure (GPII). Retrieved April 3, 2015 from http://gpii.net/.

[45]

Brian J. Rosmaita. 2006. Accessibility first&excl; A new approach to web design. In Proceedings of the 37th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE’06). ACM, New York, NY, 270--274. Retrieved April 3, 2015 from http://academics.hamilton.edu/computer_science/brosmait/talks/2006-03-03/fp166-rosmaita.html.

Digital Library

[46]

Lisa Schur, Douglas Kruse, Joseph Blasi, and Peter Blank. 2005. Corporate culture and the employment of people with disabilities. Behav. Sci. Law 23 (2005), 3--20.

[47]

David Williamson Shaffer and Mitchel Resnick. “Thick” authenticity: New media and authentic learning. J. Interact. Learn. Res. 10, 2 (1999), 195--215.

[48]

Kristen Shinohara and Josh Tenenberg. 2007. Observing Sara: A case study of a blind person's interactions with technology. In Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets’07). ACM, New York, NY, 171--178.

Digital Library

[49]

Jared Smith. 2012. Experiences of Students with Disabilities. Retrieved August 18, 2015 from https://www.youtube.com/watch&quest;v=BEFgnYktC7U

[50]

Constantine Stephanidis (Ed). 2009. The Universal Access Handbook. CRC Press, Boca Raton, Fl/Taylor & Francis Group.

Digital Library

[51]

Matthew A. Stowe. 2000. Interpreting “Place of public accommodation” under Title III of the ADA: A technical determination with potentially broad civil rights implications. Duke Law J. 50 (2000), 297--329.

[52]

Teaching Accessibility. Retrieved August 18, 2015 from http://teachingaccessibility.com.

[53]

Bernie Trilling and Charles Fidel. 2009. 21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times. John Wiley and Sons, San Francisco, CA.

[54]

Frank Turner (Sponsor). 2015. Department of Disabilities—Study of Accessibility Concepts in Computer Science, Information Systems, and Information Technology Programs in Higher Education. Retrieved August 18, 2015 from http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2014RS/bills/hb/hb0396E.pdf.

[55]

United Spinal Association. 2011. Disability Etiquette. Retrieved April 3, 2015 from http://www.unitedspinal.org/pdf/DisabilityEtiquette.pdf.

[56]

United States Access Board. Section 508 Standards for Electronic and Information Technology. Retrieved April 3, 2015 from http://www.access-board.gov/guidelines-and-standards/communications-and-it/about-the-section-508-standards/section-508-standards.

[57]

Annalu Waller, Vicki L. Hanson, and David Sloan. 2009. Including accessibility within and beyond undergraduate computing courses. In Proceedings of the 11th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets’09). ACM, New York, NY, 155--162.

Digital Library

[58]

Ye Diana Wang. 2012. A holistic and pragmatic approach to teaching web accessibility in an undergraduate web design course. In Proceedings of the 13th Annual Conference on Information Technology Education (SIGITE’12). ACM, New York, NY, 55--60.

Digital Library

[59]

W3C's Web accessibility initiative (WCAG). Retrieved April 3, 2015 from http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag.

[60]

WebAIM: Web Accessibility in Mind. Retrieved April 3, 2015 from http://webaim.org.

[61]

Neil Williams. 1995. The comic book as a course book. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages.

[62]

Gill Whitney and Suzette Keith. 2008. European Developments in the Design and Implementation of Training for eInclusion. In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs (ICCHP’08), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 5105, Klaus Miesenberger et al. (Eds.). Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 156--161.

Digital Library

[63]

Jacob O. Wobbrock, Shaun K. Kane, Krzysztof Z. Gajos, Susumu Harada, and Jon Froehlich. 2011. Ability-based design: Concept, principles and examples. ACM Trans. Access. Comput. 3, 3, Article 9 (April 2011), 27.

Digital Library

Cited By

Kang JPatton KGardiner-Walsh S(2024)Success for All: Maximizing Digital Accessibility in Special Education Teacher Preparation Courses through Universal Design for LearningJournal of Special Education Preparation10.33043/4a6kfo46Online publication date: 18-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.33043/4a6kfo46
Inal YCagiltay N(2024)Empathy Development in Digital Accessibility through Real-Life Practices in a Programming Course: A Case StudyProceedings of the 13th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/3679318.3685482(1-7)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3679318.3685482
Coverdale ALewthwaite SHorton S(2024)Digital Accessibility Education in Context: Expert Perspectives on Building Capacity in Academia and the WorkplaceACM Transactions on Accessible Computing10.1145/364950817:2(1-21)Online publication date: 22-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649508
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Best Practices for Teaching Accessibility in University Classrooms: Cultivating Awareness, Understanding, and Appreciation for Diverse Users
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education

Recommendations

Comparison of Methods for Teaching Accessibility in University Computing Courses
ASSETS '20: Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

With an increasing demand for computing professionals with skills in accessibility, it is important for university faculty to select effective methods for educating computing students about barriers faced by users with disabilities and approaches to ...
A Systematic Analysis of Accessibility in Computing Education Research
SIGCSE '20: Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

Recent interest in accessibility emphasizes including it in computer science curriculum as key to producing effective computing professionals. Despite a general consensus that teaching accessibility in computing curriculum is good, there exist few tools ...
Teaching Accessibility: A Design Exploration of Faculty Professional Development at Scale
SIGCSE '19: Proceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

Most CS students learn little about accessibility in higher education; this is partly because most CS faculty know little about accessibility. Unfortunately, higher education CS faculty lack a model of professional development for learning to teach new ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing Volume 8, Issue 4

May 2016

80 pages

ISSN:1936-7228

EISSN:1936-7236

DOI:10.1145/2905046

Editors:
Matt Huenerfauth
Rochester Institute of Technology, USA
,
Kathleen F. McCoy
University of Delaware, USA

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2016 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 18 March 2016

Accepted: 01 January 2016

Revised: 01 December 2015

Received: 01 May 2015

Published in TACCESS Volume 8, Issue 4

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article
Research
Refereed

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

59
Total Citations
View Citations
1,470
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)222
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)17

Reflects downloads up to 03 Oct 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Kang JPatton KGardiner-Walsh S(2024)Success for All: Maximizing Digital Accessibility in Special Education Teacher Preparation Courses through Universal Design for LearningJournal of Special Education Preparation10.33043/4a6kfo46Online publication date: 18-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.33043/4a6kfo46
Inal YCagiltay N(2024)Empathy Development in Digital Accessibility through Real-Life Practices in a Programming Course: A Case StudyProceedings of the 13th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/3679318.3685482(1-7)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3679318.3685482
Coverdale ALewthwaite SHorton S(2024)Digital Accessibility Education in Context: Expert Perspectives on Building Capacity in Academia and the WorkplaceACM Transactions on Accessible Computing10.1145/364950817:2(1-21)Online publication date: 22-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649508
Kletenik DAdler RStephenson BStone JBattestilli LRebelsky SShoop L(2024)Motivated by Inclusion: Understanding Students' Empathy and Motivation to Design Accessibly Across a Spectrum of DisabilitiesProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3626252.3630894(680-686)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626252.3630894
Kletenik DMinkowitz RPeric ASahin MAdler RStephenson BStone JBattestilli LRebelsky SShoop L(2024)From Awareness to Action: Teaching Software Accessibility for Neurodiverse UsersProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3626252.3630859(687-693)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626252.3630859
Elglaly YBaker CRoss AShinohara KStephenson BStone JBattestilli LRebelsky SShoop L(2024)Beyond HCI: The Need for Accessibility Across the CS CurriculumProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3626252.3630788(324-330)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626252.3630788
Garcia RMorreale PVerdi GGarcia HNoa GMadsen SAlzugaray-Orellana MLi EBurnett M(2024)The Matchmaker Inclusive Design Curriculum: A Faculty-Enabling Curriculum to Teach Inclusive Design Throughout Undergraduate CSProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642475(1-22)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642475
Kuang EBellscheidt SPham DShinohara KBaker CElglaly Y(2024)Mapping Accessibility Assignments into Core Computer Science Topics: An Empirical Study with Interviews and Surveys of Instructors and StudentsProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642097(1-16)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642097
Silva PMotti V(2024)Evaluating a Multi-Component Classroom Intervention to Teach Accessibility in Higher Education: A Case Study With Persona CardsIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2024.336013512(20299-20312)Online publication date: 2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3360135
Korthals Altes TWillemse MGoei SEhren M(2024)Higher education teachers’ understandings of and challenges for inclusion and inclusive learning environments: A systematic literature reviewEducational Research Review10.1016/j.edurev.2024.10060543(100605)Online publication date: May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2024.100605
Show More Cited By

View Options

Get Access

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Article

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Issue’s Table of Contents