Imagine. You’re one of 60 million Americans with a disability that just might limit your use of a computer for educational purposes1, and this question pops up while you’re taking an online quiz:
“On a scale of 1-10, where 1 equals not at all and 10 equals very, how accessible are current e-learning courses?”
If you’re physically challenged or visually impaired, you likely won’t be able to register a response, even though you know the answer cold. The mouse or the keyboard or the graphics will get in the way.
Tony McCune, however, will be glad to answer for you. “I’d rate it a two or a three,” he says. “It’s an emerging awareness.”
E-learning itself, notes the DigitalChalk (link resides outside of ibm.com) sales and marketing vice president, has sped past emerging to burgeoning. “E-learning is growing at a very rapid pace,” he says, citing projections by industry analyst IDC that the market will hit $52 billion by 2010. DigitalChalk is the first e-learning company to offer a fully integrated lesson-authoring studio that synchronizes video to slides, images and Web pages through a browser interface. In collaboration with IBM, the Asheville, N.C., company is working to ensure that its products are accessible, by automatically transcribing speech into text plus captions.
Design of the times
Why the discrepancy between an accelerating market and lagging accessibility? One of the reasons, McCune explains, is that “accessibility is generally a challenge for Web developers. They’re concerned about not compromising Web design.”
Beyond that, he suggests, not enough people are paying attention to Section 508 of the federal Rehabilitation Act. According to a research report by the eLearning Guild, that section wasn’t enacted specifically to address learning technologies, but it most certainly does apply to them. Even so, a survey by the guild showed that an eye-opening 57 percent of its corporate, government and academic members had very limited or no knowledge about Section 508 as it applies to accessible e-learning.2
When they aren’t sure what to do, says McCune, people often take the easy road. He’s hoping products like DigitalChalk will help private- and public-sector organizations map a more direct route to accessible e-learning... and give people with disabilities a greater online opportunity to show what they know.
1. U.S. Census Bureau
2. The eLearning Guild Research Report, January 2005