Accessibility of mathematics moocs to learners with disabilities

Abstract

Fifty-six mathematics Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for Bachelor's degree students were sampled by browsing through the course lists of five leading MOOC platforms offering learning content in Russian. Accessibility of the sampled MOOCs to persons with disabilities was evaluated by experts using 70 predetermined criteria. No accessibility issues related to hyperlink behavior, quality of sound reproduction, visualization in graphical web browsers, mobile user experience, background and text contrast, or keyboard operation were revealed during analysis. However, it transpired that none of the MOOCs allowed customizing user interface or displaying content in text-based web browsers. In addition, 98% of digital documents, 82% of mathematical notation, and 91% of tests are rendered unfaithfully by screen readers; captions are unavailable in 64%, transcripts in 66%, and lecture notes in 52% of the MOOCs; no MOOC offers sign interpretation for their video; and audio alone is not sufficient for adequate perception of the content in any MOOC. The findings reveal low accessibility of mathematics MOOCs in Russian to people with disabilities, particularly those with severe visual impairments, and illustrate the need to bring the existing MOOCs into compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1), ensure that platform administrators conform strictly to WCAG 2.1 before posting new MOOCs, teach MOOC authors and developers to create accessible course content, and involve persons with disabilities in beta testing of MOOCs.