Inclusive scenarios to evaluate an open and standards-based framework that supports accessibility and personalisation at higher education

Abstract

An extensive number of students with disability who are increasingly choosing either distance or blended learning are in the need of accessible learning contents and services, as well as of psycho-educational support. To cope with their needs a general framework implemented through a standards-based open architecture focused on supporting inclusive learning at Higher Education has been developed in the EU4ALL project. The framework is implemented through an open service oriented architecture that can be integrated into current learning platforms. Services involving stakeholders (students and professionals) to attend users' needs are provided through standards-based framework components, which combine user-centred design tools with modelling techniques based on the state-of-the-art on semantic web technologies. The framework, the architecture and its components are being evaluated at large, medium and small universities to show their flexibility and appropriateness. In this paper, after introducing the framework we focus on the evaluation scenarios at one large university and their first evaluations outcomes. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.