Automatic Adaptation of Open Educational Resources: An Approach From a Multilevel Methodology Based on Students' Preferences, Educational Special Needs, Artificial Intelligence and Accessibility Metadata

Abstract

The need for adaptive e-learning environments that respond to learning variability is now a fundamental requirement in education, as it helps to ensure that students learn and pass their courses within a set time frame. Although guidelines, techniques and methods have been established in recent years to contribute to the development of accessible and adaptable e-learning environments that promote digital inclusion, their implementation is challenging due to the lack of knowledge of an adequate way to do it and because it is considered more of a technological competence for scholars in the area. In this context, automated support for adapting material that responds to the correct use of accessibility metadata not only provides a way to improve the description of adapted educational resources, but also facilitates their search according to the needs and preferences of students, particularly those with disabilities. In this article, we carry out a multilevel methodological proposal for the automatic adaptation of open educational resources, in order to provide a tool that contributes to the accessibility and correct use of their metadata in e-learning environments. A research is conducted with students with disabilities to establish their real needs and preferences, highlighting the need to strengthen the adequate description and coherent alternative text in images, the correct subtitling in videos and the conversion of audio to text, data that are relevant to our proposal. The research conducted aims to contribute with an automated support tool in the generation of accessible educational resources that are correctly labeled for search and reuse. This research also aims to support researchers in artificial intelligence applications to address challenges and opportunities in the field of virtual education, in addition to providing an overview that could help those who generate educational resources and maintain their interest in making them accessible.